Omad Zippah was sleeping deeply. He was enjoying a particularly pleasant dream in which he was flying in a shooting competition and he was winning; every craft that came near him was shot down… POW…CRASH…another one bites the dust…the crowd cheer rapturously. Until some little Z-95s come at him buzzing like wasps and he can't hear because the buzzing is so loud: he takes his hands off the controls to cover his ears and the ship spirals out of control…
'Shit!' Omad woke up to the insistent buzz of his chrono unit, giving him half an hour until they came out of hyperspace at their destination, the planet Halian. He peeked in the plexiglass plate on Sumatra's cabin door on on his way to the cockpit. She was still asleep and he decided to leave her so; the fighting of earlier that day had obviously told on her, injured as she already was. The instruments in the cockpit were quiet, with only the muted flash of the chrono, as it counted down the minutes and seconds and miliseconds of their hyperspace flight too quickly too follow the numerals, interrupting the general peace.
Omad went to the small galley/social area on his ship and opened a self heating breakfast pack; these convenient instant foods were the only practical way to eat on journeys like this. He picked at it,
regretting its small resemblance to real food and wandered back to the cockpit where there were still twenty-four minutes on the chrono. To pass the time, he fed in his Galactic Encycolpaedia datacard and queried 'Halian system'. The Galactic Encyclopaedia provided different information to the nav computer's standard statistics on atmosphere, population, spaceports etc. and he rather hoped it might give him some idea of the nature of the planet and its people. In his trade, it was wise to be as well informed as possible: the most innocuous sounding planets might be peopled by religious weirdos or have addictive atmospheric chemicals. This last was a personal experience of theirs from a run several years ago which involved delivering blaster components to a rebel faction on the planet Koh-See 6. Certain elements of the atmosphere there were addictive within hours and he and Sumatra had both suffered painful withdrawal symptons on their departure. He shook his head at that unpleasant memory and focused on the screen.
The results on Halian were succint. 'Average agricultural system, with only manufacturing being in implements for pet and livestock control. Human presence dates only to immediately pre-Clone Wars period; references to a supposedly older indigenous race impossible to confirm. Ruled by a self-styled royal family with heriditary succession through the female line. Only site of interest to tourists is royal palace, an enormously elaborate building. Tours are rarely given. Local speciality dish is based on the bark of a certain kind of tree from the main planet, Halian, which has a delicious spongy texture. Drinking, gambling and prostitution are frowned upon and these services are only found in areas immediately adjacent to the spaceports and frequented mainly by off-worlders. Perfectly adequate for breaking hyperspace journeys, not recommended for longer stays.'
Omad read this through and frowned. It sounded fine, yet there was something in there which made him distrust either the planet or the Encycolpaedia contributor who wrote the entry. He leaned back and ate more of his breakfast; what was it that was not quite right? Most of that decription could apply to thousands of quiet little Inner Rim systems.
He was grateful to hear Sumatra's door open just then, so he waited until she appeared with a breakfast pack as well and sat down beside him. 'What do you think of this?' he asked, flashing the entry up on her console. She scanned it quickly and said: 'Sounds ok. It's the bit about the 'older indigenous race' which make me a little curious. That information should be easily obtainable, given how recent in galactic terms the Clone Wars were.' She looked at him. 'There's a lot of weird stuff out there..,' Omad grinned and finished her sentence
'…and smuggling ain't the half of it!' They had heard that one in a tapcafe on Coruscant and it appealed to their sense of humour. 'When I get a free moment I might engrave that somewhere,' Omad said, 'in the floor compartment maybe.'
'Yeah, it'll give you something to read when you're hiding down there,' Sumatra drawled, referring to an incident when they had accidentally landed on a planet which executed humans on sight and Omad had spent an uncomfortable two days in the scanproof hole under the floor. He scowled at her. 'I was in hiding for my life.'
'Whatever, you say, sweetheart.' The Devish now appeared to be engrossed in the Encycolpaedia entry in front of her, but the suspicion of a smile played at her lips. Omad chose to ignore her.
The chrono now gave them 10 minutes till they dropped out of hyperspace. Omad stood up and wandered through to the mess area where his blaster lay on the floor, where it had been tossed in haste after the port fracas earlier. He picked it up and cradled it, taking it over to a storage unit and putting in a fresh power pack. He snapped it in, then looked at the others the cupboard held, tightly stacked from floor to ceiling. He put a few more into his boots, which had a fashionable design of square pockets, just the right size for power packs. He then opened another unit and drew out a tiny sleeve blaster which fitted neatly into the upturned cuff of his shirt and a couple of knives which went inside his trousers in flat skin holsters. So armed, he swaggered back to the cockpit and posed in front of Sumatra. 'What do you think?' She eyed him critically and said
'If you think I am going to be impressed by your bulging blasters, you can think again darling. In fact, I 'm only slightly less impressed than the port authorities will be with that arsenal. You're aiming for law-abiding civilian Omad!'
'It's good to be prepared.' Omad said huffily, nevertheless removing the big blaster.
'Stash it quickly and get back here,' Sumatra said, 'three minutes till we come out of hyperspace.'
When he got back to his seat the chrono sat at 0:45 secs. He watched it tick slowly down, then pulled the lever and watched as the lines of light resolved themselves into individual stars. Down to their left floated the planets of the Halian system, reassuring beacons of life in empty space. Tentatively, Omad revved up the sublight drive and the injured freighter crept towards the planets.