(EDIT: There's continuity confusion here. Because I'm not in the mood to re-write the whole thing, here's what happened: BH gets the Blacklist and continues those missions per Canon, takes a side-trip to Quesh, gets framed by Supreme Chancellor then, is contacted by Darth Tormen, but continues the Blacklist up until the party on Nar Shaddaa, whereupon BH is presumably pissed off enough to go along with Tormen's plan. Hence why Vause is only just now being dealt with despite everything. If it doesn't make sense, I don't really care.)

"In the arena of logic, I fight unarmed." -RM, 8-Bit Theater, Episode 836

BH: Color

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LOG ENTRY 139.1:

Quesh was a bust. It's all my fault. Crazy Pubs tried to nick Leigh and Tor while they were signing up for that phony ad deal! I should've listened to the Mando'a in the first place – that kind of stuff is beneath us. I just thought, you know, easy creds, right? Well I won't be thinking that again.

No harm, no foul, Leigh says. 'We got 'em, Mako! Don't be so hard on yourself. We're five-by-five.' I don't even know what that means, except she says it all the time. Maybe it's a Zeltron thing? I don't know a lot about Zeltrons. Had to do a lot of research when Braeden first told us about her. All I can say is thank the stars for my implant, right? Information's never been so easy to nab when your brain's hardwired into the HoloNet.

I don't know . . . [static]

LOG ENTRY 139.3:

. . . Occurred to me that it's not just Zeltros I don't know a lot about, but Leigh in general. Nowadays we've made such a name for ourselves that dropping the name "Cress" is enough to make idiots keel over in fear. You'd think she was a Sith with the way the Imps have been bowing and scraping lately. Well, not all of them do, at any rate. Not since Quesh with that whole mess where the – and this is no joke, this happened – the Supreme Chancellor himself – put a bounty on her head. Yeah.

For ten MILLION credits.

We're the most wanted criminal scum in the galaxy because of a laundry list of things we didn't even do. I got a lot of buzz on the HoloNet about it not five seconds after it happened – apparently we're being blamed for the bombing of Maklu VII, the failing of Telos' ec—[static]

And the list goes on. We're still getting pinned for stuff. All because of one Jedi? Because of one bounty? I don't know what we're going to do. Leigh says she's got a plan, but she always says that. And those plans never work. I'm not insulting her by saying this, this is just a fact: every time we get out of a jam, it's because of pure dumb luck. Creepy Sith Guy claims that the Force is fond of her, whatever that means. Maybe the Force is with us. Sure would explain why all these Jedi suddenly hate us for no reason.

Oh, I forgot to mention Creepy Sith Guy. Big guy on the Dark Council name of Darth Tormen contacted us, claiming he had a job. Leigh won't spill the beans but I think I know what the job is about. She said that he could help our names get cleared, get the 10 mil cred bounty dropped. I don't know about the others, but I'm sure not going to miss getting shot at in every port we stop in—[static]

LOG ENTRY 152.2:

How well do you know a person? I'm used to people not knowing who I am. I'm little Mako, the girl with the tech, the pilot. Leigh called me her partner once, and I kind of took it for granted.

I'm not trying to be maudlin here, but honestly, how is it that one second you think you know a person so well, and the next you don't? You live with them for months, even years, and then one little thing gets out and suddenly it's like you've never even seen them before. There's just this person there with the same familiar face that you knew a few minutes ago, but the person behind it is totally new. They're a stranger.

Leigh Cress. Lisa Nowell. Alix Trexler. Lana Chross. The Miraculous Idina. The list goes on, and it just gets weirder and weirder. I overheard her tell Gault once that she had a 'colorful past.' I thought she was making a crack about her and Gault having colorful skin, but this is kinda . . . whoa. I admit I did a bit of digging behind her back. There are a lot of aliases in there. It's getting hard to find a name she hasn't gone by!

I asked her about it earlier – I mean, I thought about keeping this to myself, but that'd just be one more lie I didn't want to deal with. And I'm a bad liar anyway. I tried to apologize to her for going behind her back but I wanted to know . . . I don't know what I wanted to know. Maybe I just wanted some assurance that everything we were doing, all the jobs, all the adventure – everything that's led up to this wasn't just another identity in the book. Wasn't just a cover for another alias.

Leigh grinned and laughed it off. She does that a lot. She told me that it was okay, that I'd gone behind her back, but she wished that I'd just asked her. I was worried that if I asked her, she'd just redirect the conversation and we'd somehow end up talking about guys or laser scopes and flamethrowers. She has just this way of . . . flashing a smile and getting what she wants and it works. I don't blame her for it, it's a Zeltron thing; the manipulation of pheromone levels in their body to control emotional environments is an unconscious reflex in her species. That's why they say that you always get along with a Zeltron. It's physically difficult not to.

Anyway. I'm not really sure what to think about it. She's still my friend, at least, I hope she is. I wouldn't want to be my friend after going behind someone's back like that. Still can't believe I did that. I feel terrible. It's just hard to come to terms with the fact that there's an entire person in there, with a past and a life that I've never even heard of. She knows everything there is to know about me – which I admit isn't a lot, since I don't know everything there is to know about me. But she's helped me a lot in finding out more about my past and myself . . . and yet Leigh's lived entire lives outside of bounty hunting. She's been so many different people and done so many different things.

Me, this gig is my life. But I don't know for sure what it is for her. From the files of data I have on her old identities, it sounds more like she just became a bounty hunter to escape.

Man this entry is long. Ah, crap, I forgot we're coming out of hy—

LOG ENTRY 165.3:

Sooooo, I had some more free time while Leigh and Torian went and did their thing on Hoth. We've been hunting down some strange folks lately – this one's a Trandoshan name of Renegat Vause who, ah, I guess it doesn't matter. He's probably frozen in Carbonite by now.

Anyway! So I had a free moment and I thought I'd do some more digging about those aliases. I asked Leigh after I confronted her about it, if she'd hate me if I looked into it, and she just shrugged. I'm not sure she was paying attention when I asked but I took that as an okay.

Leigh could write an autobiography and it'd sell millions. Did you know she used to be a smuggler? No, of course you didn't, you're an audio log, and you wouldn't know anything unless I told you. But get this, that's not the best part – she was a smuggler in the employ of the Republic! Yeah! She was one of those contracted smugglers during some of the skirmishes on the Outer Rim. She actually fought against the Empire! The gal with the shock of white hair and magenta skin, "Lisa Nowell," was some crack pilot who'd swoop in with medical supplies, rations, and artillery out from under the enemy's nose.

The last record of Lisa Nowell shows her stopping off on Coruscant after a job on Ord Mantell, meeting up a gambler, and then getting accused of murder. Yeah, the details are a little sketchy. She was never convicted, but all records of her disappear after that. Not a single trace. She was declared dead a year ago, but by that point, Leigh Cress had dropped off on Nar Shaddaa and met Braeden, and the rest is history.

I guess this explains why she always refuses to pilot the ship. If everyone knew she was a crack shot pilot, they would start to draw conclusions.

Ooh, and not only that, but guess what? Okay, so back on Balmorra when we were still on the Great Hunt, Leigh ended up getting buddy-buddy with this Sith. (Don't ask, it was really weird.) We, with this Sith apprentice guy, were hired by Darth Lachris – yeah, the former governor of Balmorra? She was offed by a Jedi strike team a few months ago – to undermine the Balmorran Resistance. Anyway, somewhere along the way I remember Leigh making a kind of off-hand comment to Mezeth about being a sex worker back on Nar Shaddaa . . . I thought it was another one of her tactless jokes. Well guess what! Alix Tr—

The squeal that came out of Leigh's mouth was probably the most outrageous thing Torian had ever heard. It wasn't right, coming from the beroya he'd gotten to know over the last few months. It just wasn't right.

Given that she was probably the oddest person he'd ever met. Leigh Cress was one contradiction after the other; one second it seemed like her mirshe was screwed loose, and the next she was an indomitable naast. He'd seen her fall for the simplest of pranks, laugh uproariously at di'kutla jokes, and yet could still manage to disseminate a rifle in less than thirty seconds and somehow look beautiful while doing it.

But that kind of squeal did not belong on anyone, not a human, a Mando'ade, a Zeltron, or even a Jawa. Not anyone.

And speaking of Jawas, the poor little guy in the cage looked frightened and let out a few apologetic squeaks, handing the pistol back through the cage. Her squeal eventually tapered off, and that was when Torian realized it wasn't a screech of fear like the one she'd had when facing down the spider in the cargo bay (that had been a difficult image to wash from his mind), but a squeal of delight. An expression of the strangest, most profound joy he'd seen yet crossed Leigh's pink face as she knelt down to the little jawa's level and re-holstered her favorite pistol.

"You are the cutest effin' thing I've ever seen!" She gushed. She grabbed the bars of the Jawa's cage and leaned forward, causing the little guy to take a step backwards when her big blue eyes were suddenly inches away from his face. "What's your name, buddy?"

The Jawa looked around shiftily. "Is big pink lady here to help Blizz?"

Leigh looked genuinely confused. "I dunno, is your name Blizz?" Torian had to repress the urge to sigh.

"Yes," the Jawa nodded a few too many times, "Blizz get his name from Old Boss. Then big blue people take him when Old Boss leave Blizz behind. He gave Blizz his name! You here for Old Boss, yes? Blizz can help! Blizz like to help."

"Oh!" Leigh visibly brightened and stood back up, placing her hands on her hips and standing in a pose that she thought looked professional. He assumed that no one had the heart to tell her otherwise, either because it made her happy or because she had very good aim with those blasters of hers. "Well, then, Blizz, yes! Big pink lady is here to help you. My name's Leigh Cress, and this right here is Torian Cadera, and we're looking for a big ugly guy name of Vause – these Chiss tell me that he hired you and some other Jawa for scavenging through the White Maw pirates?"

"Yup!" The Jawa chirped. Torian couldn't tell from underneath that dark hood, but he thought the guy looked pleased. "Blizz good with technology, worked for Old Boss, promised to take Blizz away from sand-home. Blizz miss his sand-home sometimes, but not too much. White sand is very cold though."

"It is, isn't it?" Leigh frowned. "I don't know people live here on Hoth when it's cold and full of ice monsters. Seems kinda silly to me."

"Blizz think it silly too," the Jawa went on, Leigh hanging on the little guy's every word, "but not mind too much. He see lots of new things, have lots of adventures. Blizz glad to be on Snow-home, but he not like being in cage. Already escape three times. Big blue people getting harder to trick!"

"Those Chiss are pretty clever," Leigh agreed easily. "And pretty, too. Not as pretty as me, though," she added hastily, absently running her fingers through her white-blonde hair. After a second she knelt back down to the Blizz' level, and Torian could only watch, stunned, as she reached through the bars and gave the little guy the hug of his life. The Jawa looked pretty shocked too; Leigh just gave a manic grin, giggled, and let him go.

"Oh, this is gonna be the best adventure ever!" Leigh gushed, and then said quite seriously, "we. Are gonna be. Best. Friends."

The poor Jawa looked so confused, Torian almost felt bad for him. Almost. "Is big pink boss lady happy? Then Blizz happy too!"

Torian had heard somewhere that it was the infamous Darth Nox who wrote the book on insanity. Now that he knew better, he only wished he didn't. He wasn't sure of he was supposed to kick back and laugh or run away screaming; with someone like Leigh in charge (Leigh, who was as likely to hug a Jawa as she was to set it on fire for insulting her hair), both would be considered perfectly reasonable reactions.

Yet . . . being on her crew, watching her six, picking up after her messes; he wouldn't trade it for the world. Aliit ori'shya taldin – she'd proven to him the truth of that in the short time he'd gotten to know her. That was enough for him. This was his clan now, and she was the most important part of it – her questionable mental state was just came with the package.

As he watched the bounty hunter chat animatedly with her newest and greatest fixation yet, a smile on her face brighter than a blue sun, he could do nothing more than helplessly shrug. He'd put up with her neurotic fear of insects, her borderline obsessive personality, her gambling problem, her fathomless gullibility, her love of flamethrowers, and that weird thing with that one Sith and the balloon if it meant she would smile like that all the time. He'd accidentally eavesdropped the other day back on the Mantis while she was discussing her 'colorful' past with Mako, but honestly, he didn't care. He knew the meaning of loyalty. Aliit ori-shya taldin. Family is much, much more than mere blood.

Besides, it's not as if Torian trusted anyone else to watch her saviin shebs.