"The Crew" part of the challenge continues! Our next crew member is Risha, my favourite spacer queen. I just don't get the Risha hate that lurks around some parts of fandom. She's lovely and sassy and obviously really smart. And her companion story is a belter, be sure to play it all through!

Warm fuzzies to all of you who have liked this story, commented, added it to your alerts, thought idly about it, told someone else to read it, or otherwise gave it a thumbs up - you have all made my day! xo

Risha

Trin's pretty sure that the usual thing to do, when you find some stranger on your ship, is to push them out the nearest airlock. Especially when you've recently recovered that ship from the barve who stole it. Except, well, they're already in space now, and there's nothing this Risha has done so far except to calmly explain herself, make her admittedly attractive offer, give Skavak a spectacular brush-off, and finally sit politely in the cargo bay — none of which really ought to be grounds for blowing someone out into the void.

Doesn't mean Trin's going to accept anything crazy in her cargo, no matter how good the rest of it seems. Risha told her that she'd be keeping a few of the details around these jobs to herself, which Trin figures is fair enough, but you don't stay in the business for long if you aren't prepared to get familiar with everything in your hold. She's got a dusty old hand scanner that she keeps around to discreetly check up on some of her shadier clients' cargo. Pushing contraband's fine as long as everyone knows where the goodies are.

"You know I've got to do this, right?" she asks Risha, brandishing the scanner.

"Of course." She's well-spoken, this one. Steady gaze, not a hair out of place. Kinda... chilly.

"And if there's anything, anything I don't like and you can't or don't want to explain it, the deal is off. And then I'm dropping you and your stuff off at the nearest spaceport. Nothing personal, it's just… you know."

She raises one perfectly kept eyebrow. "Got it."

Trin starts with the animal in the cage — a shanjaru, Risha called it, a word Trin's never heard of. It's asleep now, and no less hideous for the fact. The fins on its back still glow even while it's asleep, the kind of hubris you can only pull off if you're a creature at the very top of your planet's food chain. Trin moves the scanner around, over the cage, stopping when the device pings above a slightly thicker bar. She pulls it back down and peers at the screen. "Says here you got a droid stashed away up there?"

"Sanitation droid. In space you don't have too many opportunities to take your pets outside." Risha leans forward and taps the bar, and a spindly, shiny droid emerges from inside it, dropping to the floor and swiveling about like it's looking for something. "The droid cleans up automatically as soon as the cage sensors indicate something hitting the floor. You'll barely notice it."

"That's… actually really clever."

"Thanks, I built it."

She built it. Interesting.

Trin pushes the sensor towards the animal itself — nothing odd about it. You hear some stories about live animals and how they're used to transport… other things. "That critter's had its shots, right?

"Of course."

"What does it eat?"

Risha points out an impressive collection of crates nearby. "Proteins, supplements, mostly. That there's about a two month supply."

"Water?"

"I've been using ship's supplies, but there's also this tank-"

"Try and use the tank."

She blinks. "Got it."

"Good." Trin moves on to the next item, which is perfectly recognisable as a head. Maybe human. An actual severed head, in a jar, resting atop a tall case that seems to double as some kind of display plinth. She can't quite suppress an expression of disgust as she approaches it.

"Whose head did you say this was?"

"I didn't. Do you want to hear the story?"

"Can you do it in ten words or less?"

"A Sith Lord from a few hundred years ago."

Trin turns around and folds her arms. "You have got to be kidding yourself if you think I'll swallow that."

Risha shrugs. "I knew you wouldn't. I don't even know if it's true myself. But my buyer certainly seems to think it's of value, and my supplier was… very convincing." She leans forward to open a small compartment under the head—some documents, printed in some unusual script on real paper, pop out. "I can't read a word of whatever this is, but from checking out the trace materials in this paper I can tell you it's the right age. But I don't think I'm going to rush to Imperial space to get it authenticated for myself."

"Can't argue with that logic." Trin turns back to the head. The scanner, at least, can confirm that there are some electronics inside the case, but nothing that triggers the sensor's alerts. Probably some sort of tamper prevention system - oh, and the lights. Whoever mounted it obviously thought that the best way to show off their new prize was to light the entire container from the bottom with a sickly yellow glow, and it seems as though there's no control for turning the thing off. The whole thing is disgusting. And valuable, apparently.

Third, a clattering old power droid, occasionally shifting its considerable weight from side to side. It looks old, and doesn't even include a head on its shoulders, instead using a single large photoreceptor unit where its right shoulder would be.

"Droid?" Trin says, and it emits a small, sad series of buzzes in response. "Hel-lo?" she adds.

"I'm pretty sure that it isn't designed for speech."

"I don't recognise those tones it's making."

"Me either, and neither does C4," Risha says. "It doesn't seem to know anything else. And my buyer left specific instructions not to meddle with it."

Trin tries to imagine what kind of buyer would be so interested in such a junk pile. The scanner turns up about a dozen different warnings about the droid, probably because it's so old, or so unusual, that it falls well outside the scanner's database of "normal" droids. About the only thing that seems weird is that it's got a sizable power reserve, maybe more than you'd normally want to stuff into a droid of this size. It seems harmless enough, but at this age, who knows what garbled, error-ridden subroutine might suddenly come to life and cause the droid to start smashing its way through her ship? "Well, there's got to be something special about this droid."

Risha looks at her, a ghost of concern passing across her face. "Look, I'm not just saying this to keep a secret. I can honestly tell you I don't know what it's supposed to do. My buyer just… needs it back."

"Can we turn it off?"

"Nope."

"You okay with a restraining bolt?"

"If it makes you feel better, Captain."

"You bet. I'll be back for you," she tells the droid, and it hums and blinks its photoreceptor a couple of times. If it understood her, she thinks, it obviously doesn't care about the bolt.

And finally, most strange of all, is the carbonite-frozen man in a slab, propped up against the wall beside the cargo hold's console. The scan turns up absolutely nothing out of the ordinary — just regular old carbonite, all the power supplies and other things that keep the thing properly secured, and a repulsorlift sled in case you want to take him out someplace for a stroll. Oh yeah, and faint human life signs. All completely normal, when being frozen in carbonite is your kind of normal.

"You gonna tell me who your friend is?"

"Not right now."

"Is he in trouble?"

Risha furrows her brow, and somehow she still manages to look perfect even when she's doing that with her face. "What do you mean by trouble?"

"Trouble, as in I don't want to get chased across the galaxy by some Hutt's enforcer for carrying this guy around."

"Oh. Well, I doubt anyone knows he's aboard. But I'd appreciate it if you could keep it that way."

"Fine with me." Trin takes a close look at his face, for whatever it's worth. The truth is she's never been this close to anyone in carbonite before. There's an actual being in there and to be honest, it kind of gives her the creeps.

But if there's nothing weird with it… well, the payout sounds good, she hasn't got a creeper vibe from the young human, and who is Trin to turn down good paying work? She's hauled worse crap and known less about it.

Risha stands back, arms folded. "So. Do we have a deal?"

"Alright, you're staying."

Risha breaks out into a big, genuine grin. It's like it transforms her, a bit of her hardened spacer's facade giving way.

"But before we go anywhere," Trin adds, "you're gonna grab a mop and help me get every last trace of that schutta off my ship."

"I thought you'd never ask," Risha laughs.