"Mission accomplished, Mistress," Rook extolled with an un-droid-like ring of accomplishment as the final tumbler fell into place and he lifted the lid of the crate.
"Nice work," said Beryl, stepping forward to peek inside, Skavak and Ky crowding in at her sides.
"What the hell is this, more memoirs?" groused Skavak, eyeing yet another case full of binders.
"No," said Ky as she leafed through the binder she'd lifted from the crate. "These are schematics. This one is full of architectural designs, aqueducts, fortifications, etcetera."
"Agricultural here," said Beryl. "Some biological formulas and such I can't understand, but the pictures are pretty."
"Maybe not such a waste after all," said Skavak. "Weapons with a Chiss twist. These could be worth a lot on the black market. There's even some designs for their Clawcraft fighters."
Ky gaped at the contents of the next binder. "This is worrisome."
Skavak peeked over her shoulder. "What the hell is that?"
"I don't know for sure," she answered, turning page after page. "I can make sense of the formulas and calculations, sort of, but the theory escapes me."
"You can read that shit?" asked Skavak.
"Yeah, a little, at least the energy output." She pointed to the drawings. "These appear to be some sort of mini accretion disks, event horizons, could be either. They were flirting with containment of perpetual power, black holes, miniature star creation. Really advanced stuff, not like the easy shit that flashes through my mind when I do what I do."
Skavak leaned into her back and extended his arm over her shoulder, skimming his fingers across the various numbers and etchings. "So, this is what you see in your head?"
"Not exactly. It's not so much figuring the math as just knowing." She slammed the binder shut, almost catching his fingers. She'd already said too much. "This is either one hell of an energy generator or one hell of a weapon, maybe both. We need to decide what to do with it."
"I say we keep it and sell the damned thing," said Beryl. "The Chiss likely already have the technology or are working on something similar. I'm here to make credits, not babysit the galaxy."
"I suppose you're of the same mind?" Ky turned to Skavak. His silence answered her question. "Fine," she said and dropped the binder back into the crate, "but, whatever happens, is on your heads, not mine."
Nearly two months since they'd left Rishi, three weeks of those in hyperspace since they'd left the Eidolon. Ky and Skavak walked that fine line between the holstered weapon, the hair trigger, and the blade half drawn. Three weeks of bodies slammed into bulkheads, skin waffled where floor grating imprinted into buttocks, or backs or knees. Catching moments or making their own, cargo bay or engine room or straddled hips under the clear dome of the gunnery station.
It was the 'users' game they played, remaining strangers indulging in brief encounters and skirting the possibility that familiarity could breed more than contempt. Talk was dirty, bruises vibrant, crescent-shaped bites and flesh plowed in neat rows of four. He was a habit, the pill taken when sleep won't come. She was the Hapan puzzle box, infinite combinations to get to prize within.
Two days out from their destination in the Tingle Arm where Skavak's contact waited, Ky sat in the cockpit having left Skavak in his room hours before. She'd drained her glass and now sat rocking the empty tumbler back and forth on the armrest, emptying her mind as well, unable to face the ghosts that tapped on the windows of her mind.
Bottle in hand, Beryl breezed through the entryway. "Care to sit a spell longer?" she asked, taking a seat in the navigator's chair and extending the bottle in Ky's direction.
Beryl poured a long shot into Ky's glass, then filled her own half full, capped the bottle and set it on the floor. "Been a while since we talked and you need to open up. You wear guilt like a badge and, other than shagging our resident asshole, you spend too much time alone. Skavak and Corso, huh?"
Ky propped her feet on the console and stared out the windshield, preferring not to look at her friend's face. "You've known me since my arena days, and love never fit into any future I ever saw. Yet, here I am, miserably in love with some rancher's son from the ass end of Ord Mantell." She inhaled the aftertaste of whiskey that coated her tongue. "I watched Corso die twice. That line went flat and I swear I would have followed him to the grave—flown the Soledad straight into the heart of a sun."
"And yet you used Skavak to force him to walk away," said Beryl.
Ky nodded. "I've never hidden that fact." Her next words caught in her throat. "I can't even give him the children he wants."
"Why?" asked Beryl. "Does he know?"
Ky shook her head. "No. We spoke about kids a couple of times, mostly just to make him happy. Stars, can you imagine what my life would do to a child?" She paused a moment to reflect and let it escape with a sigh. "Anyway, I was told by Republic doctors during a routine checkup that the ovaries are there, they just don't produce viable eggs." Her mind drifted for a moment—Sith alchemy, experiments, a young girl's agony, a life changed, a legacy stolen. She shooed the vision away. "Freedom from me is the greatest gift I could have given him. He'll see that in time."
"And Skavak?"
"Is a distraction, not a replacement. Corso is the love of my life, and you only get one of each. Once we're done here, we go our separate ways. I'm not a fool, Beryl. I've never wanted more than a few rough tumbles to chase away the loneliness. Can we drop this please?"
"Sure, I just wanted you to know I understand. I left a woman on Corellia right after the war, broke my heart, but, it was the best thing for her. I love her to this day and it still hurts like hell. Those scars never heal."
A bitter laugh grunted up from Ky's throat. "And here I thought I had something to look forward to in my old age. Love really is a four-letter word."
"I'll drink to that." Beryl extended her glass to clink with Ky's. "You ever see Gundy after you left the arena?"
"No. I know Chloris was badly injured in that last fight. She fell on top of me and held me down while they beat hell out of her and knocked me out. I was whisked off planet and never got to see her or Gundy." The old guilt nudged its way to the forefront of Ky's thoughts. "How the hell you arranged that bet is beyond me, but I doubt Oguul was happy about her throwing the fight that set me free. Stupid Hutt never learned the lesson of don't bet what you can't stand to lose, and she paid the price. I'll never forgive Balen for not going back for them."
"The bet was a shell game," explained Beryl. "Funny money and shady high rollers. Balen moved in some dangerous circles."
"What I can't understand is why Chloris took the fall."
"I don't know. Balen was the go-between. You and the bet were the deal I brokered, that was something separate. Perhaps she had family you didn't know about, or a kid. People will do almost anything to protect family," said Beryl.
"Maybe, but she never mentioned anything to me, and it always struck me as odd that anyone would go to so much trouble over a lowly arena rat."
"Word on the street was that the Hutts lost a bundle on that fight. My fee was small change. The worm really fucked up and The Cartel is not forgiving."
A wisp of a smile played across Ky's lips. "You know, when I first arrived on Affavan, a scrawny kid in dirty clothes, scared shitless, we were being paraded in front of the great Hutt so he could decide our fate. One of the guards took my stuffed tauntaun, Fooly, and I fucking lost it. It was the only thing that was mine, that was home. I clamped down on his hand with my teeth, kicking and screaming like a wild thing. He damn near shook my brains out before I let go and likely would have ended me right there had Oguul not ordered him to stop. The Hutt said I had too much spirit for the pleasure barges. I think he saved my life in more ways than one that day. I'd never have survived as a pleasure whore."
"You've never told me that tale before."
"Yeah, I don't like looking back too often."
"How old were you when Balen died?" asked Beryl.
Ky tilted her head, perplexed by the subject change. "Almost twenty-one, why?"
"A man old enough to be your grandfather and then some, with bad health to boot. He was supposed to let you go after he won that bet, you know."
"I didn't have any place to go. I'd have ended right back in the arena or worse."
"Balen was a chump," Beryl snorted, "smitten by you long before the arrangement. Took you under his wing and kept you like a pet on a leash."
"And loved me enough to marry me on his deathbed so I'd have unchallenged ownership of the Chance and what saved credits he had," said Ky. "As much of a prick as he could be, he gave me a start and my freedom."
"Did you ever tell Corso about any of it or that Aragath is your married name?"
"It never came up." Ky shifted her position and re-crossed her legs. "Keeping the Pridence name a secret was more to protect my sister than anything. It kept her separate from my misdeeds. My family's dead except for Nariel and the last time I saw her was in a cantina on Tatooine years ago. She never even glanced my way. Hell, I was barely one when the Jedi Order took her for training and she was only thirteen when the Imperials sacked our planet, murdered our parents and hauled me away. Where are you going with all this?"
"Did you ever consider that if you'd opened up to Corso about your past he'd understand the life you lead, the decisions you made? He might never have left and you'd not be settling for Skavak."
"I'm not settling, I'm using," said Ky, "and, you've got this all wrong. I didn't want Corso to stay and loved him enough to let him go. If what you said about the woman on Corellia is true, you'll understand. This hatred he has for Skavak runs far deeper than Port Nowhere, maybe deeper than his love for me, and he'll never forgive what I've done. There's no going back. Sometimes love is more about doing without than having it all."
"You might want to clarify that using bit to Skavak. I've noticed the way he looks at you."
"I'm just something he hasn't figured out yet. Once he discovers I'm not for sale or exploit, he'll move on or the blasters will come out. It's who he is."
"Maybe we're both damned fools," said Beryl. "And, with that uplifting thought, I think I'll go to bed."
"Leave the bottle," said Ky.
Something Beryl said tickled at the back of Ky's mind. All sorts of movers and shakers came to the arena on Affavan. Business moguls, politicians, spies, bounty hunters, Sith and Republic alike gambling on blood and death and making backroom deals that shaped or destroyed worlds.
Scourge had been right that her particular talent manifested during her time in the arena. She was quick and flexible reading her opponent before they made a move. She made damned tasty cheese and Chloris and Gundy were deadly hammers. Hell, she'd sported bright red hair to fit the name Oguul had given their team; The Crimson Claw. She chuckled to herself, Hutts and their dumbass names.
The Affavan arena was locked up tighter than an Alderaanian nobleman's virgin daughter and she'd been some bonus in an overly elaborate scheme. Other than the credits won, and lost, none of it made any damned sense. The Hutts didn't make those kinds of deals. They didn't have to. Somebody did some arm twisting or, another Hutt wanted Oguul gone and it was all a setup to make Oguul look bad. A Hutt betrayal could be exploited by someone with enough power. But still, why her?
Perhaps Sith Intelligence, the SIS or some private concern had noticed her and talked or coerced Balen into the plan but he reneged and ran instead. Balen had gone by the last names of Orleone and Hummel, made sure they were constantly on the move, and the transponder cylinder had been swapped just before he'd died changing the ships name and ownership. She began to wonder if Aragath was even his real last name, or hers.
Balen hadn't kept her like a pet, he'd kept her hidden. The real question was, why and from who? With Balen dead, she'd probably never know.
After his death, she'd fallen off the grid. She'd had no name on Affavan, just a microchip in her arm with an ID number and tracking device that Balen cut out as soon as they'd hit hyperspace. All of her Voidhound files were redacted and Saresh's rescission of her contracts put her on a blacklist with hundreds of other names, hardly worth notice. No one would have recognized her from her arena days, and Port Nowhere may have put her back on the radar but hardly more than a blip.
Bounty hunters and GenoHaradan with a vendetta hunted her now, but she had an uneasy feeling that there was something else. She eased her feet off the console and onto the floor and tilted the remainder of the whiskey down her throat. Chasing her tail was getting her nowhere.
She should know better. Traipsing down the paths of her past had never ended well and eventually, those forks in the road stabbed her in the ass. Damn Beryl for opening that rusty fucking door.