Previously on Star Wars: Exile's Journey
After leaving the Jedi Order, ex Jedi Ahsoka Tano joined the crew of a freighter, the Red Drexl. After a year of working as a mechanic and copilot, suddenly the Republic fell and the Empire rose in its place, and she found herself fighting and defeating a bounty hunter named Koros L'Larr and taking his ship for her own. Now Ahsoka has taken on the persona of Riella Masso, bounty hunter, as a way of keeping tabs on the current hunt for Jedi on the run
So far on her journey, she has joined up with not only Jyssa Motla, captain of the Red Drexl, an injured clone trooper who now goes by the name Bryn Arc, but also three other Jedi on the run, two droids, and a Verpine mechanic.
The group have found a hollowed out asteroid near the university planet Rudrig to use as a home base. The planet had been far from Republic space, firmly in Separatist territory. But now, with the rise of the Empire, it has come under Imperial control. Ahsoka and her friends have managed to steal a large portion of University records and artifacts relating to the Jedi Order out from under the Empire's nose.
Chapter 45
Information
BLX-5 pushed the last storage unit into place. "Does this appear to be correct?"
A small computer tablet, larger than a datapad, chirped a binary affirmative and followed it up with, "It appears to be. Power up the database, and I will attempt to access the data in it."
The humanoid shaped robot pushed off from the wall gently and floated in the low gravity over to the other side of the database. It pressed the big red button on the front of the machine, and it lit up. An access screen flickered to life, and username and password combinations flickered by, too fast for even BLX-5's robotic eyes to follow.
ZT-47, the droid mind inside the tablet, said, "The system was well designed. There is no echo from failed password attempts. This will require a brute force approach, and it could take up to seventeen standard hours for me to crack the system. Average time suggests that it will take approximately ten."
"Very well, I will let the others know," BLX-5 replied.
"There is no need. I have sent a radio signal to Master Xho, and he is informing the others as we speak."
"You are quite efficient," remarked BLX-5.
"I am designed to be so. Now I am afraid that my conversational skills will be at a minimum, most of my processing power will be devoted to my work. As much as I would enjoy the company of another droid, the time will, as the organics say, fly by for me."
"Very well. I will help the others with their sorting."
He pushed away from the wall and floated to the door. The room they were using was one of the few rooms in the asteroid that still had power. The miners had the foresight to set up solar panels to ensure that bare minimum systems were powered, even in the case of a generator failure. Or, thankfully, in the case of the mining complex being abandoned for more than fifty years. The air was still recycled, and was capable of supporting a dozen people indefinitely. The docking bay force field and doors still worked. And the docking bay control room still had enough power to run systems like the stolen Rudrig University database.
The docking bay was taken up by two ships. One was wide and flat, a Tolos-class cargo hauler. The other was leaner, although it too was built to have some cargo capacity. But the heavily modified Buado-class ship was made to carry living beings. It bristled with weaponry.
The Red Drexl, despite its formidable name, was the cargo ship. Ahsoka had not chosen a new name for the Whipclaw yet, although considering how many enemies the former owner had made, she was considering it.
BLX-5 soared through the air, far more gracefully than his durable construction belied. While he was not the most flexible of droids, he was built to lift cargo and perform heavy manual labor. He lacked the analytical skills of an astromech, the manual dexterity of a servant droid, or the communication faculties of a protocol droid. But he was durable, and most of all, functional.
Once he reached the ramp of the Red Drexl, gravity started to pull him down towards the ramp. He landed lightly, but his metal feet still made a solid clang against the ramp. In gravity, he moved far more stiffly.
He found the crew of the Drexl, along with Xho Fik'ta, the Verpine mechanic, and the four Jedi there. They were combing through the many bits and baubles that had been in the stash of items relating to Jedi.
Ahsoka turned to Jyssa Motla, the captain of the Red Drexl, and held out a small coin. "Hey, you're from Corellia. Any idea who this is? I don't recognize the race."
Jyssa took the coin and held it up to the light. "Droclos Valiroor. Selonian. Don't get many of them offworld alone, they live in dens. Very strong social structure. Usually they travel in large groups, and they tend to make colonies out of a large piece of an entire den. But if it was a Jedi, I guess I'm not surprised."
"Huh. Never seen a Selonian before," Ahsoka replied. "Oh, hi Bollux. Zete told us that he's working, expecting ten hours."
"Yes, that is what he told me as well. I am here to help if you require it."
Ahsoka looked around the room. "Honestly, I don't know what else we'd need. We're just sorting through this stuff. We took anything that had a name on it. We won't have access to any real information until Zete slices into the database."
BLX-5 found his mind wandering. The organic obsession with names was somewhat odd, wasn't it? The moment he showed any quirks in his programming, he earned a nickname. The only items worth taking were those that held the names of other Jedi, most of them long dead.
Like so many other things in his long life, he filed that observation into his memory banks for later reference.
Captain Kartilla pulled back on the hyperdrive cutoff lever, and the Spicy Squid left the roiling mass of tachyons to return to the comfort and sublight speeds of normal space.
Now that the war was over, many shipping lanes that had been closed were open. And when his homeworld had banded together, he was able to open up new lines of trade.
The war was over. Profit was on the horizon. With a mixed crew of Mon Calamari and Quarren, and a cargo hold full of delicious seafood delicacies to be delivered to a world that, until recently, had been in Separatist space, life on the Spicy Squid was good.
He turned to his Mon Cal navigator, Jorella. "Report?"
"We're at point zero five parsecs away from the main traffic lane, as you requested," she replied.
"Good. I'd like to avoid some of the pirate activity in this area. We've got a full cargo hold to deliver, and a lot of money to bring back home! Tell the crew that the first round of salt-wine will be on me when we get back to the ocean."
"Of course, Captain," she said, rolling her eyes once she was turned away and he couldn't see. The last time the Quarren captain had gotten drunk on salt-wine, he had suggested that the two of them go back to the Captain's cabin and do something that, until that night, she hadn't known was anatomically possible for Quarren to do. Luckily he'd been drunk enough that he had passed out shortly after his proposition, and he seemed to have no recollection of it. While Jorella wasn't opposed to interspecies dating per se, she had absolutely no interest in Captain Kartilla.
Then something caught her eye on the instrument panel. "Captain, there's another ship just over a klick away."
"What? Impossible... we're well off the usual shipping lane."
"Their weapons are powered up!" she yelped as she slapped at the toggle that would put full power to rear shields. She put them up just in time, and a moment later they took the full brunt of two blasts from quad turbolasers.
"Full evasive! All hands to defensive stations!" the Captain yelled as he pulled back on the yoke. Even with the inertial compensators built into the ship, the entire crew could feel the force of the desperate turn.
But it was too little too late. The next turbolaser blast tore through the shields and left smoking holes in the engine housing. And the next blast nearly separated the entire engine block from the rest of the Spicy Squid.
"Why are they attacking us?" Jorella shouted. "We're just carrying seafood. It's not like there's a black market for that!"
"I won't even begin to ask how you knew where they would come out of hyperspace. But I do have to ask... how sure are you that the pearls are aboard?" Hondo Ohnaka sat comfortably in the Captain's chair, but he was looking at the man standing next to him.
"Completely," the man replied. "I trust my information implicitly."
If the man had not been human, he looked like he would have fit in well with the Weequay crew. His skin was a light brown, and his hair dark. He wore mismatched armor over loose, functional clothing. At his side was a blaster and an ancient echani vibrosword. In short, he looked perhaps more like a pirate than Hondo himself.
"You know I don't normally work with anyone other than my own loyal men," Hondo said to the Human. "If you hadn't come so highly recommended... well, we shall see just how profitable this venture is."
"Once we've boarded, I'll tell you exactly which crates have the pearls hidden in them. Not before."
Hondo laughed, "Oh, of course. Protect your secrets. You'll find that I am, as pirates go, quite honest. You will get your share, I will get mine, because if we both leave this venture happy, then we are more likely to share our profits again in the future. As my dear mother always said, planning ahead is what separates us from mere animals!"
The man gave a smile that was more grim than grin and replied, "Yes, yes. Planning ahead. I always look to the future."
Author's note: Phew. I meant to post this around noon... finally got it about 1:30. Changing the most stubborn tire in the world right after the biggest snowstorm of this season takes a little longer than you'd expect. :P