"What the hell are you doing all the way out here, D?" a male voice crackled sarcastically over the ship's comlink. 443D rolled her eyes and hit the button to turn on her comlink.
"Oh, you know Hal, just waiting for a stupid idiot like you to drop by and visit me," she tossed back crossly. Hal's deep chuckled rumbled across the com.
"Oh come on D, you didn't really expect me to be on time did you?" She didn't, but that didn't make her any less serious about their job. It was really just a simple hand off. The ships docked together by means of a modified docking system, 443D gave Hal a shipment of some illegal import and he gave her another in return, then they parted ways and went on to deliver the goods to their clients. It was a risky job, but 443D liked the excitement. And it paid well.
"Whatever, ass. Just get your ship locked to mine so we can get on with this"
"Yes, ma'am," Hal said teasingly. Expertly, Hal steered his ship, the Runner, up next to the Cardea. A slight tremor passed through the ships as the Runner's docking tunnel locked with the Cardea's port. 443D climbed out of her pilot's seat and walked through the ship to the port door. Hal was waiting in the tunnel when she opened the door. "You could've at least left the front door open for me." 443D only grunted. Hal hefted a durasteel box off the ground of the tunnel and onto his shoulder, and followed the path etched into his memory that led to the Cardea's cargo bay. 443D walked beside him.
"So how is business," 443D said trying to make small talk. Hal semi-shrugged and shifted the durasteel box on his shoulder. The muscles in the arm holding up the box rippled.
"Not too bad I suppose. I did lose one client recently. The Empire found out he was illegally buying spice and locked him up tight." 443D's muscles visibly tensed and her face froze. "Don't worry," Hal continued, "I made sure there weren't any trails that could be traced back to us." 443D relaxed, but only slightly. She didn't want to get caught. From what she'd heard, the Imperial prisons didn't sound like the most fun pleasure resorts in the galaxy.
"How can you be sure?" she asked anxiously. Hal looked over at her and grinned.
"I have my ways." The rest of the tension eased out of 443D's muscles. Over the years she had come to the logical conclusion that Hal had a very intricate network of "friends" who could track down information and destroy it quite completely when necessary. If Hal said they were safe it was true.
Finally, they reached the cargo bay. 443D passed in front of Hal and typed in a code on the security panel next to the door. A mechanism clunked and the door to the cargo bay slid open. Hal went in and carefully set down the heavy durasteel box. 443D would put it in the Cardea's secret compartment later. Even though she had been working with Hal for years, she still didn't trust him enough to let him know where the compartment was. It wasn't anything personal against Hal, she just wasn't a very trusting person.
"You should get that checked out," Hal said once he had straightened. 443D gave him a quizzical look. "Your door; it clunks. I don't think they're supposed to do that." A grin spread across 443D's face and she laughed.
"I've had this ship for years, and she hasn't let me down yet. So, don't you go about secretly hinting that she's a piece of junk." Hal rolled his shoulders into a slow shrug, and shifted his weight. For a few seconds his eyes danced across 443D's sensually toned body. He moved over to her and thoughtfully ran his fingers through her long raven hair. 443D looked into his eyes which reflected her own emotions; lust, love, and passion. Hal roughly pushed her against the cargo bay's wall and pressed his lips firmly against hers. Quickly, reluctantly, 443D pushed him away.
"We should get the cargo onto your ship," she said breathlessly. Hal looked at her with only one thing in mind.
"It can wait," he said as he began to kiss her neck, and muttered, "we have time."
443D woke to the sound of the Cardea's warning alarms. She bolted out of bed swearing. Quickly, she pulled a rough, brown tunic over her head and slid into a dark pair of pants. As she hastily stepped into her boots she threw Hal's clothes on top of him.
"Get up!" she shouted at him. Hal sat up sluggishly and blinked.
"What the hell?" he began, then noticed the alarms. "Shit!" He hurried to get into his clothes, as 443D headed for the room's door.
"Com me once you get the cargo onto your ship," she shouted at him as she dashed out of the room and ran off to the cockpit. Immediately upon reaching the cockpit, 443D slammed into her seat and started punching codes into the control board. Soon after, lasers from a twin blaster cannon hit the ship, shaking it violently. 443D heard a crashing sound back towards the cargo area.
"I'm… alright!" Hal shouted humorously even though the situation was drastic.
"Hurry up you idiot!" 443D shouted back at him as she checked on the ships damage status. The Cardea, being a well armed Corellian YT-2400, hadn't taken much damage from the blast, but 443D knew there'd be more and didn't want to find out just how much the Cardea could take.
"Ok, I'm in," Hal crackled across the comlink. "Disconnecting… now!" The Cardea jolted signally that the Runner had detached from her and 443D quickly spun the ship around to face her attacker. 443D's jaw dropped as her eyes locked onto the ship that was in front of her. It was Slave I, the infamous ship of Boba Fett. What the hell did he want with them? Fighting the instinct to freeze and panic, 443D switched on her comlink.
"Hal, I think we have a problem." Suddenly, Slave I opened fire again, this time targeting the Runner. Hal tried desperately to maneuver away from the blasts, but he had never been the galaxies best pilot. The scene outside 443D's view port seemed to play in slow motion as she flew her ship into a defensive position. Multiple twin cannon bolts blasted from Slave I and seared through the hull of the Runner. The stolen Imperial Immobilizer 418 erupted into a ball of flames, taking Hal along with it. 443D silently cursed Hal for being so attached to his posh gravity-well projectors.
Too shaken from the shock of what had just happened, 443D doubted she'd be able to take Fett on. Quickly she shot her Double laser cannons at Slave one to distract Fett for a second. Thankfully, it gave her the split second she needed to activate her Hyperdrive engines and escape.
They'd been caught. Somehow, someone had figured out about Hal and 443D's smuggling runs, and it had cost Hal his life. 443D was safe in deep space, but she knew it wouldn't last long. She would eventually have to port on some back water planet to buy supplies. Then anyone could find her, and people would definitely be looking. The Empire obviously had a bounty after her, and in that day and age people were willing to go to extreme lengths to get credits. Boba Fett wasn't an ordinary space urchin; he only went after the bigger fish in the sea. Under normal circumstances 443D would almost feel proud to have such a hefty bounty on her head, but circumstances weren't normal.
Slowly, 443D leaned back in her seat, numbness flooding her mind. Seeing your partner's ship be blown up right in front of your eyes knowing he was on it wasn't the most joyful experience to have to go through. She didn't quite know how to feel, let alone know what to do next. The Emperor's influences reached far through the galaxy. It would be hard for 443D to find a planet where she could take refuge, even harder with Boba Fett, and probably a few of other bounty hunters, on her trail. She had to think fast.
After a few minutes of thinking, a decision was made. 443D would attempt to reach the Outer Rim planet of Tatooine without further intervention by bounty hunters, by taking a series of short Hyperspace jumps heading in seemingly random directions. If done correctly, this would make the Cardea nearly impossible to follow, unless Fett had placed a tracker on her, which 443D fervently hoped he hadn't.
With the Hyperspace course plotted, 443D moved to the living quarters of the Cardea. She stopped in the galley, rummaged though the cupboards, but found she didn't have an appetite. Regret and nausea filled her stomach as she passed by her bedroom, in which she and Hal had just made love in only a few hours ago. Had it really been such a short time ago? 443D felt like those happy moments had passed eons ago. Wearily, she rubbed her eyes and moved on through the ship.
443D stopped in the Med bay and rummaged through the measly supplies it contained. It didn't take her long to find some sleeping pills and dry swallow them. The thought to take the whole bottle never crossed her mind. She wasn't the suicide type.
When she reached the recreation room, 443D flopped down onto the worn sofa without putting much thought put into the action. She lay on her back staring up at the plain metal ceiling for awhile, but eventually the drugs started to course through her system. Her eyes began to droop, and her breathing slowed. Eventually, her body fell into the haunting abyss known to most sentient beings as sleep, but 443D knew this period of slumber would not be refreshing to her tragedy worn mind.
The Cardea flew peacefully through Hyperspace. She was never bothered by any mechanical malfunctions or internal errors. No bounty hunters ever showed up when she exited Hyperspace to head off in another direction. After a few hours of traveling she had reached an orbiting position above Tatooine.
Bright flashing lights in the recreation room harshly yanked 443D from her chemical induced snooze. She jerked to a sitting position on the couch, her breathing heavy, and sweat dewing her face. If she still hadn't been so exhausted 443D would have been glad that she had been separated so abruptly from her haunting nightmares. Sluggishly, she stood off the couch and toddled into the cockpit.
The planet that filled the view port in front of her was desolate and barren. 443D looked upon it with disgust. She really had no pleasure in having to come to such a hot, dusty planet. Unfortunately, she didn't have much of a choice.
As 443D began to punch in the coordinates for the landing sequence, the Cardea's sensors picked up a ship exiting Hyperspace behind her. 443D noticed the information flash across her navigation monitor and a queasy feeling started to form in her stomach. Hoping, praying that it wasn't Boba Fett again, she started up the landing sequence and began descending into the planet's atmosphere. Unexpectedly, the Cardea was hit with an ion blast from the ship behind her and froze where she was. 443D's eyes widened. Rushing around the cockpit, she hurriedly tried to bring on the ship's back up systems. Though all her attempts, she couldn't get the ship under her control again.
If the Cardea had been hit before she had started her descent towards the planet everything would've been fine as she remained gracefully suspended in space, but because 443D had initiated the ship's decline, she was now plummeting through Tatooine's atmosphere. Hastily, 443D sat down in her chair and fastened her safety harness as the Cardea began to tailspin. She grabbed the ship's control stick and yanked back as hard as she could, but the frozen ship wouldn't respond. There was nothing to be done besides hope that the Cardea would respond in time before she made contact at a crushing velocity with the sandy dunes below.
Less than a hundred meters away from the ground, 443D watched as her inevitable death loomed closer and closer in the view port. Wonders flooded her mind in these last few seconds of life, things that you never imagined you would think before you died. What side of the ship would hit the ground? Would the sand below me melted into glass from the sheer heat of the impacting ship which had just made an unshielded decent through kilometers of atmosphere above? Would she feel anything as her ship's hull crushed up around her? Had Hal felt it when his ship had exploded?
Rather quickly, the Cardea did hit the sand dunes. It landed on its starboard side, the cockpit's side. The screech of the durasteel hull crunching was agonizing. 443D didn't feel a thing as the right side of the cockpit edged frighteningly close to her. The force of the impact alone had jolted her body around in her seat, and sent her plummeting into a dark and lonesome abyss from where many a man seldom returns.
Boba Fett watched through the view port of Slave I as the Cardea took its fall towards Tatooine . It had been easy taking it down, almost too easy. A simple ion cannon blast had done the trick. Letting his target be killed by a planetary impact wasn't exactly Boba Fett's style, but the Empire had said they didn't care about the body and Boba hadn't been in the mood to chase 443D all around Tatooine. He had other places to be and better bounties to hunt than chasing after a couple of smugglers who the Empire had been too clumsy to catch.
The Empire had required proof of 443D's death, so Boba maneuvered the Slave I to follow the Cardea down through Tatooine's atmosphere. He had been informed that 443D could always been found wearing one of two identical silver mobius rings, her partner in smuggling, Hal, wearing the other. There hadn't really been a bounty on Hal's head, though the Empire had been irritated at hi for stealing one of their ships, but Boba hadn't wanted him interfering with his attack against the Cardea. Of course, 443D fleeing the scene of their first rendezvous hadn't really been expected by Boba, but it had been easy to track her measly attempt at hiding her Hyperspace destination.
When the Cardea landed on Tatooine it had continued to slide along in the sand, but once it had stopped its glide Fett had landed the Slave I near by and walked over to the ship wreck. Since the ship's entrance had no need to be locked during flight and obviously hadn't been locked once the ship had "landed", it had been easy for Boba to get into the Cardea. Inside the ship he had wandered around a bit, checking every room to make sure no one was in there, but had quickly moved on to the cockpit. There in the pilot's seat, drooping over the safety harness, sat the limp form of an athletic looking woman with long black hair and glittering skin. Boba's breath nearly caught in his chest. The details of the bounty had given only a brief explanation of 443D's looks, and Boba hadn't imagined the space toughened smuggler to be a woman of astounding beauty.
Boba mentally smacked himself. What was he thinking? He was on a job and didn't have time for such foolish thoughts. Besides, why lust after a dead woman? It simply wasn't professional.
Charily, Boba lifted 443D's left hand and slipped the silver mobius ring off of her delicate ring finger. He found it curious that she wore the ring on the finger that wedding rings were traditionally placed on, and wondered just how close she and her partner had been. It mattered little seeing as they were now both dead. Perhaps they had passed on to a better place and were now reunited. Boba hastily shook the thought form his mind. He didn't know why the woman had the affect of inflicting mild sympathy in him, but it irritated him greatly.
Just before Boba let 443D's hand drop back into her lap he realized something. Even through his gloves, Boba could feel that 443D's body was remarkably warm for being dead. He considered the fact that it had not been long since the Cardea had crashed, wiping 443D from the face of existence, but he decided it wouldn't hurt to check. Meticulously, Boba removed the glove from his right hand and felt for a pulse on 443D's wrist. It was there, slow and weak, but she was living none the less. Boba let her hand fall harshly and took a step back.
How anyone could survive the impact that the Cardea had taken Boba didn't understand, but he knew he had to make a choice about what to do with 443D. Training told him to be done with it, to pull out his blaster and finish her off, but something else told him not to do it. He had never left a job undone, but something about this woman made it incredibly hard for him to be cold hearted. Maybe she reminded him of some one he had known or a person he had killed before. Whatever it was, it was like a barrier preventing him from killing her.
Boba checked 443D's pulse again, just to be sure he hadn't been imagining things before, but the pulse was still there. It was then that Boba made his decision. With such a weak pulse, 443D's chances of surviving without medical help were very slim, and Boba knew that no one on Tatooine would come to her rescue. He decided to let nature finish the job and leave to fate whether or not the beautiful woman died. He'd take the mobius ring back to the Empire and collect the reward for ridding the Empire of yet another pest. They'd never find out the truth about Boba's mission, and this time that was good enough for him.