Chapter 3—Trading Places
Mizobon Spaceport, Coruscant-
Once inside the cavernous terminal, Jacen ducked into the nearest 'fresher to make one final check on his appearance. Stopping in front of one of the mirrors, he took a critical look at the face staring back at him. It was a pleasant face, one that was neither rakishly handsome nor frighteningly homely. An honest, good-looking, slightly above average face. Giving a satisfied nod with his new look, Jason Naberre, a businessman from Commenor, straightened his necktie and exited.
Stepping up to the check-in counter, Jacen smirked at the absurdity of the moment. He had been from one end of the galaxy to the other, had been to more planets than he could count; and not once had he flown commercially. After standing in line for the last ten minutes, he started to understand why so many people complained about flying this way-it was tedious. Shaking his head, Jacen gave the man behind the counter a small smile as he handed the agent his travel documents.
The young man behind the counter returned the smile and gave Jacen's identification a cursory glance, "Good afternoon Mr. Naberre. I see that we have you in a private berth." Jacen nodded. "Would you prefer an interior berth, or one with a window?"
Jacen shrugged fractionally, "Actually…" Jacen turned his head to casually glance once again at a woman in her mid-twenties standing in the 'Coach' line, "…is it possible to swap berths with someone?"
The younger man looked up quizzically, "Why would you want to do that?"
Nodding in the direction of the woman, "Do you see the brunette woman in the 'Coach' line; the one in the Hapan Navy uniform?"
The agent smiled knowingly as he caught on to Jacen's plan. It was, after all, a two-day flight to their destination. "Ah. Perhaps she'll offer her appreciation?"
Jacen rolled his eyes at the insinuation, "No-o-o." He noticed that the other man look unconvinced. Explaining further, "Our military personnel give up a lot, the least I can do is pay for her to have a decent berth."
The agent looked at him thoughtfully. Finally, he gave Jacen a respectful nod. "I hadn't really thought of it like that." He looked down at the computer monitor, and typed in a few commands. Mumbling to himself, "No, we can do better than that." A few more keystrokes. "Hmm…nope. I can still do better." More typing. "Got it. Unfortunately, I will have to charge two-hundred and fifty credits to change reservations. Is that okay?"
Jacen smiled; in truth, he expected to have to pay more. "No problem." As he dug his wallet out of his pocket, he continued, "Her last name is 'Do'ma'." Placing three one-hundred-credit chits on the counter, he looked again at the man, "Start booking her berth; I'll go get her." Jacen turned and made his way over to the young Navy officer.
The agent stood stunned for a second. Who carries three hundred credits in cash anymore? And from the look of his wallet, he was carrying more; lots more. Shaking his head, he started to change Mr. Naberre's reservation.
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Impatiently waiting in line, Kenara Do'ma tried to read her holozine. To her, it seemed a bit unfair that not only was the 'coach' line longer, but the check-in agents seemed to be slower. She had already been in line ten minutes when she first noticed the handsome man with wavy sand-brown hair in the first-class lane who was surreptitiously casting glances in her direction. Her mother's voice sounded in her head: You will find that the older you get, the younger men seem to act. Chuckling to herself, she again cast a furtive glance at the slightly older man. To her dismay, he was already in the process of checking in, while it looked as if she had another fifteen minutes to wait. Sighing at the seeming unfairness of it all, she returned her attention to the article she was reading, tuning out the random sounds of the spaceport.
"Excuse me, Ensign? Ensign Do'ma?"
Only on the second use of her rank did Kenara realize that someone was talking to her. Startled, she glanced up from her holozine and saw that the 'cutie', as she had mentally labeled him, was looking at her expectantly.
"Miss, if you could follow me, please." He sounded polite, but she could tell from his tone that he was used to being in command. Sensing, her apprehension as she grabbed her handbag off of the floor, the strange man smiled.
"No, no, nothing's wrong. This way please." As she followed him, Kenara reflected that his smile did not quite reach his eyes. It seemed as if he had forgotten how to smile. This troubled her a bit; he was not much older than she, how could have he gotten so jaded at such an age?
As her mysterious stranger reached the counter, he turned and held at his hand, indicating that he would take her small roll-on. Placing her bag on the check-in scale, he grabbed a boarding card off of the counter and turned his head to explain what was happening.
"I've taken the liberty of upgrading you to my first-class cabin as a way of saying 'thank you' for your service to the Consortium." His tone turned somber, "I remember how much one has to give up being in the military." Kenara could not help but hear some of the pain in his voice and she noticed that this time his emotion showed in his brown eyes.
Kenara offered a polite smile, "Thank you sir, but I haven't really…"
"Think of it more as you accepting on behalf of the entire Hapan Navy." The man interrupted warmly, as he flashed her a small smile. "Please mention to your superiors that there are still Coruscantis who remember the sacrifices Hapes made in the war."
She started to reply, but was interrupted by the check-in agent. "Miss, if I could see your documents please."
Turning her attention to the man behind the counter, Kenara handed him her travel ticket and ID, "Certainly."
"I took the liberty of booking you in the 'executive suite', so you'll have a view out the bow of the ship." He looked up at her an gave her a wry smile, "You'll be one of the few who can see where you're headed, not where you've been." He learned forward and whispered conspiratorially, "You'd be amazed at what kind of power I have when it comes to cabin assignments."
Kenara chuckled, "Oh, I'm sure." She turned to thank her new friend, only to find that he had disappeared. Frowning, she scanned the surrounding crowd.
"Miss? Ensign Do'ma?" Kenara finally turned back to the counter agent, "Here is you boarding pass." He said, handing her the paperwork.
The brunette woman narrowed her eyes when she saw the fifty-credit chit on top of the blue ticket jacket. "What's this?"
"That's his change."
Indignantly, she frowned at the agent and gestured around, "He's gone! How am I supposed to get this back to him?" The young man only offered a shrug. Exasperated, Kenara asked, "Well, can you at least tell me his name so that I can track him down?"
Smiling an ingratiating smile, he answered, "Sorry miss, it's against company policy to give out passenger information."
Reminding herself that she could be brought up on court-martial charges for throttling a civilian, she huffed at the impossible man, performed a smart 'about face' and marched over to the security check, her black dress pumps clicking on the marble flooring.
Jacen followed Ensign Do'ma from a respectful distance, keeping a discrete eye on the young Hapan naval officer as she boarded the space liner. He could sense her determination to find him, and that bothered him a bit—most service members would have simply shrugged off his generosity and contented themselves with knowing that there are still people who understood the travails of military life. Ensign Do'ma, however, seemed to be a different sort; she acted as if it was in insult not to know his identity. Jacen shook his head: Get used to disappointment, sweetheart. Still, it would not do for an employee of the Crown to undermine his carefully laid plan, so he had best be cautious. Fortunately, the Olympic was a big passenger liner, so it should be easy to hide from one person.
In truth, Jacen still was not quite sure why he had the urge to pay for her upgrade. Would he have done it if she had been male? Jacen wanted to think so, but he was not quite that naïve—she was pretty, after all. Furthermore, he was not lying when he had told the young Ensign how difficult life could be in the military; she was just too young to understand.
Maybe it was just that after so many months of interrogations, searches, arrests, roundups, and bloodshed, he simply wanted to be nice to someone. Snorting in disbelief, he thought it a pity that he rediscovered his humanity only after he knew that he had to sacrifice it for the greater good.
After discretely ensuring that the Hapan got to her cabin, Jacen spent the next hour or so wandering around the Polstjärnan Company's passenger liner Olympic, taking in the over-the-top opulence. Nobody does pretentious like the Hapans. Chuckling at the thought, he finally found his cabin and was unsurprised at the décor. Even in 'economy', the furnishings were opulent. The carpet was a rich green, and the walls were a warm oro wood paneling with darker inlays of Hapan fir and the double-size bed looked almost too soft to be comfortable. Heading into the 'fresher, he rolled his eyes at the gold fixtures; he still never understood why people thought gold faucets to be a status symbol.
Checking the chrono on the 'fresher wall, he saw that he still had a good half-hour before the Olympic departed Coruscant. He toyed with the idea of taking another stroll around the ship, but quickly discarded the idea, not wanting to risk running into Ensign Do'ma again. He wasn't afraid of her per se, but he did not have much of a back-story for his persona as 'Jason Naberre' and had seen too many examples of just how bad people are at trying to invent a personal history on the fly.
Since going out was not a viable option, he lay down on the bed and quietly talked himself through his 'Plan Alpha' again, trying to find any holes that he had not accounted for on his previous run-throughs. One of the lessons he learned from Myrkr was to make sure that he had covered every possible outcome, running each different scenario through to its most likely conclusion. His sister would argue that he was over-thinking again, but he long ago resolved to not ever be caught like they were on Myrkr: unprepared for the reality of the situation. Anakin and Jaina always thought that they could freelance their way out of anything, and it was that sort of cavalier thinking that had gotten Anakin killed.
After running all the possible permutations of 'Plan Alpha', he then did the same for plans Bravo, Charlie, Delta, and Echo, making sure to account for every variable. So lost was he in running through his permutations that he did not notice when the Olympic made its on-time departure from Coruscant at 0125, nor did he notice dozing off...
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A/N: Thanks for reading!