It was just before sunrise local time when Free Agent returned to the camp on Concord Dawn. The ship was a great black silhouette against an eastern sky burning red and gold, and as soon as it was on the ground some of Marin's people started drawing a broad camouflage net over its hull. The same netting was stretched over the other ships at the encampment, including Marin's own Starlight Champion, ensuring that satellites and ships that flew over their location would see only an unremarkable farm.
Ania was the first one down its ramp followed by her Mon Cal companion and her towering, disturbing polite assassin droid. When she saw her mother standing at the entrance to the settlement's central building, she trotted ahead.
"Up early?" Ania asked, "Or out late?"
"Early," Marin said. "Have you gotten anything new from Volgma?"
"Nothing since we left Denon." Ania stuffed hands in her jacket pockets. Her posture and the way she couldn't quite meet her mother's eye reminded Marin of an awkward teenager, and she felt a pang of hurt for having missed that part of her daughter's life.
"Well, that's good," Marin said. "He'll contact you whenever he gets a response from Vedo?"
"Right." Ania glanced over her shoulder. Sauk and AG-37 remained five meters back, apparently uncertain what to do.
Marin stepped aside and called, "You probably want a fresh-cooked meal. Go on ahead."
Sauk nodded and headed inside. AG-37 said, "No such meal is necessary, but I appreciate the hospitality all the same."
The assassin droid had to stoop to fit his conical head through the doorframe. Ania had described the how and why she'd come to have a three-meter-tall metal protector following her around. It was an incredible story, but if he was the only legacy Ania had inherited from her family, Marin envied her for it.
Ania didn't follow the others. Standing outside in the pre-dawn light, hands still stuffed into jacket pockets, she asked, "So why are you up early?"
"I'm preparing for a trip, actually." Marin nodded to the ship berthed next to Free Agent. Her own Starlight Champion, inherited from her father, currently sat with the camo net draped over its wide wings, but the loading ramp slanting sideways out from under the angular cockpit was extended.
"A trip," Ania repeated. Her tone combined disappointment and acceptance. "Where to?"
"Breshig," Marin said. "Not far from here. There's an old associate of Auchs' I need to pay a visit to."
"Are you sure it's safe?"
"Your cousin Liem's coming with me. He's running a few checks on Champion right now."
"Okay." Ania looked at the ship, as though expecting the young Mando to drop into view. "Just the two of you?"
"I was going to take Yangar too," she said, naming another Skirata.
"Are you on a tight schedule?"
"Not exactly," Marin admitted. "Our guest doesn't know we're coming. We were hoping to surprise him by popping in at dawn local time. We still have an hour or two before we go."
"Ah." Ania glanced at the sunrise. "You know, that ship's pretty recognizable."
"It's an inheritance from your grandfather."
"I know. I'm not saying anything bad about Champion. It's just, you know, you take it most places. You're trying to keep off Auchs' radar but you're actually making yourself more visible."
Marin spotted Liem disembark Champion and slowly approach. "Breshig's like Concord Dawn. No orbital platforms, no flight control. We'll be in and out before anyone notices."
"Sure." Ania said. "I was just thinking you should switch things up now and then."
Marin understood where this was going. "Are you offering me a ride on Free Agent?"
"Well, why not?" Ania shrugged. "We can turn it around in a couple hours. And we don't have anything better to do or anyplace else to be. Or do we?"
She finally met her mother's eyes. They both knew Marin had been sending her on milk runs for the past months, keeping Ania at arms' length from her operations while still participating in them. At first Marin had told herself she was doing it for Ania's benefit, in case her daughter decided she wasn't up to helping a Mando insurgency and wanted to cut and run. After all this time Ania was still here and Marin couldn't deny her real motivation anymore.
As much as she was overjoyed to find her daughter alive after all these years, she was terrified of getting close to her. By involving her husband and daughter with her business at Kashyyyk she'd gotten Bennet killed and changed Ania's life forever. She didn't want to risk doing that again. Sometimes she regretted even reuniting with Ania in the first place; it might have been easier on them both to let her keep blissfully assuming her mother was dead.
As Marin struggled for something to say, Liem stepped up and slapped Ania on the shoulder. The young woman jumped, but looked slightly assuaged by her cousin's smile, bright and winning beneath his trimmed auburn beard. Some of Marin's people still treated Ania with wary skepticism, but Liem had been friendly with his long-lost cousin from the start.
"Welcome back, ner vod," he said. "How was Denon?"
"Too many people," said Ania. "But we did what we went there to do."
"Excellent. Me and your buir were about to take a ride to Breshig. Should be back within a Concord day or so."
"I know." Ania folded arms over her chest. "Actually, I was volunteering to take her myself. I figure it's good to change up ships now and then, since Champ's so recognizable."
"Are you now?" Liem turned his smile on Marin, and it seemed less friendly. "She may have a point, ba'vodu. You've mostly been sending Free Agent on trips outside the Mando sector. Nobody's gonna recognize it."
Liem knew what she'd been doing and he knew why. And, with the impudence of youth, he was trying to push her into a hitching a ride on her daughter's ship for the purpose of family bonding.
"You've already loaded things onto Champ," she reminded.
"Not much to load. We're travelling light." He glanced at Ania. "I can move our load over to your ship, can't I?"
"Sure. I can show you exactly where to put it. Let's go get that cargo."
She patted Liem on the back and nudged him toward the ships. The young man broke into an eager trot. Before following Ania gave her mother and over-the-shoulder glance, then a smile. Then she followed Liem.
Marin exhaled into the cool dawn air. She disliked losing arguments, but there were worse fights to lose. A day or so with Ania wouldn't kill her. It might even be the start of something new.
-{}-
Ania didn't know what she'd expected when she'd invited her mother onto Free Agent. She didn't even know what Marin planned to do on Breshig; the woman was being conspicuously evasive and was hard to pin down even in Free Agent's cramped space. Once AG-37 piloted them off Concord Dawn and into hyperspace, Ania gave her mother and a quick tour of the ship's insides while Liem stayed in the cockpit and quizzed Sauk and AG-37 on its specs.
Free Agent wasn't a big ship and there wasn't much to see. The cargo they'd transferred from Starlight Champion consisted of a single meter-square crate, heavy for its size. Ania wanted to break some ice before asking what was inside but struggled to find a starting place.
As she concluded the tour Marin remarked, "This is a good ship. I imagine A-gee is very… efficient when it comes to improvements."
"Sauk is the real mechanic on here. He could have hired himself out to better ships than this one, but he stayed here. Of course, given that heist we pulled on Socorro, he'd got plenty of credits now, so it all worked out."
"It's more than that. Your crew trusts you."
"It's not my crew. It's A-gee's ship."
Marin shook her head. "If it weren't for you, they'd be far away now."
And if it weren't for you, thought Ania, I'd be far away now. But she said, "Yeah. I know."
"What about your friends Jao and Kyra? Have you heard from them?"
"Nothing in weeks. That's not unusual. I don't have much to tell them and I don't think they've got much to tell me."
"So they haven't made progress finding Khat Lah?"
"Nothing that I've heard." They stood facing eachother in the ship's long central hall. Ania crossed arms over her chest and asked, "Is that important to you, seeing the Force come back?"
"For me it never left, except when I pushed it away."
"You know, I've never seen you use the Force except for that one time," she said, recalling a brief demonstration after they'd first reunited.
"I don't call on it often." Marin said slowly, choosing her words. "Most of the people who work with me don't know I still have it, or ever did. Hondo and the Vevecs don't. Most of the other Skiratas do, because they understand where I got it. But in general Mandalorians don't look favorably on Force-users."
"But that's not the real reason, is it?" Ania didn't need magic powers to sense her evasion.
Marin shrugged. "I gave up the Force for many years. It's a tool that I use when I need it, nothing more."
That sounded very different from the Force that Jao embraced. To him it was a spiritual thing that not only gave him power but guided his decisions and desires. Kyra, in her fumbling way, had described it as touching the whole of the universe. That kind of mysticism never made much sense to Ania, who'd been focused on the practical since being orphaned at twelve years old.
"Frankly," Marin said, not quite looking at her, "I wonder if the galaxy might be a better place without the Force. No more Sith emperors taking over the galaxy."
"No more Jedi and Imperial Knights solving problems either," Ania said.
"Most problems solve themselves if given the chance. But whatever happens there is beyond me. I know what my concerns are. I know what I have to accomplish. The rest of the galaxy can take care of itself."
Before Ania could find a response to that, Liem's voice sounded from the far end of the hall. "Oya, looks like we've got a hail! A-gee says it's from Denon!"
"Volgma," Ania said. Marin was already striding toward the cockpit.
The two women entered to see AG-37 and Liem in the forward seats, a holo-image lit between them. Ania and Marin crowded close to see Volgma's broad face lit up in flicking blues.
"Greetings," the Hutt rumbled. "It is good to see you again, Ania Solo. And you, Marin Skirata. I have not seen you in some time. You appear to have aged well, for a human."
"Thanks for getting back to us, Volgma." Marin half-hung on the back of Liem's seat. "Did you pass our request on to Vedo?"
"Yes, as well as funds withdrawn prudently from your accounts." Volgma's fat tongue swiped one side of his mouth. "Vedo Anjiliac does not work cheaply, and my blood relation only does so much."
"We understand," Ania said. "What did he say?"
Volgma gave a thunderous sigh. "It appears that the Anjiliac already had a loyal servant situated inside First Demilla Bank. This made things much easier."
It also explained the quick turn-around. Ania asked, "What did Vedo's, um, employee find?"
"Accounts registered at First Demilla are attached to no name. None. Thus their reputation for confidentiality. However, Vedo's employee located one account that received large deposits on the dates you specified."
"How large?" asked Marin.
"Excess of five million credits per installment. The one last year was considerably more. Many of those funds were subsequently transferred to accounts at other banks."
"Probably spreading payment to Rhal and his other lieutenants," Marin said. "Were you able to trace where the money came from?"
"The payments were from different banks, most situated on Muunilinst. And alas, Vedo does not have any agents employed there, though for an extra fee, is he offering to look into those as well."
Ania had a feeling Vedo's fees would get exponentially exorbitant. Neither she nor her mother had infinite funds, and she glanced at Marin. The older woman said, "Stand by on that for now. Did Vedo give you the data his agent pulled from First Demilla?"
"Indeed. It is quite illegal and I am glad to be rid of it. I will pass it along with this data-stream."
"Good. Thank you for all this, Volgma."
"You are welcome. I have deducted a modest service fee from your account. If you need my help again, please contact me on this line, or visit on Denon."
Marin leaned close to the console to check if the attachment had been received. "We've got it. We'll let you know where we stand going forward."
The Hutt bobbed his chins in an attempted nod, then killed the transmission.
Liem leaned back in the co-pilot's chair. "Muun banks, eh? Those barves are good with confidentiality, too."
"They're also legacy Imperial institutions," Marin added. "They've resisted a lot of oversight from Coruscant, even after the Federation got formed. It's as good a place as any for the Sith to hide their assets."
"Do you really think you can follow the money trail all the way back to them?" asked Ania. "The account at First Demilla doesn't even say who the owner is. How will this prove your case against Auchs?"
"It's a start," Marin said defensively.
Liem tapped the comm console and brought up the attachment from Volgma. "Looks like Vedo's agent got us a good data-dump. His guy must be high up the organizational chain."
"What did he find?" Marin leaned over his shoulder.
"Full list of transactions from Auchs' account, including bank registry numbers from all the deposits and withdraws."
"Useful if you've got people inside every bank in the galaxy," Ania muttered. As it was, the information seemed terminally incomplete, unless her mother's visit to Breshig would fill the gaps in some way.
She was about to venture the question when Liem sat up straight, alarmed. Marin asked, "What is it?"
"This data goes all the way up to two days ago. Last thing on the transaction list is a big, big payment from a Muun bank."
"From two days ago?"
"That's right." Liem looked between the two women. "I thought the Sith were down and out."
"Sith don't die easily." Marin's face went hard.
"But… what does this mean?" asked Ania. "What are they up to?"
She looked straight at her mother, hoping for some answer. This time Marin had none to give, even if she wanted to. The older woman simply scowled and shook her head. Cold weight settled in Ania's stomach. It seemed what whenever the Sith and Auchs were planning, they would have to find out with the rest of the galaxy.