As the silence of hyperspace came over the JumpMaster, Harena leaned back in her seat with a long exhalation, her red eyes closed. The ship's navicomputer predicted their arrival in several hours, in which time the data scrambler should prevent any nearby imperial ships from recognizing the ship's signature. Barring all catastrophes, of course.
Ahsoka got to her feet and walked over to the astromech droid, who was still plugged into the wall. She set a hand down on his dented dome and pulled the dataspike out of the console, lying the droid down on its back. In a few moments the droid's single red ocular sensor blinked on. The remainder of its sensors whirred back to life and the mech shot up with alarm, backing away from the togruta with a series of alarmed beeping noises.
"Relax, X2," Harena said without looking up. The astromech continued its complaints.
"Lady Tano isn't our target anymore," the Chiss said, rubbing her eyes. "I don't know who our target is now. Nobody, I suppose." She sighed. "Plug back into the ship, figure out how many problems we've got before we land."
Beep boo boowoop brrrr beep. Ahsoka was no stranger to deciphering binary; the droid's comment amounted to "One really big one."
Harena huffed. "Thank you for that. Now," she wheeled the droid back to the console port, "Find one that we can repair before we're being swarmed by empire ships, while I try to figure out what made our deal go sour." She sat back down in the pilot's chair, tapping at the console.
Ahsoka watched the back of the Chiss' head for a moment, then flopped back into the co-pilot's seat. "I should thank you for the help back there," she said. "You didn't have to help me."
"The empire went back on our arrangement. Getting you off the planet was just my own vindictiveness towards those backstabbers," Harena replied. "Don't mistake it for an act of kindness."
Ahsoka watched the streaks of stars flash by through the canopy. "Well. Vindictive or not."
The astromech in the corner gave a quick bout of beeps, signaling the end of it's scan. The disagnostic ran across Ahsoka's computer screen. Physical damage to secondary thrusters, electrical overload, uncapped fuel consumption, coolant leakage, multiple hull breaches, damage to the interior systems... the list went on. It was a miracle hyperspace travel wasn't just shredding the ship outright.
"We won't be able to repair all of this before exiting hyperspace," Ahsoka pointed out. "We'll need to land, preferably somewhere populated. Some of these materials we'd have to replace. Do you have credits?"
"Credits won't be any good where we're going," Harena said grimly, brushing her dark hair out of her face to tie it behind her head. "Get working on the coolant before our engines explode, yeah?"
Ahsoka now knew why the ship was in such disrepair as the three passengers rummaged around its insides. Whatever repairs had been done in the past were far from technically sound; The coolant line was leaking around a liberally applied wrap of engine tape, the circuitry in the access tunnel has been frayed even before the buzz droids got there, and the fuel induction ports were caked with more scum than a tatooine spaceport. There was not nearly enough time to repair all of what the ship required, but Ahsoka and X2 busied themselves with clearing the buzz droids out of the hold and repairing the damage done to the electrical wiring, followed by a thorough scrub of the secondary engines.
"You have no idea how dangerous flying like this is," Ahsoka was saying as X2 passed a roll of spacer's tape to her in the ship's crawlspace. She could tell the droid wasn't thrilled to have her aboard, but it at least appreciated the extra hands. "One wrong command and this whole thing could have gone up, you know?"
Boop Beep.
Harena's voice came over the ship's intercom. "Exiting hyperspace, two minutes. Lady Tano, if you would join me on the bridge."
Ahsoka reported to the cockpit, wiping her oily hands on a rag that only seemed to make them dirtier. At least they had some medical supplies on board; her injuries from the battle had been wrapped, a small stimpak module wired into the wounds on her arm and thigh. The injuries would heal with time. Ahsoka noted Harena had patched herself up as well.
"We're approaching the Mali-Galea system, along the very edge of the inner rim," Harena explained, bringing up the astrogation chart. She pointed to galactic north-east, just beyond colony space. Mani-Galea was located in a vast expanse of untouched space practically centered between the Hydian Way and the Perlemian Trade Route, not far from Madalorian space. "It has nothing worth taking for the empire, but there are a few connections I have there that can repair the ship."
"Hopefully they're better than whoever fixed it last time," Ahsoka quipped. She couldn't help herself.
"You," Harena continued with a hint of irritation to her voice, "will be able to catch a ride to any spaceport within a parsec if you're clever enough. Knowing your bounty profile, you are."
Ahsoka frowned. "Will I be safe there?"
"Are you safe anywhere in imperial space? Sticking together is going to be a death sentence for both of us. You're a high priority target and I'm... whatever I am."
Ahsoka conceded the point. The bounty hunter had put herself in enough danger by associating with her. Though she hadn't been a high priority target in some time.
"I've got a contact on Mali-Zenai you can talk to first, but you'll have to be discrete," Harena continued. "Things fall through with that, you're on your own."
The ship exited hyperspace, the dampeners kicking in. Through the canopy Ahsoka could see a single blue-green planet quickly approaching. Mali-Zenai was closer in size to a large moon than an actual planet. Even from this far out Ahsoka could make out the large electrical storms circling its poles. Far beyond the tiny planet was a slowly rotating red sun, far larger than the planet they were approaching, which seemed just barely on the precipice of collapsing into itself some time within the next millennium. Hopefully that day wasn't today, Ahsoka thought grimly.
Harena steered the ship inward, switching on the JumpMaster's data scrambler as they entered the atmosphere. Ahsoka could see the planet's surface was entirely covered by green-tinged water. Various spaceports had been crafted on vast floating structures until large cityscapes formed. It reminded her of when she had asked about her unit's homeworld during the war. At the very least this planet didn't have constant rain, apart from on the poles.
Harena brought the ship into one large open hangar while Ahsoka manned the co-pilot's console. Harena took to the comms as soon as they landed, speaking a rapid-fire language Ahsoka couldn't identify – most likely Cheunh, she reasoned, the language most widely used by the Chiss. It wasn't suitable for study as most species were unable to form most of the sounds required to speak it. It sounded lovely, though Harena seemed to be increasingly aggravated in the course of her discussion.
"Is something wrong?"
She muted the communications. "My contact isn't interested in seeing me. Says I'm too hot right now."
She went back into Cheunh, continuing back and forth with a male voice for two or three more minutes. Ahsoka could make out the word togrutiused once; there was no direct Cheunh translation. Finally, it seemed as though they reached an agreement. Harena closed the call.
"You have an appointment, Lady Tano."