The engine room was sweltering, but it didn't bother Kregg at all. He had lived in the bowels of ships for most of his life. It seemed like another lifetime ago when he thought about it now. It had only been five years he spent marooned on Nar Shaddaa. Funny how it seems so much like a whole lifetime.
He was lying on his back, a toolkit at his side and spanner in hand. He inspected one of the engine couplings. Kregg didn't want to touch anything; The Ashen One wasn't his ship, after all, and he wished not to end up on the wrong side of her captain. Still, his eyes caught an errant bolt, bulging from its socket. He tried ignoring it at first, but somehow, his eyes found it no matter where they looked. He sighed, letting out a breath of hot air and taking in a mouthful that was even hotter, and tightened the bolt. He dropped the spanner and pushed himself forward out from underneath the engine rod.
He got to his feet and dusted himself off. Sweat trickled down his scalp and caked his forehead. Always the worst part. The last time he was on a ship, his hair had been thicker and it clung to his scalp matted, sticking to his forehead in thick spades. Half a decade of stress left the strands that assaulted his forehead thinner. He wiped the sweat from his brow and walked to the door. Before he could have spent day and night in an engine bay's closed embrace. His time on solid ground weakened his constitution, and now he sought respite from the heat.
But when the door slid open, the heat within him only rose.
Xira stood just outside, naked as her name day. The blue lights in the hall way caught all the points of her body, radiating her white skin like wet snow. She sauntered forward.
Kregg closed his eyes and their lips met. He felt himself step backwards, two steps at a time. When he stumbled back against one of the engine rods, Xira thrust herself up against him to keep him from falling over. He felt her pressed against him and stiffened in response. He slid his hand down her side, tracing her supple skin until it found the tangle of black hair between her thighs. The wetness within beckoned his approach, and he let a single finger pass the moat. She let go of his lips to let out a soft moan. He toyed with her a bit, then slipped in another finger.
He was readying the third when a sudden malaise coursed through him. Just as the finger was almost there, he let it go no further and freed the others. Xira drew her head back, her mouth still hanging gently open. Her lips pursed and she fluttered her eyes.
"Not here," Kregg said. He looked at his hand, still glistening. His mouth curled and he turned his gaze to the ground.
Xira's eyes went wide and the muscles in her face clenched. Wordless, she grabbed his wrist and started dragging it back towards her. Kregg wrenched it away. "What's the matter with you?" Xira brought her outstretched hand back to her side and curled it into a fist on her hip. She ran the other over an ample breast and gave it a firm squeeze. "Don't you want me?"
Kregg couldn't bring himself to look into her eyes. Green pits of sadness they're like to be. "No, no," he said, stammering, "I do. Really, I do. Just..."
She grabbed his hand again, dragging it closer until his knuckles met her pubic hair. She let it rest there a while before she let him go.
"Just not here," Kregg repeated. We've a job to do. He mustered enough courage to look her in the eye. The green pits of sadness stared him back, just as he knew they would. If she were any other woman, she'd be bawling. "Did you ask our captain for clothes?"
"What do you see in that bitch, Marcus?" Xira gave him a sneer of disgust.
"Not a thing." He let out a sharp exhale. "I told you so back on Narsh."
"You expect me to believe that?" She walked behind him and rested a hand on his shoulder. The other crept around his front and groped his manhood. She giggled. "Well, at least one of your heads works right."
Kregg bit his lip. "I know it's been a while. But really, this ought to wait, don't you think?" He tried to move her hand away but she beat him by mere seconds. He turned to face her. "I'm too old for this shite. You're my one and only. Two years you've been and always will be." He put a hand under her chin, but before he could move his fingers, her own fist clenched around his forearm. Her black nails dug deep; were it not for his dingy jacket, she would have drawn blood.
"Must I always do the taking?" Xira clenched tighter. She pulled herself closer until she was pressing against him once again. "Don't tell me I made the mistake of settling for someone passive. Why are you scared of her?"
"Xira-"
"She's a stuck-up, haughty cunt." She released his arm only to then press both her hands against his cheeks. Any harder and Kregg thought she'd squish his face between them like an overripe melon. "I've killed Jedi before, Marcus. A Sith shouldn't be much different." She craned her neck forward to plant a kiss on his lips. "Let me free you of your obligation to her."
Kregg felt the cords in neck stretch taut. "Freedom would be nice, aye," he said with a frown. "But helping her this once is the least I can do."
"Fek you." Xira let her hands fall back to her sides. Her expression soured, with her lips curling and eyes going flat and narrow. The same face she made when his royal rotundity was showing her off.
"Let me finish." Kregg didn't really know what to say at first. But in a few seconds, it hit him like a freighter. "My obligation is to get this vessel to Rhen Var. That's what I intend to do."
Xira was scowling still but her eyes flicked up towards him with an indignant glare. The faintest glimmer of a smile dawned on the corner of her black lips. "You were always good at aftercare, Ghost."
"Never doubt me."
"I'm hoping you have a plan?"
He slid a finger up against her lips and she gave it a gentle peck. "Of course." Kregg flashed her a smile. "Don't worry your darling head about that. Only thing you need to worry about are clothes." Suddenly, he was conscious of the sweat that irritated and chafed his skin. "Unless you want to stay here? Mind the engines?" He laughed and she followed suit.
"Closest thing to a spring I'm like to get." Xira walked to the back wall and thrust her back into it, then let herself slide down to the floor. "Reminds me of home." She swept a hand through her shock of black hair and beamed at him. "I'll make the most of it."
"I got a job to do now." Kregg gave her a two-finger wave and turned towards the door. "All willing, I'll be back for ya when it's all said and done." Then we can celebrate.
By the time Kregg made it to the cockpit, he was drenched in sweat. Cinder told him to head straight here, but instead of heeding her, he went to the engine room instead. And thank the stars I fekkin' did. The engine couplings were in desperate need of maintenance, with loose nuts and bolts abound. He was lucky to find a set of tools within. She lets the engines go that much to shite, how bad's the rest of the ship? He spent the better part of a standard hour patching up the mess in the engine bay.
Knee-deep in a ship's guts was the way he always liked to spend his time when he wasn't piloting. Navigator, wayfinder, and smuggler was how he would be remembered. Perhaps if he had chosen a more honest trade, people would offer hearty recommendations for Marcus Kregg the shipwright. 'Twas never to be. He made his lot in life decades ago, and the only songs to his name would be those of the Ghost of Fondor, smuggler of spice, blight of the Core, and evader of Jedi knights. And accomplice to the Dark Lady of the Sith.
The boy, Fell, was sitting in the copilot's chair half-asleep. He didn't move when Kregg took the pilot's chair, nor did he look over when it squeaked. Kregg gave Fell a look then let out a sigh. How easy it would be right now, he thought, recalling a conversation with Xira.
His fingers found a flashing blue square. He pressed it down and a starchart appeared in holographic blue just above the ship's dash. The Ashen One appeared as a fat square blip in the center of the chart. Several score more squares, each appearing smaller than the last, trailed in front and behind the big fat one. Hyperspace lanes. Approximated circles with cornered edges represented planets. An ugly conjoined blob lingered several dozen blips behind the ship. Nal Hutta and Narsh. He pressed another button. A soft voice emanated from the console: "Your current destination is: Ossus Space." The tone went from dulcet to robotic when it read out the destination. "You will arrive at your destination in: forty-five standard hours." Kregg sighed and leaned back in his chair. It answered with a high squeak.
Fell stirred beside him. "Oh, Kregg," said the boy as he rubbed his eyes. "You're a bit early, still got a long ways to go." He reclined as well, though his chair did not deem it necessary to squeal out.
"So I've been told," Kregg said. We're en route to Ossus now, aye, but wouldn't it be easier if I just took us straight to Rhen Var?"
Fell shrugged. "I don't see the harm in it." He threw a look over his shoulder, down the corridor that led back into the central terminus of the ship. When he realized the only ghost around was the Ghost of Fondor, he resumed speaking. "She's not here anyway. I'm sure she won't care."
Kregg nodded and his fingers danced around on the keypad. The ship's voice read out his commands. It ran into trouble when he input the last digit for the coordinates. "Destination set to... System error. The system you are searching for does not exist. Please try again." He tried twice more, only to get the same warning. When he saw Fell poorly masking a chuckle at his expense he turned and asked, "Is there any way to turn off this fekkin' shite?"
"There might be." Fell sat upright in his chair and wiggled his fingers. "There you go. Destination set, captain." He leaned back and placed his hands on the back of his neck as a smirk wormed across his lips.
"Estimated arrival in: sixty-one standard hours," said the console.
Kregg blinked. "Where the fek did you set it? I didn't give you the coordinates."
"Well of course those didn't work." Fell laughed. "This ship's navicomputer is a fickle thing. Somehow the less details you give it, the better."
Kregg scoffed and slumped down in his chair. "Well, whatever the case may be, it's my head she'll have. Not yours."
Fell laughed. "She only cares about getting to Rhen Var. I'm sure she'll have no issue if we get closer."
"Did she tell you about the winds I'm supposed to be guiding us through?" Kregg was more than certain he had been through worse than some galactic gale, but a sense of unease gnawed at him from within. She could just be making things up, he thought. She don't even know herself, she said that much.
"Yeah she did. Entire system's been cut off from the hyperspace lanes. The other part of why your coords didn't work." Fell turned to Kregg and his long face seemed to stretch even longer. "Did she not tell you that?"
Kregg thought back to the terse encounter he had with Lysara in her room. He remembered most of it well enough, the yelling most of all. Yet for some reason, he found himself swapping out Lysara for Xira in his mind's eye. "No," he told the boy at last. "Nothin' 'bout the lanes being cut. But I can get us there in one piece."
Fell smirked. "I mean, it is what you're here for."
"What are you gonna do? Kill me if I don't?" Kregg regretted his words when he heard a metal clacking echoing from down the hall.
"Well, maybe not me," Fell said as the clattering grew closer.
Kregg spun around in his chair and saw the rust-red droid from Durgulla's palace. He was leading the Mirialan girl arm-in-arm at his side as she limped along on thin, twisted legs. Her falling down into the beast pit was the last thing he could remember before Durgulla was killed. They entered the cockpit together.
"Command: One of you meatbags needs give up your seat for this sodden sack of suet." The droid's cadence was just as queer as Kregg recalled. The thing looked ancient. The whole of it was whining motors and exposed, creaky joints that looked poorly lubed and ready to snap at the least amount of pressure.
Kregg had never seen this droid's ilk before. Durgulla's ugly translator unit had been a five-hundred-year-old hunk of scrap, but there was no telling the age of this one. The only thing of which Kregg could be certain was that the droid's rusty coloration was just a strange choice of paintjob instead of the permanent scarring of age. Those marks were visible well enough in the form of jagged fissures in the droid's segmented torso, blotched welds, and discoloration that turned his plating green in a few spots.
"Command: Up, meatbag!" The droid was looking down at Kregg now. "Repudiation: Since you would rather gawk than follow an order, I believe it should be you who stands."
Kregg's words caught in his throat.
"Frustration: Bah, don't listen then." The droid curled the fingers on his free arm into a metal fist. "If I were not tasked with caring for this useless sack of flesh beside me, I would drag you up myself. Disappointment: Unfortunately, my hands are tied."
The Mirialan girl grimaced as she shifted on her legs. Kregg felt a phantom discomfort radiate through him when she twitched. "HK," she said. Her voice was hushed and hoarse, though with a cadence that sounded airy and pleasant to Kregg's ears. "Just let me sit against the wall, over there." She pointed half-heartedly at the wall just behind Fell.
"Fine, give her my chair." Fell rolled his eyes but got to his feet nonetheless. He let the chair spin for a bit before using the Force to stop it dead in is tracks. The HK unit gave him a blank stare and something that might have been a nod before leading his charge to her seat. Fell took his place by the wall, slumping down just where the girl said she would.
"Droid, what's your designation?" Kregg shot a glance over at him, and the droid's head turned to meet him. Curiosity tended to put him in a bad way, but at this point there was nothing left to lose. "I may've heard it at the palace, but a lot's happened since."
The droid's photoreceptors were glowing spears of red. Kregg thought them like to gore him here and now. "Introduction: Oh, meatbag, how pleasant to make your acquaintance."
"Here we go again," Fell muttered.
"I am HK-47, personal protocol droid for Dark Lady Cinder." The droid walked forward and in two stilted steps he loomed over Kregg once more. The smuggler stood up to greet him, stretching out a hand. Even standing, the droid still had several centimeters on him. Kregg's nerves went up in knots as the droid's cold metal hand grabbed his own and shook.
"Kregg," he said with a shy laugh. "Marcus Kregg. The smuggler."
"Annoyance: Yes, yes organic, I already know of you." HK-47 released his grip and turned away to find a place at Fell's side. "The master has said much of how she hopes you will help us." Kregg thought he saw the droid bristle, but that was impossible. He's a machine. "Conjecture: It would be most unlike her to misplace faith, so I will trust her judgment."
Kregg couldn't help but laugh. Why would you think she trusted you, you blind bastard? It took him way too long to recognize her, but Lysara had clearly recalled him from the start. Two different women, in truth. The foolhardy Jedi knight who chased him through the asteroid field was long gone. The Dark Lady of the Sith was more like to run him through for any missteps than turn him over to the Republic Tribunal. "Of course, droid. I'll get you all where you need to go."
"You'll need to know how to get through the winds," the Mirialan spoke up. She was a dainty little thing, rail-thin and small of bone even despite her brokenness. Her skin was the color of curdled Bantha milk and her eyes were a shade of purple that put Alderaanian grapes to shame.
"Aye, true enough," Kregg said with a nod. "But the waiting, girl. That's the hard part."
"My name's not 'girl'. It's-" She stopped herself and her face crept with flush.
"Marcus Kregg, Darth Bestia," Fell said as he wedged his way between them. He waved his hands between both of them. "Bestia, Kregg. Kregg, Bestia. There, now you're introduced." He turned and retook his place sitting on the floor beside the droid, who loomed beside him more like a discolored extension of the ship's architecture than a living thing.
"Well, Bestia," Kregg said. The name rolled off his tongue well enough. He did find it a tad silly, but nowhere near so silly as "Fell". He and Xira had laughed about that for a good while before Lysara found them in her chambers. "We've got about sixty hours before we've gotta get through these magic winds." He stretched his legs and leaned back in his chair. "How's about we rest a while?"
HK-47 was the first to answer. "Contempt: Though I do not share these useless limitations you refer to as 'tiredness', my central processor could use some rest." His eyes went empty and his head finally ceased its swiveling, though remained stuck in a crooked position.
Kregg raised his hands. "There you have it. Be seein' you in a couple o' days."
He paid the other two no mind and drifted off to sleep in the captain's chair. It reminded him so much of home.