My own apartment was in the Merchant District, a much nicer part of Kor. However, if my current financial situation didn't change soon, I'd be looking at moving into Aefeeh's place, blown-out door and all.

Aveear stood in the doorway of my small place, scanning with his receptors. "Your abode is cozy, sir."

"Your protocol programming serves you well, Av'," I replied as I draped my long jacket over a worn sofa. "Have a seat somewhere, I'll get the repair kit as soon as I start a decrypter on this datacard."

My personal terminal glowed softly at me as I sat down in the closet I referred to as my 'den'. Sliding the datacard into a port, I was quickly greeted with a 'restricted access' message. Immediately, my built-in decrypter went to work. From a shelf overhead I grabbed a small repair kit and went back to the common room where Aveear was seated, cradling his right forearm in his lap.

"I'll make you better than new in no time," I remarked, sitting down and pulled a small pair of hydrospanners from the kit, and a laser-welder.

"Hardly possible, sir," Aveear replied matter-of-factly. "I am heavily modified from my factory standards."

I laughed a bit. "Yeah, I noticed. Not many AVR units have built-in blaster pistols and war-droid class musculateur. Are you going to tell my why you're so heavily modified, or not?"

Aveear was silent for quite some time. While the 'droid mulled it over, I inspected the damage of the arm and prepared to reattach it. Finally his head turned to look at me. "No, sir, I am not."

"So be it," I replied, and fused some connections together. Rotating the arm back into place, I twisted it sharply to lock the quick-release into place. "Try that."

Aveear twisted and rotated the elbow connection as best he could. "Well done, sir, I am grateful for your assistance."

"It's a good thing you're the only one here quick-release parts. I don't think you could do the same for me, with all due respect."

In the closet/den, my terminal beeped. I jumped up and rushed in to see a short list of dates and locations scrolling down the screen. Aveear followed me in, and looked over my shoulder as I sat down and halted the scrolling. "The encryption was low… what is this stuff?"

"Locations," Aveear said. "And dates that correspond to them."

Shipping dates? I thought to myself. Meetings between criminal masterminds? It didn't make any sense – why would Aefeeh have such information? I looked closely at the locations; Dantooine, Coruscant, Chandrila, Pantolomin. What did it all mean? The only thing any of it had in common that I could understand was that I had vacationed on both Chandrila and Coruscant.

"That's it," I said quietly.

"Sir?"

"It's a schedule!" I snapped. "This is Jyergo's vacation schedule. He's on the Coral Vanda."

"Brilliant," Aveear commented.

"Brilliant," Teryn said from the worn seat across from my desk. "So, when do you leave?"

"Leave?" I asked, incredulous. "For where?"

"Pantolomin, of course!" Teryn replied, eyes wide. "I asked you to track down my fiancé, remember?"

"I did… he works for Jyergo Huthis, and Jyergo Huthis is on Pantolomin, most likely on the Coral Vanda watching the fish. You told me Sandstar is a bodyguard of his, so that's where your fiancé is. Job done. Now, you owe me…"

"Not good enough. I need to know if Trey is alive, and you telling me that Jyergo Huthis is relaxing on some submerged casino doesn't answer my question." I could see Teryn was getting hot under the collar, and it definitely didn't make her less attractive. I was a sucker for angry dames, so I backed off.

"I don't have a ship, and I don't have the creds to get a transport to Pantolomin," I told her. "This is going to affect your cost."

Teryn smiled, leaned back in her seat, and crossed her arms. "You need a ship? I have a ship, and I'll take you to Pantolomin myself. I want to be there when you find him. I don't want to have to wait for him to come back to Iotra."

I threw my hands in the air. "Fine," I snapped. "I've got to get some things together, but tell me where your ship is and I'll meet you there in a few hours."

Teryn gave me the landing bay her ship was in, and left with her iotran porter. Aveear, of course, stayed behind with me. While the 'droid watched, I collected a few things into a small bag including a change of clothes, some blaster packs, a datapad, a portable computer terminal and some other small things I didn't like to leave home without. I was about to speak with Nanse about looking after things while I was gone when, from her outer office, I heard her start speaking with a visitor.

"Yes, Mister Power is in, do you gentlemen have an appointment?" Nanse asked, her mother tongue of iotrese heavily accenting her nearly flawless basic.

"This is my appointment," came a gruff reply, and and instant later there was a short buzzing noise and then a loud thud.

Suddenly Aveear was at my side, his blaster snapping out of it's hiding place in his left forearm. I drew my own blaster and moved away from the door.

"Nanse?" I called out. "Are you okay?"

My assistant didn't reply. Instead, a line of blaster bolts peppered through the frosted glass wall separating my inner office from the outer office. I dodged to the side, but a bolt skipped off of Aveear's torso, exploding against the far wall. I shouted out in mock pain.

"My arm! Blast, they got my arm!" I cried out, levelling my blaster at the door. Aveear seemed unaffected by the shot he took, and prepared to attack as well.

The door suddenly smashed open as something or someone big slammed into it. At the site of the first leg coming through the opening, I knew we were in trouble.

"Blast…" I repeated, quieter this time. It was the same herglic who Aveear and I ran into at Aefeeh's apartment. The blue-skinned monolith was dressed in business attire, and it didn't make him look any less dangerous. He had to lean down to make it through the door, as his tiny, wide-set eyes turned to settle on me. In his hand was a stun-stick, which he raised as he began roaring toward me. There was no way my measly Blastech DL-35 was going to stop this monster, but I squeezed off a shot anyhow.

The pistol kicked in my hand like a scared tauntaun. The bolt smashed into the herglic's left shoulder, spinning him like a top, his feet making a thunderous staccato on the floor as he tried to keep from falling over. Aveear moved up from his position behind the creature and placed another blaster bolt into his spine. The herglic reacted by backhanding Aveear into the office wall with a resounding 'clang'.

The well-dressed monster turned back to me and growled through clenched teeth. "Kill you, too!" he grumbled in basic, probably the only words he knew.

My attacker swung at me, and I felt the breeze as his fist cut through the air. If he had managed to make contact, surely I would be heading through the window right now. He missed, however, thrown off by our attacks. I snapped my blaster back up, this time prepared for the kick that was the result of Aveear's tinkering. I fired at point-blank range into the herglic's face, and his squat skull split down the middle, instantly cauterized by the blast. With a bubbly groan, he collapsed in a heap on the office floor. I stared down at the still body for a moment, and suddenly it hit me. A few short moments ago, Nanse had said 'gentlemen'.

Plural. More than one.

Looking up quickly, I noticed another figure glide through the door, blaster levelled at my chest. It was the herglic's partner from Aefeeh's apartment, a slender twi'lek with pale skin and deep-set eyes that burned as twin embers. His mouth twisted in a toothy sneer as his finger tightened on the trigger. Before this newcomer could fire a shot, however, Aveear cruised up from behind and knocked him on the back of the head, crumpling the twi'lek to the floor an an instant.

Nanse recovered from the stun-stick quickly enough, and I sent her home for the rest of the day. "I'm going offworld for a few days," I told her. "I'll com you when I get back. Maybe we can spend some time fixing this place up a bit. If this job goes well, we can even move the office into that building downtown. You're sure you don't need a ride home?"

"No, but maybe a raise" Nanse replied, smiling. "My lifemate is coming to get me, I'm meeting him downstairs. You be careful, Mister Power."

"I will," I said. "I'll see you soon."

Nanse left and I turned to Aveear. "What did you do with the bodies?"

Shaking his head, Aveear said nothing.

"Fine, I won't ask," I replied. "But this is getting ridiculous. Someone doesn't like me tracking down Huthis, and they're going to keep trying harder to stop me."

"I think it would be best, then, if you got off of Iotra for a little while, sir," Aveear suggested.

"Right," I said, then shouldered my bag and left the office with the 'droid in tow.

Teryn Aeries's ship, the Dalam Iris, was a streamlined cruiser, reminiscent of the old Nubian ships. Matte blue, it was difficult to make out in the darkness of the evening. The landing bay lights tried illuminating the underside, but the starship just seemed to eat up the light. Garbed in a form-fitting tan flightsuit, Teryn looked the part of the spacer in every way, except for the flawless skin and perfect hair. Her dark wavey locks were pulled back from her face, kept together with a silver clip just above the nape of her slender neck. She stood at the bottom of the loading ramp giving orders to a small maintainence droid. As we walked into the bay, she turned and smiled, pulling on a pair of leather gloves she had been holding. A holdout blaster was strapped low on her right hip.

"Great, I'm just going through power-up, and have clearance from the tower!" she called.

I reached the bottom of the ramp and tossed my small bag up into the ship. "I'm glad you're happy," I said grumpily. "I was almost killed again."

Teryn looked at Aveear and back to me, shocked. "Who tried to kill you?" she asked.

"Some herglic, and his weasily twi'lek partner," I replied. "That makes twice. Three, if you count that these two were the same who tracked me down to Aefeeh's apartment in Spacer Town. Someone sure as hell doesn't want me to know where Jyergo is – I just don't understand why." A pause. "Let's get the hell out of here."

"My sentiments exactly," Teryn replied with a winning smile. Placing a hand on my arm, she walked up the ramp at my side with Aveear following us both. The inside of the Iris was sparsely appointed, with only the necessities. From the ramp corridor, Teryn led me forward, through a spartan lounge decorated in dark blues and gold, past a series of well-organized work tables and finally to the command deck. The sweeping cockpit windows gave a wide view of the ship's fore and side arcs. Teryn slid into the left seat and gestured to a seat behind her. Her iotran porter was already seated on the right.

"A lady of many talents," I said with a smile to the porter in her own language. She merely glanced at me and went back to the controls.

Okay, I thought to myself. Never mind, then.

As Teryn and her co-pilot went over the last of the pre-flight checklist, I considered wandering back into the ship to explore. As I turned to sneak down the corridor, I found a big blue droid blocking my way.

"Oh, hello, Aveear!" I said cheerfully.

"You should strap in, sir," Aveear commented flatly, and then stood in the command deck doorway and stared at me.

"Sure, I was just about to," I replied, watching Aveear closely as I slowly turned back around and pulled the straps over my shoulders. Within minutes we were star-bound.

The flight to Pantalomin was scheduled to take just under thirty hours, barring any unforeseen difficulties such as Imperial Interdictors or mysterious hyperspace anomolies. After being allowed by Aveear to leave the cockpit, the droid showed me to a small cabin where I could rest. A small 'fresher unit was accessible from there, so I made use of it and then lay down on the small cot, my hands folded behind my head. With the lights dimmed to twenty percent, I stared up at the bulkhead above me.

A thought nibbled at me from deep down inside my mind. Something wasn't sitting right with me, and hadn't for some time now. Obviously Teryn's AVR droid was modified way beyond spec, but that wasn't particularly unusual for the spoiled children of rich executives and politicians. The search I had done on Teryn Aeries had turned up that she was the only daughter of Yorhan Aeries, a bacta magnate from Thyferra. Aeries had accumulated a massive fortune before his untimely death shortly before the start of the rebellion, and left all he had to Teryn. She promptly sold the business and left Thyferra, showing up in all sorts of places before landing on my doorstep. By the looks of her destinations, she loved to travel.

But that still wasn't what bothered me.

Earlier, in my office, the herglic had said 'kill you, too'. Too. He must have known he hadn't killed Nanse, so other than me, who else was he planning on killing?

Mulling this over in my head, I rolled onto my side and ordered the lights down to five percent. I was convinced I wouldn't be able to fall asleep. A chime sounded through my cabin, and I snapped my eyes open. "Lights, fifty percent," I said. In the brighter illumination, I found the com-panel and depressed the talk switch. "Yeah?"

"Good morning," came Teryn's soft voice. "I trust you slept well?"

Good morning? "How long was I out?" I asked her.

"About eight hours," she replied.

Eight hours! I thought. I haven't slept for eight straight hours since I left Corellia!

"If you'd like something to eat, I've got some food in the lounge."

I was going to thank her and say no, but even the mere mention of the word 'food' made my stomach grumble. It must have sounded like a rancor's roar.

"Oh, I heard that!" Teryn said through the com with a laugh. "I'll have Aveear bring out some extras!"

I used the 'fresher again, changed into some fresh clothes I had brought along and made my way to the ship's lounge. The deckplates hummed underneath my feet in a way that I recognized – the Iris was hurtling through hyperspace at better than a times-one multiplier. I stopped in the corridor and placed a hand on the bulkhead. Not quite point five, but close. This is a stanging fast ship.

In the lounge, I found Teryn resting on a couch and reading over a datapad. She had changed out of her flightsuit and was now garbed in more casual attire – a plain white cotton shirt worn loose at the neck, military-cut pants and leather spacer boots. Seeing me step into the lounge, she smiled and placed the datapad down on the couch next to her.

"There's my hero!" she said. "How did you sleep?"

"I didn't even realize I had," I replied, taking in the platters of food and containers of drink placed on the lounge table. "And I wouldn't exactly call me a hero."

Teryn slid across the couch a ways and patted the cushioning next to her. "Well, you've tracked down my fiancé, and for that you're my hero. Now, sit and eat."

I tore into the caf and pastries while Teryn watched, saying nothing. I would look up at her and smile from time to time, but mostly I ate and drank. She was definitely younger than I was, by perhaps eight or ten years, putting her in her early twenties, I guessed. She finally broke the silence.

"Are you married, Mister Power? Or maybe you have a girlfriend?"

I froze in mid-bite. As a police officer on Corellia I never had much time for relationships, and after that debacle and my subsequent move to Iotra I simply was unlucky enough to never find that certain special someone. Sure, there were trysts and affairs over the years, but nothing of any real substance. I swallowed without chewing, forcing the food down so quickly it was almost painful.

"Uh… no, neither, actually," I said uncomfortably. "Never really found the time for it. Not that I wouldn't mind, of course… I just…"

Teryn nodded and patted my shoulder. "I understand… you don't choose to be with women?"

"No!" I shot back, louder than I probably should have, and then laughed. "No, Miss Aeries, I'm not like that. I love women, I just haven't been as lucky as you to find the perfect mate."

Teryn smiled briefly. "Call me Teryn. And yes, I am very… lucky," she said, and then glanced over her shoulder to a chrono over one of the tidy workstations. "I should get back to the cockpit, Eeisi gets a little put-out when she's alone up there for a while."

I was alone in the lounge. The Iris cut through space like a vibroblade through water, and I felt exceedingly uneasy with my situation. Downing another swallow of caff and stuffing one last pastry into my mouth, I headed back to my cabin.

I stepped into the small compartment and hesitated. There was an odd scent on the air – a very light floral scent that was oddly familiar. I didn't remember smelling it when I was in the cabin earlier, but my olfactory senses could have been accustomed to it, rendering it unnoticable. It was intriguing, however a wave of fatigue washed over me and I decided to lie down again. I practically collapsed onto the cot and shut my eyes.

"Lights…" I managed to say, but the rest disappeared under a blanket of deep sleep.

Teryn sat next to me as I lay on my back, arms folded over my chest. "I'm having difficulties," she said, and touched my cheek.

"Difficulties with what?" I said in a voice that was not my own. She smiled down at me and shook her head.

"This charade, what do you think?" she snapped. I couldn't imagine why she was so angry at me.

I stood behind her now, but at the same time remained reclined on the small cot Teryn was seated on. "Don't forget your orders, this is important. I am not worth all of this emotion."

"Don't patronize me!" she shouted back, but at the same time trying to keep her voice down. I was on the bed again, looking up at her lovely face. "What is to become of him when this is all over?"

"That depends on you," I replied from behind Teryn. "And how much you are willing to divulge to him. Keep quiet, and go your separate ways afterward, and he will be sent home and all will return to normal."

Teryn sighed and stood, leaving me behind on the bed. She stepped through the cabin doorway and it began to slide shut.