Makta


The three of us stepped off the Justifier onto the surprisingly busy Makta station. At least 80% of the docking stations I could see were filled, and it looked like there were nearly a hundred people walking through the doughnut shaped dock, passing by stands and stalls which had been erected just outside of many of the ships. The sounds of merchants shouting to the passersby, idle conversation, and the quiet hum of the many ships' engines echoed throughout the station.

As we prepared to leave, a Neimoidian in long robes, and a small hat approached us. "Welcome, to Makta," they said with a suspiciously wide smile. "How long will you be staying on our station?"

"Depends," Cad said, keeping his head tilted forward to hide his face under the brim of his hat.

"And your purpose here?" the Neimoidian asked pulling out a tablet.

Cad flicked his cloak back, revealing his LL-30 which caused the Neimoidian's eyes to widen in fear. He reached down to a pouch on his belt just in front of his holster, pulling out a credit chip which he set it on the Neimoidian's tablet. "Any more questions?" Cad asked, his hand moving back to rest on his hip just above his holster.

The Neimoidian's eyes flicked from the pistol to the credit chip to Bane's hat. "No sir, that will be all. Enjoy your stay," they said, then walked away fast enough that for a moment it almost seemed like he had a hoverboard hidden underneath his robes.

"Come on," Cad said, flicking his cloak back over his blaster. "We got work to do."

Mac tapped its tiny legs against my helmet as we joined the mass of people, letting the flow of traffic lead us in a full loop around the station. Once we were nearly back to the Justifier, Cad suddenly turned, making his way perpendicular to the flow with a sudden swiftness that was hard to follow.

I bumped into several people, further delaying me as I had to apologize before hurrying after him and Exa, who appeared to have no difficulty whatsoever keeping up with him. They moved towards the center of the station, which contained the walled off maintenance area, and the engine rooms deeper into the station.

Standing in one of the small doorways that lead into the maintenance area was a short young-looking human man, maybe in his mid-twenties, wearing a set of greasy overalls, and a leather cap with a set of goggles hanging around his neck. He was working on the doors electronic interface when Cad approached him. By the time he looked up at him Cad had already raised a hand up, covering his mouth as he shoved him through the open door into the maintenance area.

The kidnapping was so sudden it surprised me, but I jogged after them, ducking into the maintenance area with them just before Exa closed the door behind us.

The young man maintenance workers looked between the three of us fearfully as they quickly mumbled into Cad Banes hand until Cad brought a finger to his lips and shushed him.

"Just got a couple of questions for you, then we're all going to go our separate ways like this never happened. Understand."

They looked up at him, a look of confusion then wide-eyed recognition and they started nodding furiously.

"Alright, now I'm going to move my hand, and you're not going to say anything."

They nodded, and Cad slowly removed his hand from their mouth. Their eyes continued to dance fearfully between all of us as they held their mouth tightly shut, clearly doing everything they could not to scream.

"Good," Cad said, leaning back into a relaxed stance. "Now, listen up. The maintenance crew, most of them work for the local gang."

The maintenance worker remained quiet until Cad started impatiently tapping his foot. "I'm n-not," they whispered fearfully.

"Oh, don't worry, I know you're not," Cad said. "But your associates."

The maintenance worker slowly began to nod. "Yes, some of them. There are contact points that feed directly to the third arm that they use to let them know when 'shipments' arrive or if they find a new 'mark'. I don't know what they mean, they just use those words a lot."

Cad held up a hand to stop him before he continued rambling. "Are they taking the material over to the third arm?"

"Yes! Yes they do!" he said quickly nodding his head violently.

"Quiet," Cad warned, causing the mechanic to shut their mouth so tightly their lips turned white. "You seen this man recently?" Cad flipped his cloak back, revealing his LL-30 as he pulls out the holoprojector to show Thyne's image.

The mechanic looked at it for a long moment before shaking his head. "No. I haven't."

Cad nodded and put the projector away before tipping his hat to the mechanic. "Pleasure doing business with you." Cad waved his hand and Exa cracked the door open, checking to either side. After a few seconds she nodded and walked through the door. Without another word Cad followed, making eye contact with me as he motioned with his head for me to follow.

We went on one more exploratory walk, this time down through the second arm then back up it. Which felt a little pointless to me since it matched perfectly with the station map. There was a convenience store directly next to the entrance of the arm, on the other side of which was a hallway that lead to the bathrooms, then the many apartments, and finally the arms bar. The apartments ranged in size from singular sleeping pods to multibedroom suits that went about three stories up in the apartment wings, the only structure which extended above the ground floor.

Once we had finished that walk, we returned to the Justifier where we gathered around the main table in the cockpit.

"Kid," Cad said as he took his seat. "Pull up a projection of the station map."

"Yes sir," I said running over the the counsel to upload the information to my holoprojector then returned and set it on the table.

"Alright," he said pulling the toothpick from his mouth and tossing it to the side. "We have a a problem."

Both Exa and I turned to him in surprise. "What?" Exa said motioning at the end of the third arm. "He's probably just in the bar like most the others of his type."

"Kid," Cad said pulling my attention from the map. "Where was the target last sighted?"

"He was seen in the main dock, sir."

Cad turned back to Exa. "Whoever put out the bounty is either a rival group of smugglers, or a betrayed contact. If he was in the bar, they would have said that. He's hiding somewhere. The bars don't have the room to store a decent supply, and there are too many open spaces to hide people in there or the apartments."

"What about the maintenance area," Exa suggested.

"Too many witnesses. They'd have to go against the flow, go through that gap between the crowd and the center, put in the door code, all while having to deal with their mark." He shook his head. "They're in the third arm. I'm sure of it."

Exa shrugged. "Don't know where. Anything below the ground floor is just maintenance tunnels."

"Well…" I said slowly raising my hand before I spoke.

"Spit it out kid," Cad said with a wave of his hand.

"Stations like this are normally designed so that the arms can be ejected in case of emergency. So they normally have underfloor maintenance rooms to access the emergency engines and reentry devices."

"Why isn't it marked on the map?" Exa asked.

"This was a public map. They wouldn't want people knowing how to access them and utilize them for… well… gangs."

"How big are we talking here?" Cad asked.

I shrugged. "Depends on the engine. Some of them are as small as a single pod with some access panels on it, others are the same size as the floor above."

"Best guess."

I paused for a few seconds as I looked at the map. "A bit under half the size of the arm due to the cylindrical shape of the arm."

Cad nodded. "But you don't know how to get in there."

I shook my head. "It's different on almost every ship. Even Imperial engineers will change the location model to model to prevent sabotage."

"Why would the Empire care if anyone got down in that area?" Exa asked.

"They normally include the controls to eject the arm."

"Is that so," Cad said leaning back in his chair.

Exa turned and looked at him. "What are you scheming?"

A sly smile spread across Cad's face. "Todo! Bring me the shadow holograms."

"On it," the droid called from below us in the storage room.

"Simple," Cad started as he brought his legs up, resting them on the table. "Kid, you're the bait."

I raised my hand again, causing Cad to stop and just stare at me, waiting for me to speak. "Could I not be the bait?"

"No," he said flatly. "Exa, grab a tracker so once they nab him we can follow him to this hidden entrance."

"Just wondering sir," I said as Exa turned to go get the tracker. "How are we going to get them to grab me? I'm human."

"Not for long," he said as Todo appeared.

"Here you are sir," Todo said setting a small box on the table next to Cad's feet.

He sat up and flicked open the box to reveal a small metal disk that looked like a holoprojector. He tossed it to me and once I had it in my hands I recognized it as a modified holographic disguise matrix. "Kid you'll get the modified one, we'll follow you with the other two."

"Modified, sir?" I asked.

Cad nodded.

"That one has a hard light generator that will project around your head," said Todo excitedly. "That way if they try and grab your head it will feel real. The hard light drains the battery though, so you'll have to act fast."

"Got it," I said then turned back to Cad. "What will you two be doing?"

"Don't worry it," Cad said tossing Exa one of the other 'shadow holograms' as they returned with a tracker. "It will change your voice too so leave your helmet on, and feed us as much information as you can without getting caught. That's all you need to know."

We weren't sure how long it would take for them to take the bait, aka me, so Cad decided I needed to get started now. The shadow hologram completely enveloped me, turning me into a very young looking Sullustan, in a bright orange tourist's shirt, and loose shorts, despite the fact I was still wearing my actual clothes. My E-11 was too bulky to keep on me, but Cad had an ankle holster that would fit my RSKF-44, which was currently digging in to my calf.

I had asked Cad for tips on how to make myself stand out as a good target. All he had done when I asked though was chuckled and say, "Son, just be yourself and you'll get along just fine.". A comment which I couldn't decide if it was a complement or an insult.

So, for a while I kind of just stood close to the ship looking around as I tried to figure out what I should do to act like me. As I stood there, I spotted a new merchant setting up a stand which drew my attention the moment they pulled out the first model model ships. I felt my legs carrying me towards them before they had even finished setting up their stand. When they finally looked up I was already standing a respectful distance surveying their collection.

They had every model of TIE, three different colors of T-65C-A2 X-wing starfighters, a couple different freighters, a Firespray-31-class patrol and attack craft, and a Rendili Hyperworks hammerhead-class cruiser from the old republic.

The stand owner, a human man with long hair smiled at me as he set out the final model. "I know an aficionado when I see one," he said loud enough for me to hear over the murmur of the crowd. "You'll regret it if you don't get at least one."

As much as I hated to admit it, he was right. I walked up to the stand, frowning as I found that none of the ships had price tags. "How much are they?" I asked.

"Depends on the model, but they're all fairly priced, I assure you" they said with a smile.

Looking between he models I eventually pointed at the Rendili Hyperworks hammerhead-class cruiser. "How much for that one?"

"The Corvette? That one will-"

"That's not a Corvette," I interrupted unable to stop myself.

"I'm sorry?" the merchant said looking at me in confusion.

"That ship, it's not the CEC CR90 or CR70. It's not even modern era. It's a Rendili Hyperworks hammerhead-class cruiser."

He looked at it for several seconds then picked it up to look at it more closely. "You sure?"

My eyes narrowed. "Of course I'm certain. I could tell the difference between the two blindfolded… No offense."

They looked between me and the ship. "Tell me about it then. If you're so sure."

"It's a massive frigate class ship measuring 315-meters-long used by the republic navy during the Great Sith Wars, Old Sith Wars, Madolorian Wars, and New Sith Wars. It was the successor to the Praetorian-class frigate and was used as a command ship for larger fleets. The two most famous models were the Endar Spire, and Harbinger. To be fair to you, it is believed CEC may have taken some inspiration from the hammerhead in their Corvette designs."

"I see… Well, that's very interesting. You asked for its price?"

I nodded.

"Well considering this is a relic from the old republic, I'd say it'll run you about 200 credits."

I flinched at the price. "200? That's almost half the price of a blaster pistol I saw on display earlier."

"What can I say, this is a very rare piece."

"You just found out what it was!"

"And I thank you for that. Now would you like the piece or would you like to negotiate for one of the other pieces."

"… I'll give you 200 for the hammerhead and the T-65C-A2."

The merchant's head tilted in confusion. "The what?"

I rolled my eyes, hoping the shadow hologram didn't pick it up through the helmet. "The X-wing."

"Oh that. I couldn't possibly do less than 250."

"You were probably planning on selling them for less than 100… 210."

"245."

"215."

"Hmmmm 230, final offer."

"… 225?"

The merchant rubbed his chin for a few seconds. "Deal," he said thrusting his hand forward and shaking mine before I could react then bagging up the two models a little more violently than I would have liked.

I handed him the credits and he thrust the bag to me.

"Oh and thank you for this history lesson."

"Yea, thank you," I said taking the bag then turning to leave. After I got a few steps away I turned and looked over my shoulder back at the stand to see the merchant pulling out a new T-65C-A2 and another Rendili Hyperworks hammerhead-class cruiser. When I saw this, I started to turn around, but someone bumped into me, knocking me into the flow of the crowd. As soon as I entered the crowd another person bumped into my shoulder, grabbing my bag of new overpriced models as they did, ripping them from my grasp.

Turning my head, I just caught the outline of a Jawa carrying the bag on its head running against the crowd to make their escape.

"Hey! Give that back!" I shouted after them as I pushed my way through the crowd, apologizing to everyone I was forced to push to the side. I managed to keep them in sight as they dashed into one of the arms, passed the convenience store. When I rounded the next corner, I thought I had lost them for a moment, then I saw the door to the bathrooms close shut. Knowing there was nowhere for them to exit out on the far side I breathed a sigh of relief as I hurried after them.

As I entered the bathroom, I saw the Jawa standing on the far end of the room, bag still resting on their head as they seemed to be searching the wall for something. Fearing that there may be a hidden door that was not on the map I started jogging towards them.

"Alright," I said as I drew near. "You almost got away with it but come on, give it-"

As I was about to stop jogging, an absolutely massive Trandoshan burst out of one of the shower stalls and clotheslined me so violently that I am actually not sure how many rotations I did as I backflipped though the air.

I landed head first with my feet straight up in the air, making me very thankful for the neck guard on my helmet as it prevented my head from being thrown to the side, possibly really hurting my neck. That did not prevent my head from slamming into the front of my helmet though, splitting open my forehead and causing my vision to swim as I nearly lost consciousness.

As my body began to fall, several sets of hands grabbed my legs yanked so I was on my stomach, then started dragging me down the hall.

"Good job Utapei," the Trandoshan said to the Jawa as they dragged my fake face across the floor.

The Jawa said something in their native language that my helmet translated but my vision was too blurry to read the text.

Whatever they said caused the Trandoshan to laugh. "Of course friend have fun with them. You earned it."

I could hear the Jawa running back towards the entrance while I was taken deeper into the baths.