A/N: super excited about this one. enjoy!
As they headed toward the Hawk, with Atton pestering her about what she meant by "how do you feel about pazaak" (with questions regarding how in the hell she'd not noticed his opinion of pazaak), the injured refugee waved to them. Trista sighed and picked up her pace, kneeling next to him again.
"What's up?"
"Just thought you oughta know, two Twi'leks and a Wookiee on speeders headed down there about five minutes ago with a bit of cargo."
Trista raised a brow. "How suspicious were they?"
"They didn't look like the Nar Shaddaa type, if that's what you're asking."
"That bodes well," Atton grumbled. Trista glanced at him.
"Okay, thanks." She handed him five more credits and got to her feet, and he tucked them away.
"Yeah, yeah, glad to help."
Trista started for the exposed walkway to the landing pad, trailing her fingers over her lightsaber in her sleeve. A week or so ago, the cold metal was more discomforting than comforting, but now it almost felt like the warm leather of the handle instead. "HK, be ready, but don't shoot."
"Query: Are you certain, master? This seems like a time for plentiful blaster fire."
"Yes, I'm sure. Everyone else, stay on me."
She rounded the corner, walking forward as she took in the landing pad.
Two speeders, one loaded with several plastisteel crates of cargo, sat idling by the Hawk. A large, reddish-brown Wookiee in a crimson vest was stacking them next to the ramp, while a shorter blue and a taller pinkish Twi'lek stood talking to Mical at the ramp's bottom. HK made a curious clicking noise with his vocabulator.
Mical looked past them and motioned toward Trista, and the two turned. The blue Twi'lek nodded and started forward, datapad in hand.
"You own this hunk of junk?" she asked, jerking her thumb back at the ship. Trista squinted. It wasn't an accusatory insult toward the ship, almost... friendly? Familiar?
Either way, it set her even more on edge.
"Let me guess, we're on your landing pad."
"Nah, we're across the sector." She stuck out her hand. "Vao of Sinylea-Vao Imports. Used to just be Sinylea Imports. Got a delivery addressed to your freighter, unless this isn't the Ebon Hawk."
"Uh..." Trista glanced at the others, who shrugged. "Who's it from?"
"An anonymous donor."
"Any hints?"
"There's a datapad in there somewhere." She waved back at the crates. "You want it or nah?"
"What's in it?"
"Enough food to keep an army moving for about a year, weapons, armor, energy cells—" She scrolled down her datapad. "Few other parts I'm not 'supposed' to get my hands on — don't tell anyone. Droid parts, medical supplies, stuff like that."
"Who would send us such a thing?" the Handmaiden asked. Trista raised a brow in reply. "No, I do not believe my mistress would send us a..." She fished for a word for a moment. "Care package."
"Atton, can you grab T3 to scan them?" He opened his mouth, closed it again with a huff, and started back into the ship. Mical stopped him for a second, then let him continue after a brief, tense exchange.
"No funny business, I promise. If I wanted to steal your ship, or dump a box of gizka on you, I'd've done it already."
Trista didn't want to know what that meant. "Comforting."
Vao motioned to HK with her datapad. "This one of those bounty hunting models?"
Trista opened her mouth, but HK cut her off. "Offended Statement: No." His optics flickered a second, and Trista watched, almost amazed, as his metal digits relaxed on his gun. "Query: You seem familiar, meatbag. Have I threatened you before?"
"I've never seen you before in my life," Vao said, deadpan. "Have you, Big Z?" The Wookiee shook his head and shrugged. "Exactly. How's it going, need a hand?" "Big Z" set a crate down and grumbled a response. "Okay, just let me know."
"He, uh..." Trista nodded, and Vao narrowed her eyes.
"No, he's my friend. Got it?"
Trista held up her hands. "Got it. Can't blame me for checking."
Vao eyed her for a moment, then grinned. "Don't worry. You seem decent so, thanks for checking."
"Uh, thanks." The commlink crinkled in the air, and Trista pulled it off her belt. "Morace."
"Yeah, uh, T3's not coming out."
She frowned, looked back up the ramp, but the droid was nowhere in sight. "He's on wheels, just push him down the ramp."
"He's got the shock arm out again. Frakking droids."
Trista sighed, putting the commlink back on her belt. "Hold on, I want to get my droid to check the crates out."
"Tell him it's fine." Vao helped Big Z stabilize a stack of crates. "We don't bite, not even the big guy."
Trista studied her for a moment, then kept walking. The pink Twi'lek smiled as she headed past her, and she returned it politely, if still confusedly. T3 was around the corner in the garage, chirping at Atton with his shock arm out. His head spun toward her as she approached.
"T3, I need you to scan this delivery."
T3 responded with an uncharacteristically flat no. Trista crouched next to him.
"Don't worry. I'll be there the whole time, okay?"
He responded with a dejected chirp and pulled his shock arm back, then rolled past her to the ramp. Atton motioned after him. "Why does he always listen to you?"
"Because I'm nice to him," she said, following the droid out, and Atton swore and jogged after them. T3 rolled toward the crates and gave them a cursory scan as he stayed away from the Wookiee, who just bemusedly watched him. After a minute T3 turned, chirped an all-clear, and sped up the ramp without another look. Trista glanced at Vao.
"Skittish little guy, isn't he? Anyway, if you want this, we can load 'em up for you. But we should hurry 'cause we didn't tell anyone we were landing."
The pink Twi'lek glared at her. "Mish! You're not supposed to tell 'em that!"
"I'm just tryin' to get us moving again!"
Trista sighed, dragging her fingers together over her eyes. "Okay, just get it up there. Cargo hold is through the garage."
"Great. C'mon, Z, let's get these up here."
Z grumbled something and pushed the first pallet up the ramp. Vao started pushing the next pallet, with Mical jumping in to help, and Trista glanced at the pink Twi'lek as she studied her nails.
"Oh, no, sorry, I have a bad back."
"Fair enough." Trista pushed up her sleeves, set her hands on the other pallet and, with Handmaiden's help, pushed it up into the garage. Inside, Vao had stopped and was investigating the hold.
"Looks like you had a run in with someone," she said, motioning to the scaffolding. Bao-Dur, standing in the doorway to the main hold, nodded as he wiped his hands off with a rag.
"Ship's taken damage, but she's still spaceworthy," he said. The Twi'lek nodded.
"Good structure, though. Should get you a long way." She pushed the crates forward toward the cargo hold, and Bao-Dur looked at Trista as she stopped.
"Who is that?"
Trista shrugged. "Someone dropping off cargo we didn't ask for. T3 scanned it already. So... I'm not looking gift supplies in the mouth."
"Fair enough. I'll take this from here." He waved her away from the pallet and began pushing it back toward the cargo hold.
"This seems very... unorthodox," the Handmaiden said, watching him with a skeptical look. Trista glanced at Atton as he joined them, his face saying that he felt the same way. Not unexpected.
"I mean..." Trista sighed. "People are watching us, yeah, but I didn't expect it on Nar Shaddaa of all places. It worries me."
"If they know we are here, then who else does?"
"To be fair," Atton said, "if the bounty hunter Trista talked to is right, every bounty hunter knows we're here."
"Ugh," Trista said, "don't remind me."
They finished moving the last of the pallets into the garage, and Vao stopped by Trista, pulling out her datapad. "All right, I just need you to sign here confirming you got the delivery."
Trista took the datapad. "Do I get a copy of this?"
"Sure. I can upload it straight to your datapad."
"That'd be great." After checking that it was just for receipt of delivery, Trista picked up the stylus. "Surely it's unusual for a partner in an import business to make deliveries?"
"You're a hard woman to find, and my clients asked me to make sure these got delivered to you. And..." Vao chuckled as Trista signed the document. "They're not the type of people you say no to. Not easily, at least. 'Sides, it's a personal favor, you could say."
She took the datapad and thrust it toward T3, who was still peeking around the corner. "You wanna copy this for me, little guy?"
T3 extended his manipulator arm out as far as possible, rolled a few inches, and snatched it. Trista shook her head.
"I'm so sorry, I don't know what's gotten into him today. He's never acted like this before."
"Don't worry about it. He's allowed to be quirky." T3 chimed as the data transfer completed and passed the datapad back. Vao took it. "You didn't copy all my files off that, did you?"
He chirped.
"Well, they're boring, You're gonna be disappointed." She looked back at Trista. "If that's it, we're gonna get our ship before someone takes offense to it. Plus, I left my shit brother supervising my warehouse. My personal comm number's on that invoice, so if you need any supplies, just let me know. Even if they're not 'above-board' — if you know what I mean." She winked. "Good luck saving the galaxy. Remember, Sinylea-Vao Imports for all your legal and not-strictly-illegal-but-frowned-upon needs."
She fired a pair of finger blasters as she backed out of the hold and headed down the ramp. Trista ducked her head and watched as the trio climbed onto their speeders and took off into the Nar Shaddaa traffic above.
"What the hell just happened?" Atton asked.
"Hell if I know." Trista straightened. "All right. We'll regroup and make our plan, then spend some time going through these supplies. Main hold, everyone. Bao-Dur, the ramp, if you please."
It took only a couple minutes to gather everyone in the main hold, including Kreia, who arrived with a deep frown on her face.
::We should not have accepted that aid.:: Ah, she was starting early today.
::Look, we need the supplies and we'll unpack and organize them tonight. I'm not looking a gift shipment in the mouth. We'll throw anything we don't want, or that seems compromised, off the side.::
Kreia didn't answer, and her frowned deepened. Trista cleared her throat.
"All right, we need to go through the surprise delivery. That's our first order of business. Our second is this: we've cleared out the Refugee Sector and, while that might be enough to piss the Exchange off, I want to dig the knife in. So I want to go after the pazaak den."
Atton opened his mouth, closed it as everyone looked over at him, and held up his hand.
"Is that why you asked me how I feel about pazaak?"
"Yes."
"Define 'going after?'"
"I want to clean them out, and I want them to know who did it."
Atton frowned. "And you're gonna do it?"
"You're going to."
"Because, sister, your pazaak face is — oh. Me?"
Trista raised a brow. "Why wouldn't it be you?"
"Well, if you want to get the Exchange on your ass, it should probably be you."
She frowned and motioned toward the ramp. "Atton, out of everyone you, Bao-Dur, and Visas have been with me almost every time we've left the ship. If I'm there, it'll be clear. Unless you don't want to piss the Exchange off at you, which I'd understand." Trista paused, and the corner of her lip twitched upwards. There was one way to get Atton in on the plan. "In that case, maybe T3 would—"
"I don't think so." He pointed at her. "I know what you're doing and I'm going to fall for it, because I'm not trusting this to a two-bit trash can." T3 responded with an unflattering chirp.
"In that case." She grinned. "I'm getting impatient. You good for tonight?"
"Only if you blow on my side deck every time I sit down."
Huh? Her grin flattened out, and she tilted her head. "Why would I do that?"
"You know, luc—it's not important."
"Ah..." Trista looked back at the others. "Handmaiden, you're with us. Mical, I want you, Bao-Dur, and Visas to go through the shipment we just got with T3. Anything that's compromised, chuck it off the side of the platform. If we don't want it, put it together to see if the refugees want it. If you're not sure about it, show me when we get back." She turned to Atton. "You ready?"
"I'm ready."
#
It took about six hours for them to take out the pazaak den.
Trista, having never seen Atton at work, found it fascinating. He moved from table to table effortlessly, disarming opponents with a smile as he turned out winning hand after winning hand.
"I hate to say anything complimentary," Handmaiden said at one point, as they watched from against the bank of windows. Atton was twisting his current opponent, a female Twi'lek, around his finger, the card game going so far in his favor that it was almost forgotten about. "But this is one area in which he excels."
She'd been tempted to argue, then let it go. "He's effective."
At the end, he cleaned out a Chadra-Fan who presented himself as the "unbeaten" champion of this location and sauntered back, thumbing through a thick stack of credits he pocketed just before reaching them.
"Place cleared out," he said, flipping a gold-edged card through his fingers. Trista almost regretted asking him to do this — he was even more cocky than usual. "Just as requested. Good enough for you?"
Trista glanced around to the few bouncers she and Handmaiden had identified, all now glaring with knife-sharp intensity. "Looks like it. Let's get out of here."
Atton slid the card into his deck. "You don't have to tell me twice."
Trista stepped out of the door first but, as the Handmaiden cleared the frame, a burly Devaronian stepped in front of them. She glanced to the side — two Gamorreans to the left, and three down the hall.
"Bouncers inside said your friend was cheating. Sound familiar?"
"Nope," Trista said, "I kept a close eye on him."
"Uh huh, well, we have a strict rule here."
"Yeah, yeah," Atton said, "house always wins, right?"
"Today it doesn't. Everything was clean." She smiled at the bouncer. "May we pass?"
"It isn't just that." He pushed her, not gently, and she stepped back into Atton. "Can't have a human clean us out. Bad for the reputation."
Atton opened his mouth, and Trista held up her hand. "And would getting your ass beaten by a human help it?" All six of the aliens laughed, and she drew her lips into a thin line. "Do you think I'm kidding?"
"As if a human could take us."
"Ask your buddy Saquesh if a human could take him," she replied. It took a moment for the Devaronian's expression to change. "Oh, you did hear about that? In that case, you will let us leave, with all the credits my friend won here. And I want you to tell whatever annoying sack of vacuous excrement you serve — describe them in those exact words, please — that, if any of their people harass me or my crew again, they'll get the Saquesh treatment. Understood?"
"You're still not leaving with your credits, human."
"That's funny, because we are." She focused without moving her hand, and he flew back into the wall hard enough to dent it. As he crumpled at the base of the wall, Trista turned to one of the Gamorreans. "Are any of you going to stop us?"
The one she was glaring at snorted and pointed to the plaza. She inclined her head. "Pleasure doing business with you."
They did not speak, however, until they rounded the corner and the Hawk sat ahead of them, quiet on the docking platform.
"You didn't cheat, did you?" Trista asked, and Atton shook his head.
"I don't need to, sweets. Reading people and exploiting their weaknesses isn't cheating. I played those games clean."
"I didn't see you hiding cards up your sleeve, at least."
He chuckled. "Yeah, I don't cheat in any place owned by the Exchange or the Cartel. You live longer that way."
As they made it back onto the ship, Mical met them at the ramp as it lowered. Atton huffed on his way by.
"We found this with the supplies," Mical said, ignoring Atton as he passed her a datapad. "It's addressed to you by name. I thought it best not to open it."
"You had T3 scan it to make sure it was safe at least?"
Mical closed the ramp behind the Handmaiden. "I did."
"Thanks." Trista switched it on, waiting impatiently as it started up. It appeared empty save for a few text files, and she opened it.
Trista Morace,
I doubt you remember me — or, if you do, I would be unfamiliar to you now. I do not know where this shipment will find you. However, I've entrusted the task to someone I trust with my life and, if she is successful, it should keep you flying for several months.
I regret that I cannot give you answers to any of the questions you may have. The notes I've included on this datapad are all I have gathered since the event on Katarr. There is nothing for you at the Temple, if you've considered reaching it. Both Sith and bounty hunters have stationed themselves there, waiting for anyone stupid enough to return. And even if you could reach them, the Archives lie bare. Atris, wherever she is, fled with most of our records. What she left, I took for safe keeping.
I wish I could join you, but I am too recognizable. I fear I would only be a detriment to your safety. The only reason I have avoided the fate of the Order is the protection of the Republic. I have been gathering everything I can so we may avoid extinction.
If you need me, contact me through Sinylea-Vao Imports.
Lastly, I know the opinion of many of the surviving Councilors, and they may have already spoken their minds. But I wish to speak in defense of their target, as I know who she is now better than anyone. Though this may be a legacy of the Jedi Civil War, Revan is not behind the new Sith. I may not know where she is, but I know where she is not.
Stay safe and keep flying. And perhaps the Force will be with us again.
Bastila Shan
Trista looked up, catching the tail end of a frown on Atton's face. "Not what you wanted?" he asked.
She handed the datapad back to Mical, using the moment to clamp down her rampaging feelings. Anger, depression... she didn't even have names for half of them anymore. "Did you read this?"
"I did not." He skimmed it. "Ah, Force's sake."
"What?"
"I knew she looked familiar." He handed the datapad back. "The one Twi'lek. That was Mission Vao, one of Revan's crew from the Jedi Civil War."
Of course she was.
"So this is legitimate, then?"
Mical read through the message again with a nod. "I've known where Bastila is for a while. Many people do, or believe they do, and it keeps her pinned down." He glanced away, and she unconsciously followed his gaze to the scaffolding inside the Hawk's garage. "It helps that she took refuge with the most paranoid, workaholic admiral in the fleet."
"And what she said about Revan?"
"I know as much about Revan as anyone else. However, Bastila was closer to her than any of the Jedi we have met so far, so I am inclined to believe her."
Trista nodded with a sigh. "All right. Keep going through the supplies but... let's not mention where they came from." For my sake, and her safety, her mind added as she headed deeper into the Hawk.
Behind her, Atton scowled at Mical. "Maybe tell her to mind her own business, since you're so buddy-buddy with her."
Mical switched the datapad off with a frown. "I have yet to see any of your acquaintances help our mission."
"Yeah, and Handmaiden's sisters treated us like shit, so I fail to see your point."
"Do you not have any acquaintances? Is that the problem?"
Atton scoffed and started toward the cockpit. "I've got plenty of acquaintances! Of course you've never met them."
"Hell." Mical stood by the ramp for a moment, his frown deepening. "The bastard doesn't have any friends."
