The ship drops out of hyperspace and Zamila breathes a sigh of relief. Her copilot undoes his harness and stands.
"Okay," Rast says stretching, "I've got to lie down."
Zamila hears the buckles unfasten behind her and turns to see the red-faced human woman spring from her seat.
"Here, let me help you," Jez says before connecting a solid blow to his stomach. The man, the wind knocked from him, doubles over and Jez bends and whispers in his ear, "That's for all that 'stinky' talk."
"Fair enough," Rast manages through labored breath.
"Now," Jez continues, "Let's get you laid down."
Rast drapes an arm over the woman's shoulders and the two leave Zamila alone in the cockpit. Zamila sighs again and turns her head to see where their mystery coordinates hand landed them. Filling nearly every bit of viewable space was a massive gas giant. It was for her the most remarkable sight she'd ever laid eyes upon, light blue like the skies on Dargenas but with bands and ribbons of darker cerrulean streaking across it. They appear to be in orbit along with a mass of ice crystals which the large planet's tidal forces had denied coalescing into a solid body. They were lucky that the jump had not brought them into the debris field itself, or worse.
Zamila powers down the ion drives and leaves the cockpit. She walks out to the main living area. She'd forgotten how terrible everything smelled and decides to take one of the modest, but infinitely cleaner cabins on the engineering level.
She powers up 9-LOM and they make their introductions again. She envied the droid just a little; being able to have all those bad thoughts and memories wiped away with a few buttons pushed. But then, it all goes, the good with the bad. She would lose Andan's face when she was murdering him and the whole horrible ordeal back home, but also fishing with her father on the creek, or riding speeder bikes with her friends. She decides she wouldn't wipe her memory, even if she had the option.
Zamila assumes that whatever the droid had experienced was quite terrible for him to insist upon the wipe. A droid will develop identity and personality given enough time and experience. A full wipe is more akin to death than forgetting.
Zamila instructs 9-LOM to try to tidy up whatever he could. While not strictly within his programmed duties he was happy to be useful.
Zamila selects one of the three crew cabins. It was small, functional, and clean with little more than a bed and a closet. There was a shared refresher with a vac tube and a sonic, as fresh water would be reserved for the upper decks. This was just fine for the young twi'lek because while she'd love a real shower, what she wanted most of all was a quiet place and clean bed.
She had no idea how bad she was aching until she layed down and her body sunk into the mattress. As quickly as the reality of her physical pain set in, her emotional pain caught up with her as well. Zamila had killed a man and lost her home and father less than a day ago. She cries herself to sleep.
Zamila wakes with a start from a deep and dreamless sleep. She is disoriented and it takes her mind a moment to catch up. She wasn't entirely sure how long she'd been out but felt refreshed at least. Zamila had yet to understand this particular difficulty in regard to life on a starship. Day and night were terrestrial concepts that had no reality in the vast vacuum of space.
When she heads back up to the living area, Zamila realizes she must have been out for a very long time. All of the trash and clutter had been cleared from the table tops and they gleamed in the light. She could hear laughter near the front of the ship. When she comes across her new human acquaintances she finds them playfully sorting through a pile of clothes.
She almost doesn't recognize Jez. Her mop of dark, greasy curls had been transformed into shimmering auburn locks. With the grime washed away, her skin was fair and flecked with little dots about her shoulders, nose, and cheeks. Her dingy dress was thrown into a pile with the rest of the refuse and she wore black shimmersilk top similar to the one she left Andan rotting in but it had its sleeves torn off and it was tied up to reveal her midsection. A pair of dark-red drawstring pants had been rolled just above her knee. Zamila was not attracted to girls, but she was certain that Jez was the most beautiful one she had laid eyes upon.
The relationship between the two humans had obviously shifted in the time Zamila had been out. They hadn't noticed Zamila walking into the room so she clears her throat to make her presence known.
"Hey, Zee," Jez says smiling.
"How long was I out?"
"As long as you needed to be, Captain," Rast replies.
The title made Zamila feel strange. It made sense in a sabacc table, winner-take-all sense the ship was hers, though no court in the galaxy would see it that way.
"Me and Stinky were wondering where we're headed," Rast asks.
Jez lunges forward and playfully punches him in the arm, "Shut up!"
I really had been out. Zamila thinks. When she had last seen them 'Stinky' had been enough to compel insults and violence; now it was a pet name. Zamila felt strange. She hadn't thought much about Rast before but there was something like a possessiveness she felt toward him. She felt threatened by the beautiful woman and how connected they seemed. She didn't like the feelings, and tried not to indulge them, but there they were.
"I hadn't really thought about it," Zamila answers.
"Well," Rast speaks stepping forward and leaning in like he was going to tell a secret, "I know a place.
"It's not on any charts, so we won't have to duck the Empire. I have it from a good source that there's some excellent salvage. We can lay low, fix what needs fixing, pick up some items to sell or trade."
"Yeah," Zamila nods, "That sounds great."
"What is the ship's name by the way," Rast asks.
The words come with little thought or doubt, "Black Cat."
Zamila believed the black loth cat in her dream was trying to warn her, or possibly lead her to where she is now. Had she listened Tydesh could still be alive, and she'd still be growing jogan fruits and chando peppers on Dargenas.
"Black Cat, okay," Rast nods, "When we get back to civilization we'll need a slicer to change the transponder codes."
"I can do it," Zamila informs.
"Okay," Rast grins, "Bad girl."
Changing the transponder codes on a ship wasn't particularly difficult for a person with Zamila's technical abilities, but doing it was highly illegal and the punishment was exceedingly harsh. They'd broken so many laws already, what's another little capital offense amongst friends?
When the Black Cat drops from hyperspace the young twi'lek is shocked by the world that lay before them. She wasn't entirely sure what to expect from a place so far into uncharted space, but this certainly was not it.
It was unremarkable in every way, and in that way it was remarkable. A simple grey-beige world. There were no discernable features; no mountains, no canyons, and not a single water feature. There was no ice at the poles and no clouds in the atmosphere. This dead world was set against a backdrop of the galaxy that nearly filled the sky. They were at the edge of everything and the expansive void of deep space.
Rast lands the ship near another ship that was in the process of being completely buried in sand. I looked to be a light freighter based on the size of the mound but only a portion of the topside and a long range comms array were above the sand so it was impossible to identify.
Once the Black Cat touches down Rast unbuckles his harness and springs from the seat with great urgency. Zamila follows suit, as does Jez, and they follow after him. They find him in the main living area digging through the pile of clothes he had designated as his and began layering up.
"What's going on, Rast," Jez asks with concern.
"What," he responds with nervous chuckle, "I'm just eager to find all that salvage."
"What salvage," Zamila responds with suspicion, "All I saw was a buried freighter. And why are you layering up, it looks like a desert out there?"
"Not all deserts are hot," Rast fires back, ignoring her other concern.
Rast steps over to Jez and kisses her, confirming Zamila's suspicion that their relationship had moved on from casual acquaintances.
"I'll be back in a couple hours. This place is totally safe," Rast says again before planting another long, and lingering kiss on Jez.
The man wraps cloth around his face and opens the door. Icy wind blasts through the opening as the ramp extends to the shifting sands below. Once Rast reaches the bottom, the ramp retracts and the door closes. Scattered around the floor around the recently closed door was a layer of very fine sand, almost like silt or dust.
Without words the two women rush back over to the cockpit in time to watch the mysterious man disappear into a thick cloud of dust.
