Chapter 3

Haara looked at the star chart on her computer display. A little green orb flashed on the screen; Katal. In the Corbata system. Inside the Corbata cluster, there was an other system nearby that was of no importance to her. She knew where the Corbata system was, knew how to get there, and how long it would take. She loaded the coordinates onto a data card and headed for her ship.

It had been a couple of weeks since she'd met Xan at the tapcafe, and she had said she would find him on Katal. At first she'd started to look out of curiosity, and as she continued to look it became more and more apparent to her that she was going to try and find him. For some reason she also knew that she was going to have to find him, because he wasn't going to go out of his way to find her.

At first it had been impossible to find a chart that had the Corbata system on it. She had had to go to the Academy Library to find a chart that had the system. On top of that it had taken a couple of hours to actually scan and find the small system. She would get there, and she would find Xan. He needed help, and she was the person that was going to help him.

She walked up the landing ramp to her ship, a newer Corellian personal yacht. One of the three R2 units trundled passed. Her father knew that Haara wasn't as mechanically inclined as he would have liked, so he saw fit to solve that problem with the astromech droids that could hopefully necessitate any problems that her ship might have.

The sublights thrummed behind her, warming up for the flight to Katal. She slipped the datacard with the coordinates into the Navigation slot in the console. Inside her there was a welling of some foreign feeling, a rebellious feeling. But it was right, she knew it. Her body trembled slightly when she gave power to the repulsorlifts; there was no going back now. If she left the flight pattern the spaceport controllers would get her into trouble, probably get her permit taken a way. It wasn't a long time before she had cleared Carida's atmosphere, and the computer was calculating the jump. At the chime from computer she pushed the hyperdrive levers foreword, and she was away.

On Katal, Xan had just woken up. It hadn't been as hard as Rydell had said it would be for Xan to find work as a Tech. But the best paying place still only paid him bantha dung for what he was capable of doing. The two weeks he'd been working at Standard Speeder and Starship repair had been miserable. The shop boss was assigning Xan all the jobs that a kid on the street could have done once he was told how too. Stupid things, like mounting furniture, replacing thrusters on speeders, and fans on turbofan engines. All things Xan had known how to do when he was 10 standard years old.

The whole situation aggravated Xan to no end. To be assigned to doing menial work, for low pay, and almost no benefits, when other "more experienced" techs were making mistakes that were time consuming and cost the company money. And then when he remembered that in the hangar at the Artell Ranch was a half completed project, his custom starship. Xan was often forced to work outside the shop in bad conditions; just yesterday he'd been forced to replace repulsor coils on an XP-34 in the rain.

Xan walked into the hangar to get the swoop bike that he'd been borrowing to get to work. Rydell was already working on his ship. He'd taken to calling it the No Remorse even though he was a long way from having it complete. The pit droids were already running around bringing their master the tools and equipment that he needed. A crane had been moved into place and the nose of the ship was in the air, just about to be joined with the new extension that Rydell had inserted into the middle of the ships hull.

Rydell had made some other modifications to the heavily armed ship. The purpose for the added five-meter section in the middle was to make the ship livable on long voyages, although the ship had yet to be furnished. Rydell had also managed, or had someone hardwire an astromech into the computer. While all this was going on the engines had been upgraded, along with the maneuvering jets. Rydell was pleased to be able to leave the weapons and shields alone. Xan took an other look at the ugly taking shape in the bay next to his and mounted the speeder.

"You going to be around to help me stick this thing together latter?" Rydell yelled from the gap in the hull.

"Yeah, sure." Xan said as he fired the swoop bikes engines.

"Don't hurt yourself at work today." Rydell said with mock concern. "I need you to help me get this together." Xan chuckled and headed off to work.

Standard Speeder and Starship repair (SSS) was in one of the worst parts of Kalin, the system capital. Xan had left his blasters at the Ranch in favor of a BlasTech DL-44, which was less distinguishing than the pair his father had given him. It would have been suicide for him to go around in those areas of the city without any type of protection.

Since he'd arrived home Xan had noticed an increase in the Imperial population. There were more and more patrols and there was always an unusual amount near Xan's old house, and the places where Xan and Rydell liked to relax and have a few drinks. Rydell was being as accommodating as he could be. When your best friend is suddenly a wanted Imperial Exile it tends to throw a hydrospanner into the works, but Rydell almost never objected to staying in and drinking, or leaving a tap café when an Imperial patrol got to close. The alcohol had the same affect no matter where they chose to drink it.

Triple S wasn't too much of a trip from the Artell Ranch, although it was long enough for Xan to reflect on what had happened to him, and how truly lucky he was to have a friend like Rydell. A friend like Rydell who would do anything to hide him, even though it perhaps even more dangerous for the Artell's to be caught hiding Xan more than it was for Xan to actually turn himself in. There were times when he'd thought about doing just that. Thought about turning himself in to one of the numerous patrols, turn himself in so that he wouldn't have to put Rydell and the Artell family through any trouble. Xan knew what the Imps would do to them if they found that the Artell's were hiding him. Xan couldn't do that to Rydell, although Xan knew that they would have just as much trouble getting a hold of Rydell as they had with Xan. The problem was Rydell's mother and his younger siblings wouldn't be able to.

Xan did his best to brush those thoughts from his mind. He was going to have enough to think about at work, which he was rapidly approaching. There was no activity outside yet, which wasn't a good sign, they should have been out doing things already. After parking the speeder bike Xan entered the shop building to punch in, and his boss was standing on the other side of the door.

"Good morning." Xan said.

"And what's so good about it?" His boss roared. Boss Kinkla was tall and slender man, who in all honesty didn't look as if he could muster enough power to yell the way he could at Xan. "Your late you lazy piece of Bantha droppings! Now get to work before you find yourself in need of a new job."

"Right." Xan said, betraying none of the malice he felt towards his boss. The DL-44 wasn't too much of a reach, and Xan wouldn't even need to shoot the man, just jam his fingers into the mans throat, smash his skull, kick him in the knee to break it and then uppercut him when he doubled over in pain.

NO!

Xan's combat training at the academy had given him all the tools to kill the man, and almost anybody five times before they hit the ground. But if Xan killed Kinkla it would shatter the carefully constructed identity that he and Rydell had worked to create. It wouldn't be possible to create another one quick enough, or cheap enough.

"Get outside and start working on that Corellian 1300. It needs a new set of alluvial dampers. Hurry up before my foot meets your backside!"

"Of course." Xan said. "Just let me grab my tools." As fast as he could Xan grabbed a bunch of his tools and hopped he wouldn't have to go back and get more. His instincts told him to confront Boss Kinkla, his heritage almost demanded it. Xan came from a long line of Corulag Navy officers. From his great grandfather to his father all had served as Captain of Capitol ships, and Xan had taken steps to put an end to that, but he still knew it was a disgrace for someone like him to accept what was being done to him.

An alluvial damper replacement was an other of the simple jobs that they were putting Xan to work doing. At least he would be inside the ship, and away from the Boss. It also meant that Xan got to take the ship for a test flight. The last time though, Boss Kinkla had taken that for himself.

Xan put his tools down on the decking and instantly realized that he forgot something that he needed. Not a moment passed before he heard footsteps coming up the ramp behind him. Xan turned and looked. It was Marnist Kinkla, the boss's daughter. She flashed her beautiful smile at Xan and held up the tool that Xan had forgotten.

"Can't fix alluvial dampers without one of these." She said and tossed the tool to Xan.

"Thanks." He said. "You might want to go back inside, you're going to get into trouble if your father catches you talking to me. Either that or I'll get fired." Xan said.

"He won't fire you. I won't let him." She said, and somehow Xan knew that she meant it. "Why are you working here?"

"I need money." Xan said looking back at the young women, girl. That's right, she was still only a girl. Marnist was a very attractive girl, but still only 15 standard years old, as opposed to Xan's 19. Marnist was short, maybe a meter and half, with sand colored hair, ice blue eyes, a beautiful smile and an excellent figure, and she knew it, which made her all the more dangerous.

"You're to good to be working here for what my fathers paying you. I mean I don't want to see you go, but you could do so much better."

"And how would you know?" Xan asked, seeing the flirting compliment for what it was. Xan was a little worried about it. On one hand if he didn't submit to Marnist's wooing she could get angry and loose his job, if he did and they became a couple he could loose his job by angering her father. But nothing was going to happen, Xan was in trouble, and he didn't want to risk anybody else. She wasn't without her endearing characteristics, she was smart and attractive, and she knew how to work on starships. But she was still four years younger than him. Four years.

"Look at your boots. You must have enough money to get boots that can stay clean." Marnist said looking down at the toes of Xan's blackened footwear. They had started off tan Nerf leather, now the toes had gone star field black, and the rest of the boots were also starting to discolor.

"I've got more important things to spend money on." Like my new identity. Xan thought.

"Fine then. I'm buying you new boots." She said with a bit of fire in her voice.

"No you won't. How about you come with me after work tonight, Rydell and me need an extra hand or two." Xan asked accomplishing two goals in one; changing the subject, and appeasing her for a while. "Or in your case four." Xan chided

"Hey, just because I'm smaller than you doesn't mean that my hands can't do just as much as yours. And don't change the subject."

"Your hands may be able to do as much as mine, but your muscles can't." Xan joked again.

"Alright Xan, lay off." Marnist said and laughed. There was an other one of those things about her, a great laugh.

"You'd better get out of here before we both get into trouble with your father." Xan said brandishing a fusioncutter at her.

"Yeah, alright, but if you leave without me Xan."

"I wont." He said, returning to the access way and back to work.

Haara put her ship down in the docking bay the controllers had assigned her, a decidedly shady and crumbling piece of architecture. It was hard to tell from the cockpit of the ship, but it didn't look like a very friendly place. The information she'd read on the planet had said that it wasn't one of the friendliest places in the Galaxy, and it looked like it. There was only the muted sound of the landing skids hitting the ground a few moments latter, and then the winding down of the repulsorlifts. She secured the ship and headed out into the city.