The next few days brought a strange mixture of idleness and furious activity. Mornings were generally slow, they started late – relatively spoken - and dragged on as the Donos family enjoyed breakfast together. Then, around ten o'clock, Myn's mother assumed command and, like a royal majordomus, began to dispatch husband, son and daughter-in-law on various errands, most of which were connected to the preparations of Selan's lifeday party which was a little over two weeks away.

Lunch was usually passed over, they mostly resorted to a quick snack when and if they found the time before returning to working through the list of tasks Jaleela had assigned to them. This went on until about mid-afternoon when they returned home from their various errands and proceeded to do what Myn had ironically christened 'homework'. For him and Kirney this entailed dealing with the accumulated red tape and catching up with the necessary bookkeeping whereas his father withdrew into the small workshop he'd set up in the outbuilding to refurbish the old garden furniture. Jaleela was planning a barbecue as part of the lifeday party and said she'd need some tables, chairs and benches to arrange in the garden. Selan had sighed, he wasn't a particularly good handyman nor did he enjoy it, but his wife had ordered it.

"I may be a retired Colonel," he'd joked, "but she's an active General."

Around five o'clock in the afternoon the hectic of the day came to an end and the Donos family – including Kolot – assembled in the kitchen to prepare dinner. Once that was eaten, leisurely, they either withdrew for a quiet evening or gathered in the living room downstairs to spend time as family. This evening was such an occasion …

The blinds were closed and the only source of light was the spotlight above the table, which was covered by a velvety green tablecloth. A portable Sabacc system sat in the center and projected small interference fields in front of the five players. But at the moment only two were still in the game, piles of toy chips in front of them and in a huge heap in the middle. Of the three other players Selan had been the first to drop out of this round, Myn had been the second and his mother the last.

"Raise ten thousand," Kirney remarked casually and shoved the chips forward.

Kolot calmly tossed the necessary chips onto the pile in the middle.

The redhead glanced owlishly at her cards, put two of them into the interference field and slid one towards Selan who was doubling as dealer. "I take one," she said and lifted the corner of the card Selan dealt her.

Myn's father looked at Kolot, but the Ewok shook his head. Then he went on staring at Kirney who stared back with an expressionless mask on her face. Myn watched both closely, certain that none of them would let anything slip. It was quite a show, he had to admit.

Kolot took three stacks of chips and pushed them forward. "Raise thirty thousand."

Three sets of eyebrows ascended, then three faces turned to watch Kirney's reaction. The redhead remained stoically calm and tossed more chips onto the pile in the center. "I see your thirty and raise by twenty thousand."

Kolot was staring at her for a few seconds … and then he pushed his entire reserve of chips, a third of a million in toy credits, to the center.

Kirney hesitated and lifted the corners of her three cards, pondered her options and finally pushed the cards away. "I'm out."

"And with that," Selan announced in his function as card dealer, "the winner for tonight is Kolot. Tonin, log that."

The Ewok gave them a toothy grin and made the Victory sign with his right paw.

"Don't let it get to your head, furball," Kirney mock threatened and flexed her shoulders to ease the tension a bit. "Bet you must have had an Idiot's Array."

"Not quite." Kolot's grin turned sly and he flipped his cards. He'd held a worthless hand, the Three of Flasks, the Five of Sabers and the Four of Staves … not even close to the winning 23, positive or negative.

Kirney's jaw dropped while the others burst out laughing. "You were bluffing?"

"Yub-yub," he chuckled and gave a shrug. "Worked, didn't it?"

"And a lot better than for someone else we know," Selan quipped and elbowed his son lightly.

Myn flashed him a rude gesture. "Just because you managed to call my bluff for once …"

"Even I saw you were bluffing," Jaleela interjected with a stern glare at her son. "What happened to the cadet with the best Sabacc face of the milennium?"

"Yeah," Kirney agreed. "You're usually a lot better than tonight. Distracted?"

Myn rolled his eyes. The truth was that his mind hadn't been on the game and he also knew that he would not keep to himself what was bothering him. "A bit," he admitted aloud and frowned. "I'm worried about Jar."

"Ah." Selan arched an eyebrow. "Still the same or is there something new?"

His son took a handful of warra nuts from a bowl nearby and chewed quietly for a moment. "Something new," he finally conceded. "When I was picking up the beverages we'd ordered from Larkin's the checkout developed a glitch and a small queue formed. Just ahead of me was Vastus Moore, a starship tech foreman at Central. We started chatting about this and that while they were trying to fix the checkout and somehow we ended up talking about Jar. When I told him about the hyperdrive thing he was astonished that Jar has been able to afford it."

Jaleela shot him a curious look while reaching for the warra nut bowl herself. "How so?"

"Well, according to Moore our friend hasn't just had 'an incredible stretch of bad luck' … It's looking as if Jar has been skirting the edge of bancruptcy for months now."

Kirney's eyes widened. "Is he sure?"

Myn nodded gravely. "Spaceport Maintenance has received specific instructions not to accept any cheques or allow pay on account from Jar. Any work carried out on his ship has to be paid in cash." He paused. "In advance."

That elicited a low whistle from his mother. "That sounds really serious."

"Believe me, it is. But the best is yet to come." Myn shook his head. "Moore's sister-in-law is working for a bank in downtown Coronet City. According to her Jar is one big red financial warning light for all the banks on Corellia. He couldn't take out another loan as none of the banks would give him as much as a decicred."

Selan's brow creased in confusion. "So how did he pay for that hyperdrive?"

"That's the trillion credit question. I've been racking my brain ever since that conversation, but I can't fathom where Jar could have gotten the money from." Myn buried his face in his hands and groaned. "I've got the terrible feeling that Jar has done something really, really stupid."

"Like what?" Jaleela asked with a skeptical expression on her face. "I mean it's worrying that your friend has financial troubles but why are you so concerned that he's done something stupid?"

"Two reasons," her daughter-in-law responded with a touch of resignation in her voice. "For starters Jarrath has the unfortunate habit of listening too much to that damned ego of his and not enough to his common sense. He's a proud, obstinate and never-say-die type of Corellian who thinks he has to do things his way or not at all. That has gotten him into a number of scuffles over the years but he just won't learn from that."

"And reason number two," Myn interjected, "is that he takes the old-fashioned values his parents drummed into him a bit too serious."

Selan raised a dubious eyebrow. "In which regard?"

"He just won't ask for or accept help when in trouble." Myn shook his head. "His parents taught him all those ultra-conservative values that go back to the first settlers. You know ... self-sufficiency, self-reliance, hanging on when times are getting tough ... Nothing wrong with that, but Jar took all of it too serious and turned it into a straightjacket that both locks him in a viscious circle and yet drives him forward."

"Now doesn't that sound familiar?" Selan drawled sarcastically which earned him a slap against the back of his head from his wife and a dirty look from his son.

"Yes, well ..." Myn gave his father another pointed look. "I know that sounds a lot like my problems back then. The difference is that Jar is the civilian version of it and that's worse."

Kirney's puzzlement was evident as she frowned at him. "What's the difference and why is it worse?"

Myn sank back and closed his eyes for a moment. "Because I had military discipline, military decorum and a chain of command that kept me from running away when it mattered." He rubbed his face wearily and gave another sigh. "When I landed on Mon Remonda after I'd shot at Kirney here Wedge used that decorum and his command authority to hold the mirror for me and then the ingrained military discipline to make me look into it. Jar has none of that ... and nobody whom he'd grant the authority to talk this frankly."

"What about his father?" Jaleela asked, but her daughter-in-law shook her head.

"Their relationship is rather distant. They didn't see eye to eye about Jarrath's choice of career."

"So there is really nobody Jarrath accepts as authority?"

"Give Kolot a blaster and Jarrath will listen," the Ewok, who had been silent so far, threw in with a patently false expression of diabolicalness. That drew chuckles.

"As long as you remember that he may want to have children some day," Kirney shot back and grinned.

That sent Selan into a fit of hysteric laughter, of course they knew that story, but the hilarity was cut short by the chime of the door annunciator. After a moment of surprise they moved to the front door to see who was ringing this late in the evening.

As Myn opened the door they were greeted by the sight of a young blond woman in a light blue dress. Her beauty, however, was ruined by the streaks of eyeliner mixed with tears running down her cheeks, a split lip, a developing black eye and bruises all over her arms and on her right cheek.

Kirney gasped. "Oh Sith, Denna! What happened?"

"I need your help," Denna sobbed. "It's Jar ..."