Tahiri decided that, if you could ignore the spotless walls and decks and the beautiful women guards with gray uniforms constantly marching patrols, Junction Station could have fit anywhere in the galaxy. It contained a broad melange of species, from humans to standard space-faring races like Duros and Dresselians to some she couldn't even recognize. They were bartering goods, buying drinks from cantinas, and purchasing parts for their ships. The galaxy was full of waystations like this and it almost made Tahiri feel comfortably anonymous.
Almost, but not quite. Whether real or imagined, she kept on feeling like the beings she passed on the promenade were staring at the three scars on her forehead, and if they were staring at her scars it meant they knew who she was: Tahiri Veila, Jacen Solo's pawn, murderer of defenseless old men and prisoners. They were probably wondering what she was doing walking free, then checking to see if the Imperials had put out a bounty on her as soon as she turned her back.
Sometimes she thought that, but there was no way of telling what was real and what was wrought by her own addled conscience. Not even the Force seemed to give any clues, but nobody tried to point a blaster at her and on the once occasion when she did visit a cantina for a drink, she found herself cornered by an Arkona with a salt addiction who went straight from asking her name to begging her to bunk with him. Which meant she was something close to anonymous after all.
She'd already decided what she needed to do. If Darth Caedus had left one last scheme in motion before his death, she had a duty to stop it. It was the first small thing she could do to atone for her service to the Sith Lord. It wouldn't be enough to absolve her, but it was a start, and the fact that it involved the Yuuzhan Vong, that other half of her self that she'd been trying to repress since leaving Zonama Sekot seven years back, made it seem all the more imperative that she act. Thankfully, her accounts with Alliance banks were still open, which meant she had credits to pay her fare.
She still needed to hire a ship, specifically one whose crew would take her to a world that had been Vongformed. There wasn't going to be many of those, but thankfully Junction Station had a localized data-net where beings could post advertisements for just about anything. When she first accessed it from the data-port in the capsule room she'd rented, she found classifieds requesting everything from 'a fast ship with guns, no questions asked' to 'an intimate evening with five virile Yuzzem'. Unsurprisingly, no one else was look-ing for passage to a Vongformed planet.
So she put up the advertisement, and then she resigned herself to waiting.
A few responses were obviously fakes; many didn't even mention her request at all and simply advertised cheap spaceship parts, military-grade weapons, and love serums that supposedly worked for every species in the galaxy. Tahiri was starting to wonder whether Tenel Ka should try running this place with a tighter hand when she saw one response that actually looked viable. A ship called Mandala was currently refueling at Junction after completing a cargo run. Tahiri set up a meeting and went to go see the captain in person.
When she got to the docking station and saw the ship, she immediately felt affirmed. The disc-shaped Corellian YT-2000-model freighter reminded her of the Solos' Falcon, not just for the similar design, but for the countless small pock-marks on its hull, the carbon-scoring around its engines, and all the other signs of loving use the ship had clearly accumulated over years of service.
The captain was a human woman on the far end of middle age. She introduced herself as Rahley Muro, an independent cargo hauler who mostly did runs in the Inner- and Mid-Rim sections of the galaxy. Muro gave Tahiri a tour of the inside of her ship, which was also reminiscent of the Falcon, and introduced her co-pilot and business partner, a short furry Bimm named Revli Vjarna. There was not a maintenance droid in sight, and that also helped Tahiri's mood. The Bimm greeted her from a special chair designed to give the small alien full access to the control panels in the cockpit, which unlike the Falcon was located at the fore of the ship, jutting out from its central disc.
After the tour and introductions, Muro led Tahiri bak to the circular crew lounge, where the two of them sat down on a battered leather-faced sofa and began to talk the business end through.
"I'll be straight with you, Miss Horn," Muro said. "Any trip to a planet that still has Vong life on it is going to cost more."
"I understand."
"I usually charge a flat rate per distance traveled which is pretty much on-line with what you'd find in cargo transit for this part of space. But for this trip, I'm going to have to charge an additional fifty percent."
Tahiri nodded. "That's fine. I was expecting that."
"All right then." An ambiguous frown played on the woman's face. "What planet, exactly, do you plan on visiting?"
"It may be more than one," Tahiri said. "Is that all right with you?"
The frown deepened. "I'm willing, but it will be an additional fifty percent for every new planet we go to."
"Like I said, I'm fine with that."
"What place are you going to first?"
She knew, deep down, that it would smart to check the worldship at Myrkr. She knew Caedus had been there with her already and possibly more times besides, but there was no telling what other places he'd been in search of deadly Yuuzhan Vong technology.
She wouldn't go to Myrkr, though, not now. Every part of her resisted going back to that world- for the old scars it had left and the more recent ones. She'd rather go to any Vongformed world over that one.
For better or worse, there were plenty more to pick from.
She leaned a little closer to the captain and said, "I'd like to go a world called Euceron. Do you know where that is?"
Muro nodded. "Off the Perlemian. Less than a week from here." She added darkly, "It's been totally uninhabited since the Vong came."
"That's the point," Tahiri said.
That, and the fact that the shapers had developed an extensive research facility on the planet's northern hemisphere. She remembered that from her conver-sations with Yuuzhan Vong scientists on Zonama Sekot. She wished she could go back to the living world, not just to seek help in this search but just to go back, but she knew neither the Jedi nor Alliance Intelligence would let her in on its location.
Muro was still frowning. "May I ask why you want to go to Euceron?"
"I already told you. I've been hired by a researcher to collect samples of Yuuzhan Vong life-forms. I was raised on Garqi and was there when it was invaded, so I have a lot of first-hand experience with Vong-formed biotech."
"I don't suppose you'd be interested in telling me who, exactly, wants those samples?"
Tahiri shook her head. "I'm sorry, that's confid-ential."
Muro's eyes narrowed. "May I ask another question?"
Tahiri didn't like where this was going. "Of course."
"What's your real name, Miss Horn?"
Muro stared. Tahiri blinked. Then she sighed. This was, all things considered, unsurprising. In retrospect she really should have adopted some disguise.
"My name is Tahiri Veila," she said simply. "I suppose you've heard of me."
Muro nodded. "You've been big news in the Hapes Consortium. Traffic to this station was totally shut down during the fight but Revli and I were both stuck here, watching whatever news we could get from the 'nets. We heard about happened to Jacen Solo, and his..."
"Apprentice," Tahiri supplied.
"To be honest, I'm a little surprised they let you go."
"So was I."
"Up until last year, I never had anything against Jedi. I thought you people were the biggest heroes of the Vong War and if that furball on Coruscant had listened to you we might have ended that war with a lot less people dead. But when Jacen Solo started locking up Corellians I started to wonder. When he started burning planets, well, that pretty much changed my mind."
"Jacen wasn't a-" Tahiri stopped. Most beings barely understood what Jedi really were, let alone Sith. Trying to explain those difference would just get them off-track, so she held Muro's eyes and said, "I won't defend what Jacen did. Right now, I'm trying to atone."
"By scoping out Vongformed planets?" she raised an eyebrow.
"Believe it or not, yes. I've been led to believe there's a weapon being made from Yuuzhan Vong biotech. I'm trying to stop that from happening."
"Is this some Jedi mission? Did Skywalker put you up to this?"
"No. I'm doing this alone." She felt a tiny bit of compassion lead through Muro's carefully guarded emotions and pressed, "I'm trying to make up for what I did under Jacen. Do you believe that's possible? Do you think someone can really make up for all the bad things they've done?"
She really wanted to know. She didn't know if she believed it herself.
Quietly, Muro said, "I hope so."
"So do I, Captain. More than anything in the galaxy."
Muro regarded her for a long time, dark eyes boring into Tahiri's green. But in the end, she gave a tiny nod and said, "I'll still take your credits."
Tahiri allowed a tiny smile. "And get me to Euceron?"
"And get you to Euceron."
"Thank you so much for trusting me, Captain."
"Trust?" Muro arched an eyebrow. "I wouldn't go that far. But credits are a good start. Thirty-percent up front."
"I'll transfer them right away." Tahiri extended a hand. "Thank you, Captain."
"Don't thank me yet," Muro said, but she reached out and shook anyway.
Tahiri decided that was good enough.