The droid popper went off too close.
With a flicker, the night-sight circuitry in his helmet died. "Damn it, Trace!" he shouted angrily, tearing the helmet off and firing at several B1 battle droids that somehow survived. The night sky was lit up from dozens of wrecked droid fighters strewn about the landscape.
"Sorry, sir!" the clone commando apologized. "They were too close and—"
The ground seemed to jump up underneath them as a mortar exploded with a deafening roar less than five meters away. The fiery blast lit up the night and sent smoking, rocky fragments flying in all directions.
Andano tossed the fried helmet aside. He could barely hear anything over the roar of the battle and the crumping of missile impacts. They were in a large crater, the perimeter of which he quickly circled to reach the corpse of a clone trooper. As he reached for the helmet, two B1 battle droids crested the crater's edge. "Trace!" he cried, diving out of the way as they opened fire.
"Got 'em!" Trace hollered, blasting one in the head and the other square in the chest. "Are you okay, sir?"
"Just dandy!" he shouted back. He took the helmet off the dead clone and put it on, saying a silent prayer to whatever gods there were that it still worked. When he reached under the chin and activated it, the helmet's circuitry came to life. He breathed a sigh of relief as the battlefield once again clarified in shades of green. "Where's Six?"
No sooner had he asked then four clone commandos dived into the crater as angry red streaks of blaster fire darted overhead.
"We've got company, sir!" Six yelled, getting up and firing over the edge of the crater.
In the distance, the hydraulic thumping of a crab droid's locomotion could be heard.
"Six!" Andano shouted, now that he could be heard. "Get air support over here and pound that kiffing hill!"
"This damned gun is jammed again!" Boomer said, hitting the side of his Z6 rotary cannon with his fist. "These damned things!"
The side of the crater little more than six or seven meters away from their position disintegrated in a fiery explosion as a missile from a Hailfire droid hit, peppering them with red hot rocks.
"Bloody hell!" Andano shouted, more than a little fear coursing through him, though his training soon came to the fore and he regained a measure of calm. If that crab droid wasn't taken out, though… "Trace! Get on that ridge and give us some cover fire! Stitch, see what you can do to help with that crab droid!" He fired at a battle droid that had appeared on the other side of the crater, and its head exploded in a shower of sparks. The damned droids were converging on their position, and would soon be crawling all over them.
"Yes, sir!" the two clone commanders said, crawling up to the ridge and firing away at the droids.
"Boomer! Gizmo! Take out that kiffing Hailfire droid!" He crawled up to the edge of the crater to peer over the edge. "Six! Air support! Now!" Six opened his wrist comm. "Sigma to Nova Base, requesting air support!" he shouted over a burst of nearby blaster fire. "Sector aurek-seven-seven-niner! Approach vector is south of target! Send in heavies!"
"Copy that, Sigma," the radio crackled. "ETA is three minutes for heavies. Standby for bombardment along approach vector!" "Fireworks are on the way!" Six shouted over to Andano.
Boomer, meanwhile, stood up next to Gizmo. "You heard him, boys! Time to play kick the can!" His rotary cannon finally clicked and the barrel rotated into place. He opened fire; the cannon was louder than the rest of theirs combined, and poured fiery destruction into the ranks of the advancing battle droids, tearing through them like a shredder.
Their unit was pinned down in a large crater, with dozens of flankers still approaching, crawling over the sparking remains of their counterparts. A crab droid was rapidly approaching from the southwest, moving with a frightening, darting motion, and a Hailfire droid was approaching from the east. To the southeast was a hill that the droids had dug into with heavy artillery, where much of the blaster fire was coming from. Dozens of fires burned across the rocky desert wastes, marking the graves of hundreds of wrecked crab and Hailfire droids; the litter of B1 battle droids made the whole valley look like a vast junkyard. Dotting the landscape were too many corpses of the fallen clone troopers.
Boomer and Gizmo focused their fire on the Hailfire droid, managing to hit one of the missile racks and causing it to explode in a blinding flash. Missiles went scudding in all directions, leaving twisting paths of ash and smoke hanging in the still air. The Hailfire droid's side was shredded, and it spun out of control, flying over a hill and crashing to a smoking stop ten meters away.
Trace and Stitch, meanwhile, concentrated their fire on the crab droid while Andano laid down cover fire, picking off B1 battle droids who got too close. The two clone commandos managed to take out one of the crab droid's photoreceptors, and it began firing blindly, vaporizing several B1 battle droids who'd gotten too close. A well-aimed droid popper took out the malfunctioning crab droid, and detonated into a fireball that rose thirty meters into the air.
What was supposed to have been a simple infiltration and sabotage mission for Sigma Squadron had turned into a slog through hell. The mission itself had been simple: get in and take out a fortress the Separatists had built into a foot hill five clicks to the east where there was a secret refueling depot. Inside was enough fuel and ordinance to outfit a regiment.
Someone up in orbit, however, hadn't waited for the signal and had sent down the troops too soon, and the result was a hellish ground battle with heavy casualties. Their only luck so far had been the fact that the shield generators around the fortress were only partially online and operational—they were strong enough to cover the top of the foothill and protect it from direct orbital bombardment, but there was a tunnel at the base of the hill that remained unshielded.
Now, the situation was getting desperate. They were surrounded by dozes of battle droids converging on their location, and using the electrobinocular circuitry built into the helmet, Andano could see droids on the hill struggling to turn a piece of heavy artillery to target their location. If they start ranging on us, he thought, it's only going to take three or four shots.
"Get down!" Boomer shouted, though he sounded distant.
Andano turned around in time to see four Hailfire missiles go streaking past less than a meter overhead and hit the dirt, pushing Trace down as well. Gizmo had worked his way over to the destroyed Hailfire droid and had wedged the missile rack that hadn't exploded up on a metal beam to stabilize it, then manually launched the remaining missiles, with devastating results.
Battle droids vanished in fiery explosions that shredded them and sent red-hot fragments flying in all directions, taking out even more.
Gizmo stuck his head up above the missile rack. "I'm a firm believer in recycling, sir!"
Laughing, Andano picked off another droid. "We've got a hill to storm!" The missiles had put a gap in the line of battle droids. Now, they just had to make it through the gap and to the fortress.
Kandamas was like many other lifeless back rocket planets that he and his men had stormed to take out Separatist nests. It was a barren, rocky world dotted with low mountains and foothills covered with ugly purplish-green ferns and scrub plants. It had little to offer other than its out-of-the-way location with which to hide a base.
They'd all dropped into the atmosphere on the other side of the planet, and flew their ARC-170s low to the deck to stay below the sensor net, flying deep in canyons to further hide their presence. They hid their fighters under a rocky outcropping behind a ridge about ten klicks from the fortress and went the rest of the way on foot.
The ridge had been the only truly high ground in this valley which stretched several dozen kilometers in all directions towards a ring of low mountains and canyons, besides the escarpment into which the Separatists fortress was built.
They'd made it three klicks, dodging behind boulders and staying low despite the pitch darkness of the night, when the fortress lit up with search lights and weapons fire. LAATs dropped out of the sky carrying clone troopers, the battle droids began massing at the foot of the escarpment, and all hell broke loose.
It was Geonosis all over again.
"Fighters inbound, sir!" Trace yelled.
Boomer and Gizmo whooped and hit the dirt next to him.
Overhead, three CEC 111B's came screaming in overhead, their belly turrets blazing away with ion fire at the flankers. When they reached the hill where the droids had dug in with the heavy artillery, they dropped their loads of ion bombs. Bluish light flashed as subsonic crumps shattered the air, and the fighters circled back around to pick off more droids.
The triangular Raiders weren't pretty, resembling a pair of mandibles off a YT-1300 with a cockpit strapped between them and engines bolted on the back, but they were lethal against droids. The Republic had less than a hundred of them, all prototypes from CEC attempting to win the starfighter contract, but in the end, Incom and Koensayr won out. It was a shame, too, because the Raiders were as tough as durasteel rivets.
"Go! Go! Go!" Andano shouted, climbing up over the edge of the crater and blasting flankers as he raced for the base of the escarpment. Red streaks of blaster fire lanced all around, looking like the flashes of angry fire beetles. "Come on, you flesh bags! You want to live forever?!" he yelled, running all out. It was only a dozen meters away.
There was a flash of light.
He sat up, gasping for air as his heart tried pounding its way out of his chest. His skin was clammy, and the bedsheet in his clenched fist was damp with sweat. Even after all these years, it was still so real! He could still feel the rocky ground of Mandamus beneath his feet, and could still smell the stink of sweat and plastoid armor, the ozone of blaster fire and scorched rocks.
The bed chambers were dark, but a pale orange glow from the street lamps in the main cavern filtered through the sliding glass doors that lead onto the balcony and caused the gauzy white curtains to luminesce. A very old mechanical clock that displayed the phases of Ryloth's five moons on its face stood in the corner, its fanciful pendulum carved from a single piece of quartz crystal ticking softly as it swung back and forth. The quiet, vibrato hum an airspeed rose and faded as it passed by, and the sigh of the air vents came on as the atmospheric regulator started up.
They were the calm, quiet night sounds of a domestic life, not the sounds of battles fought long ago across a dozen worlds. They were comforting in their regularity, their orderliness a bastion against the memories of war he could never forget. He wore six thin durasteel indenti-tags to prevent him from forgetting, tokens of the men who'd been family to him, brothers-in-arms forged in the fires of battle and tempered with a love and respect burned of adversity. Their fate had been unjust and undeserved, and their blood stained his soul like a tattoo, marking him forever with indelible guilt.
He exhaled a heavy sigh, taking several deep breaths to purge the terror coursing through his body. He unclenched his fists and the knot in his stomach began to loosen. He slowly opened his eyes and took a sip of water from the glass on the nightstand. The weight of the military tags were neutronium weights around his neck.
He lay back and glanced to his left; lying next to him in silent slumber was Neela, a lethan, or red-skinned Twi'lek. She had a pretty smile that made her cheeks dimple, and he was amazed that she hadn't been kidnapped years ago to serve as a slave to some Hutt. She was tougher than most thought, though, due not in the least to him training her in using a blaster properly.
Neela lay facing away from him, her right leg drawn up as she hugged a pillow. The bare skin of her back rose and fell in slow, steady breaths, and her lekku twitched fitfully. The sheet was bunched around her waist, revealing her long, shapely legs; around the right ankle was a finely-wrought aurodium chain he'd given her on her life day last week.
Though they shared a bed, Neela was only a close friend, and while he trusted her more than most, he also knew that if she had her way, she'd be pregnant just to keep him around, but that was something he couldn't allow. It wasn't because he didn't want children—he'd love to have a daughter to spoil. He just couldn't put th at child in danger where someone might try to strike a blow at him through her, or her mother. The Empire would have no compunction about holding a child, especially a Twi'lek-human child, hostage to get at him.
He turned on her side and slid closer to Neela, closing his eyes as he breathed in the scent of her skin, a smell that reminded him of sun-baked stones and wild grass, with the sweetness of sage plants. His visits to Ryloth were infrequent out of concern for her safety; he didn't want anyone tracking him to her, though he did this for all the people he associated with. When he visited, every moment of the few weeks he'd stay, he'd spend in her company.
This visit, however, saw the return of his dreams, and they weren't something easily explained away by a bit of indigestion, or too much corrvum, the Twi'lek beer brewed from mushrooms. Over the last two weeks he'd been here, he'd had dreams like this, flashbacks to the Clone Wars, at least every other night. Neela's solution was to focus her rather amorous attention on him to the point of exhaustion, and while her intentions were good and her attempts enjoyable, it wasn't helping make the dreams go away. His instincts told him something was coming, and warning him to beware. Of what, he had no idea, and that was the problem.
It was time to be moving on again, he decided as the old familiar ache of loneliness swept through him. He'd tried to put the past behind him so that he could move on and try to survive in the emperor's new version of the Republic—a farce, if ever he saw one. He'd built a new life as a highly successful smuggler, and with it, a reputation for always delivering on time. Such a life required that he not stay in one place for too long; it was too dangerous, both to himself and to all he associated with. Some nights, he'd often wondered if it wouldn't have been better to die with his men rather than wander the galaxy, a survivor of Palpatine's treachery.
"Kryss?" Neela murmured sleepily, rolling over onto her back and looking at him through half-lidded eyes. "What's wrong, paka?"
He smiled faintly at her use of the word paka, Ryl for "beloved." "Go back to sleep, Nee," he said softly, wrapping an arm across her chest, just below her breasts.
She pulled her lekku back and rolled onto her side to face him, looking concerned. "You had another dream." She brushed the side of his face with her left lekku. "Poor paka."
"I'll be all right," he said, running the backs of his fingers over her shoulder.
"Poodoo," she scoffed, pushing him onto his back and draped herself across his chest, one leg thrown over both of his. "You go to sleep," she said, nestling her head on his chest. "After last night, you should have been too tired to even roll over."
He grinned. "Such a naughty one you are," he chuckled. "Ow!"
She'd bitten his chest lightly with her small, sharp teeth. "Don't forget it, wermo." She rested her head against his chest. "What was the dream about?"
"What dream? Ow! Damn it, Neela!" he laughed.
She grinned up at him, her large, dark brown eyes unrepentant. "You're a terrible liar."
"I didn't want you to think your efforts were ineffective," he reasoned.
"Why, so I'd keep trying?" she scoffed.
"Well, there's that," he teased.
She bit him just above his left nipple. Hard.
"Ow! Look, you little sand panther!" he yelled, grabbing her by the shoulder and flipping her onto her back, his legs on either side of her as his hands pinned hers above her head. "I think you drew blood!"
"Comes with being a scoundrel," she responded matter-of-factly, lightly nipping at his throat. "An incorrigible one at that."
He grinned. "I didn't hear any complaints last night." He nuzzled her neck, breathing her in as he kissed the base of her throat.
"Well, there's that," she chuckled.
"You're lucky I'm tired, Neela," he said, rolling over onto his back again.
"Aw, poor paka," she said, raising her eyebrows in sympathy as she draped herself over him and lay her head back down on his chest.
"Mmm," he said, closing his eyes.
They lay together in silence, her stretched out on top of him. He began running his nails lightly across her back and she sighed contentedly. Her skin was warm against his, and he could feel every gentle curve of her body. She entwined her fingers around the fingers of his other hand down by his hip and squeezed gently.
"Mmm," she purred softly. "You're putting me to sleep, paka."
"So sleep," he murmured.
"You're the one who needs sleep, koochoo." She squeezed his legs between hers and propped herself up on one elbow, then began kissing the skin by his collar bone.
"That isn't going to help me sleep, you know." "Well, not right away," she giggled, kissing him and nipping at his lower lip.
"Ow, you little—"
She laughed, grinning mischievously. "We Twi'leks like to mark our territory, and you, dear paka, have gone unclaimed far too long."
"With good reason," he said, gently stroking her lekku.
Her eyes closed in pleasure as a shiver went down her back. "Stop trying to distract me," she said huskily, opening her eyes a little. "I know you'll be leaving soon, and I want to make sure you remember me."
He used both hands to stroke her lekku, brushing his fingers delicately along their length.
She bit her lower lip. "I wish you'd take me with you."
"I can't, Neela. It's too dangerous."
"I'd be safe with you," she murmured, kissing him.
"You'd be in more danger with me. You're safer here, trust me."
She frowned. "You just don't want me meeting all the other Twi'lek women you seduce," she scoffed. "Just so long as I am your first wife." She grinned.
"You think I'd have enough energy for more than one?" he laughed.
"Psh. I know your type. Plus, I get to have final say on who comes after me." She ran her finger over his chest. "Besides, my own father had three wives, and had he not put his foot down, the three would have convinced him to take another."
"How many siblings do you have?"
"Fourteen. How many other women do you have?"
"My reputation is greatly exaggerated, I assure you," he chuckled.
Her eyes widened. "So! You admit it! You are a scoundrel!"
"Um, what were we talking about again?"
"Too late, buster," she said, flashing a smile. "I guess I'll just have to mark what belongs to me!" She bit his collar bone.
"Ow!" he howled. Sure enough, he was bleeding. "Stang! That hurt!"
"Good!" she scoffed unsympathetically. "You'll remember your first wife when you're in their arms!"
She then tried making him forget about those other Twi'lek women, leaving plenty of bite marks just in case he forgot. She also managed to make him forget about the Clone Wars, too, for a little while.
Neela lay curled up on her side afterwards, facing him with a smug, self-satisfied grin that made him smile. He watched her fall asleep, her breathing slowing as she drifted off. It would be easy, he knew, to just accede to her desires and make himself vulnerable. There were times when he longed to settle down, but the danger was just too great.
Sure, he knew more than a few Twi'lek women up and down the Corellian Run—they were some of the prettiest women in the galaxy in his opinion—and while he might occasionally tak3e a little easy comfort in their warm embrace, it was always with the understanding that it would never be anything serious. At most, it would fill the howling loneliness for a little while. So no matter how possessive Neela might be, and no matter how badly she wanted him for her own, it could never be.
When he was sure she was asleep, he slipped out of bed and dressed. He needed fresh air to clear his head of such foolish thoughts. He pulled on his clothes quickly and quietly—black durafiber pants, heavy combat boots, a white, button-down shirt and black leather vest, and his gun belt with the heavy blaster pistol slung low on his right hip. He grabbed his old leather flight jacket and ducked out.
The city of Nawara was built inside of a very small mountain maybe five kilometers across at the base. On the inside, the entire mountain had been hollowed out and resembled a giant bowl of terraced levels covered by a dome. At the top was a large hole protected by blast doors to allow for take-offs. In the very center of the city was a sandy pit about a kilometer across, lined with hangar bays built into the sides of the terraces. A wide boulevard at ground level split the terraced levels and ran from the landing pit to the south side of the terraced "bowl," forming a key-hole shape. At its terminus, the boulevard featured a large set of blast doors that were gated and guarded to allow landspeeders entry to the city. The bottom terrace was about dozens of meters above the floor of the boulevard, with stairways carved into the rock for access.
The two main entrances to the city were protected thusly due to the sandstorms that ravaged Ryloth's surface. Numerous exterior openings and tunnels throughout the city acted as a natural evaporator, keeping Nawara's cisterns full of water. Because Ryloth was tidally locked, one side of the planet always faced the star. Most of the cities were in the twilight belt, but Nawara was the farthest city day-ward on the planet. Thus, the solar energy would heat up the outside of the mountain and slowly radiate that heat through the rock into the city, keeping Nawara balmy but comfortable.
Many of Nawara's residents and businesses were built right into the sides of the terraces, but Neela's apartment was in one of the adobe-like structures that lined the outside edges of the terraces. Torch trees—metal poles containing four torches at the top—lined the streets, providing a flickering orange light. He could see pinpoints of light from torch trees clear across the cavern, though a great deal of light poured in through the opening up top unless it was closed due to storms.
He climbed down the stair from her second-story, front balcony that she shared with other apartments, and walked down the winding, cobblestone street.
There were a few Twi'leks here and there—Nawara, like other cities on Ryloth, had no discernible diurnal cycle; it was always mid-morning in appearance. Thus, businesses were always open, and there were always places to go and things to see. While most of Nawara's population were Twi'lek, there were plenty of humans, Rodians, and even the occasional Hutt.
Twi'leks weren't very technologically sophisticated, so besides landspeeders and the occasional airspeeder, two wheel carts were fairly common as well. It was a strange juxtaposition to see carts pulled by rycrits, a type of four-legged herbivore found on Ryloth and used for food and labor, and kybucks imported from off-world, next to repulsor and spacecraft.
Even more out of place were the occasional neon signs attached to the fronts of the quaint, archaic-looking buildings advertising various businesses such as cantinas, brothels, hotels, tattoo parlors, and hokuum dens. For many less-advanced races, such temptations were often too tempting to resist.
"You got the time?" a tall shadow in front of him asked in accented Basic, coming out of the alley between a tattoo parlor and a cantina. The shadow turned out to be a green-skinned Twi'lek dressed in boots, cargo pants and a grungy trench coat. He had a tattoo of a black serpent entwined around his left lekku.
"'Course he does," his friend growled, coming up behind Andano. He was a short, stocky Twi'lek with pale skin and more brawn than brain. Dressed in sneakers, jogging pants, and a muscle shirt, his frame powerfully built. "Credit, too, I'll wager." He poked him in the back with what certainly felt like a blaster pistol for emphasis.
"Sorry, pateesas," Andano said. "My old lady has all my money."
"Don't use that slug tongue around us! We ain't your friend, either." He snatched Andano's blaster and tossed it to Greenie.
"And you better make with the money quick," Greenie said, waving Andano's blaster pistol around.
Andano sighed, relaxing back onto one foot instinctively. The old forms were muscle-memory, and still came with ease. "Just give me my blaster back and walk away," he said quietly. It was charity, really, offering them any warning at all, but he didn't want to ruin his vacation. Or his shirt; there was bound to be blood spilled here if they didn't heed his advice.
Several people across the street had stopped to watch this exchange.
"You're dead," Greenie started to say.
Andano's reflexes were as sharp as ever. Sensing the outcome, he shifted his balance subtly, then stepped back and to the right of the thug behind him on his left with a speed that startled the pale one, knowing the green fool wouldn't think to check the safety. At the same time, he lashed out with his fist, causing Muscle-Brain's larynx. Then, everything happened at once.
Greenie tried firing Andano's blaster, getting only a click out of it. Muscle-Brain, clutching at his throat with his free hand and gagging for air, fired reflexively, hitting Greenie in the left hip instead of hitting Andano.
He collapsed, cursing his friend in Ryl in a scream. Andano punched Muscle-Brain in his lekku, making him scream as loud as his friend. Then, he snatched his pistol and blasted Greenie in the chest, then Muscle-Brain in the head. He tossed the pistol down. "Always check the safety first, wermo," he told Greenie, taking back his own pistol and returning it to its rightful place.
The street had fallen silent in the few seconds this had taken place, and as he stood up, the spectators shrugged and went about their business. One thing about Ryloth was that while there might have been a police force, the justice of the street usually prevailed. If someone tried robbing a person, and that person killed the would-be thief, then justice was served as far as the police concerned. Non-intervention in another's affairs was something deeply ingrained in Twi'lek culture; it was better to ride the storm, so they said, than to stand to face it and be knocked down.
He didn't care for killing at all—he'd seen enough death in the war to last him a lifetime—but he had no problem pulling the trigger when someone was threatening him or someone he considered a friend. No one threatened him or the people that the Force saw fit to place in his life and got away with it. He would always offer the would-be stickup artist a chance to walk away; if they failed to take their one out, then it was time for them to dealt with.
The floor of the Pit as the lowest level in the round bowl-like area was referred to, was covered in the fine, gritty sand blown in through the side entrance of Nawara, and was several dozen meters below the first terrace. The Pit was about a quarter-kilometer across and its walls were lined with hangar bays. From above, it looked like a giant "key-hole," with the bottom pointing towards the side blast doors. All the hangars were equipped with retractable doors and locks. Security was light because most ships berthed here had security systems of their own that dealt quickly, and often lethally, with would-be thieves. Down in the Pit, the smells of ship fuel and ozone permanently stained the air brown with their stench. Boxes and crates were stacked around the periphery, and maintenance droids skittered about. All but a dozen or so hangars contained ships, and at least half of that number had their ramps down.
One ship, a newer YT-1930 with a white and blue paint scheme, was under repair by an older scarred human with a shaggy blond beard. He was yelling at a couple of ASP droids as they carried cargo up the ramp.
"Need any help?" Andano asked.
"Nah," the older human answered. "Just flushing out the hydraulics on this landing gear, which might get done before next year if these droids would do it right!"
Chuckling, he walked on to his ship, two berths down, a highly-modified YT-1500FP transport named Glory Days, though it was currently using the transponder codes for another 1500 out of Ord Mantell named Best Guess. Built by CEC—the only company he'd buy from—the YT-1500FP wasn't as big as the newer 1930s, or it's more popular predecessor, the 1300, but it still utilized the same saucer shape of the YT-series. However, it lacked the typical forward mandibles, and its back-end was flat. Where the mandibles should have been was a forward-facing docking ring, underneath which was the boarding ramp was located. The cockpit was located above and behind the center of the saucer on an upper level, offering a superior view and giving the ship a swept look.
He'd worked for CEC for a few years after the close of the Clone Wars, flying cargo, repairing ships, and that sort of thing. It was his time there that made him loyal to the Corellian ships. Easily modifiable in countless variations, they offered durable ships that were fast and easy to fly while still keeping their prices down.
The Glory Days was far from defenseless, here. Her "security system: stood guard at the base of the boarding ramp. "You're early," Bull's Eye said. An IG-86 with a modified DC-17 blaster rifle, the droid was an impressive relic from before the Clone Wars that people underestimated at their peril. He'd been rebuilt and customized by Bright Eyes, an eccentric outlaw droid tech living way out in Smuggler's Run, and he'd cost a small fortune but was worth every deci-red. He was called Bull's Eye for a reason, and whether it was in a turret or with a blaster rifle, the results were devastating.
"No trouble?" "No. Why? You expecting some?" The droid flicked the safety off, and the rifle's capacitor charged with a rising, high-pitched whine. "I got the cure right here."
He snorted. Where in the hell did the droid learn to talk like some gunslinger out of a hologram? "I should hope not."
Inside, the furnishings were sparse but clean. There were a few personal touches here and there, like his aquarium filled with a variety of small, colorful fish from Ando Prime, and his prized water-bubbler jukebox from Adarlon that featured an optional holographic playback system to simulate a live band. In front of the engineering station was an expensive rug from Heptalia, featuring exquisite black and gold embroidery—something he'd collected in lieu of payment for some medical supplies.
He climbed the turret well up to the cockpit vestibule, and the door to the cockpit hissed open just as he stepped onto the deck. Standing there was what looked like an SP-4 analysis droid. "Your return is unexpected, sir," it stated.
"Why? You planning on throwing me a party while I'm gone?"
"Oh, no, sir!" the droid replied, managing to sound shocked. "I'm not programmed for hosting social events, although I can recommend several models of protocol droids that—" "I was only joking, TeeCee." He walked past the flustered droid and into the cockpit. It was like coming home, and the bantha leather bucket seat felt like it was made for him. He patted the arm rests affectionately. He'd made extensive modifications to the avionics, and added a lot of them from an old ARC-170 he'd found junked on Corellia, including the primary steering yoke and thrust control armature. There was also an expanded HUD, and since the junk dealer had two, be bought two. Best day of that junker's life, he wagered. Thus, the copilot station now also had a HUD, but one he'd tweaked to display additional systems information. He planned on upgrading to turning the entire canopy into the HUD as soon as he had the credits together.
"Alas, I do not comprehend humor," the droid lamented.
TC, short for Tin Can, was actually an eccentric FA-4 pilot droid whose programming had been transferred to the heuristic processor and body of an SP-4 analysis droid, also purchased from Bright Eyes. The reason that Andano had specifically asked for such a creation was because he like FA-4 pilot droids, but needed it to be able to climb up and down the turret well, and FA-4s were normally tracked. SP-4s, however, were bipedal. TC, however, had never undergone a memory wipe, and so had developed some personality quirks. Probably the same thing that was happening to Bull's Eye, he mused.
"Shall I begin take-off procedures, sir?"
"No, I just wanted some fresh air and figured I'd check on you."
"How considerate, sir. I can assure you that everything here is nominal."
"Any messages?"
"Several, sir. One was encrypted and is hands-on."
"So, we'll have to go to the Tasrov Cloud."
The Tasrov Cloud was minor navigational hazard on the way from Arkanis to Sirpar, an asteroid field of little significance. However, it was an excellent hiding place for a small refueling depot he'd built into one of the larger asteroids near the center of the field. It was little more than a large hangar with a series of side chambers, a couple of generators, life support and fuel tanks he kept filled with top-grade Imperial fuel. In one of the side chambers, however, was a state-of-the-art encrypted Fabritech Q-7 hypertransciever tied to a computer bank that people could leave messages when they wanted to get in contact with him.
Hands-on, however, meant that he would have to manually decrypt the message, and such messages were usually high-priority. When the hypertransciever received such a coded message, it was programmed to contact the Glory Days immediately.
"We'll swing over there when we leave and see what's up." He stood up. "Continue to monitor spaceport control." On of the things TC excelled at was electronic espionage; it was one of the reasons Andano stayed one step ahead of the Imperials.
"Very good, sir," TC said, sitting at the comm station behind the copilot's seat.
It was a little after seven in the morning by the time he made it back to Neela's street, so he stopped at the corner bakery that was just opening across the street and purchased a selection of pastries and two tall fiber cups of steaming hot kaf. The smell of the pastries made his stomach growl.
When he got back to Neela's apartment, he carefully set breakfast on the table in the small kitchenette area, then crept into the bedroom. Neela was still asleep, laying on her back with one arm thrown over her eyes. The sheet was bunched around her waist and one leg was bent at the knee.
"We'll play sabacc later," she murmured softly as he was removing his jacket.
"Sabacc?" he asked, turning to look at her.
"Not now, paka."
He repressed a laugh as he realized she was talking in her sleep. Shaking his head, he tossed his jacket and sunbelt on a chair, then kicked off his boots, and headed to the refresher.
The sani-steam felt great and relaxed him, but made him realize just how tired he was. He hadn't been sleeping well with the dreams, and Neela hadn't exactly been helping, he thought with a grin.
The coded message troubled him, though. Who could it be from? He hoped it wasn't Xian, a tall Falleen Vigo in the Black Sun crime syndicate whom he owed money to. She'd had her eye on him for a while and he was going to make a point of paying her off as soon as possible; he'd borrowed a small amount of money from her to upgrade the delta boosters on the Glory Days. The alternative was…undesirable to say the least. He wasn't going to become another trophy in her harem if he could help it.
After breakfast and Neela's attentions, he would be ready to sleep his last day on Ryloth away, or go enjoy open air and quiet walks through the curio shops with her before returning to the smuggler's life of cramped spaces and canned air. So much to do, so little time. He sighed, breathing in the scent of Neela, and tried to relax. The message was probably just someone who owed him some money.
Besides once he was in space, he could outrun any trouble that came his way.