Cad Bane - The Concept of Trust

Making a trade: Part II / II

Here's the 2nd part. For some reason I really like this one. It gave me a chance to study ship builds, hypothermia, hint to the past, and write again some bounty hunting. Then as a cherry on the top, I could give small flashes in their thoughts and reactions. They are both terrible at even recognizing feelings. It's fun to play with that. Walls are not breaking. They are being scratched. Talking about reaaaaally slow burn. ;) 

-------------

The shadow hologram had given Her an almost free pass all the way to the coordinates where the ship was supposed to be. And then, finally, She had seen the J-type 327 Nubian vessel. Or, what was left of it. Nothing even hinted at its former glory, and if you didn't know your starships it was hard to even recognize it with its chromium shell peeled off. The vessel had been there for well over a decade, and robbed clean of anything of value. 

She had waltzed Her way around the Junkers, it becoming harder the closer She got. As luck would have it, She had gotten inside the ship's skeleton without being noticed, Her disguise serving more than well. She had exhaled, when getting deeper inside the ship. Safe for a moment. There hadn't been much left. No shell, no engines, guns, hyperdrive, nothing. The ship had huge tears in its hull. You didn't need to be a genius to guess what had been the downfall of this ship. Proton torpedoes ripped the hulls just like in this one. Then She had entered the cockpit. It had been surprisingly intact, only the expensive parts stripped off. She remembered thinking that this ship had been reported lost near the time when the Jedi were declared as the enemy, and the purge had begun. Maybe that was why nobody had been interested in finding the ship. They had other things to worry about then. She had taken out the tools, getting on with transferring the database.

She groaned, hitting Her fist on the floor repeatedly, the hollow echoes vanishing in mere moments. Why had Grakkus had to send other mercs there!? Everything had been going so well... The violent shivering that rattled her body wasn't ceasing anymore, and Her thoughts drifted, making it hard to concentrate. She was so cold... What had even happened then? She forced herself to concentrate. Oh, yes... She had heard blasters firing outside just when the work was finished. Dashing to a hole in the hull, She had seen half a dozen heavily armored and armed mercs approaching the ship, cutting down Junkers. It had to be Grakkus. She had felt that the Hutt had had his regrets of promising the saber as a payment. She had rushed to the other side, seeing six mercs there too. Great. She had patiently waited until the team had gotten in, and then climbed out, down the ship's wall, landing safely on the ground. That's when Her luck had run out. The blaster fire had alerted all the Junkers nearby, and two of them attacked Her, obviously not deceived by the matrix. Druk. She had cut them down, and made Her escape. 

The mercs had heard the fire, and were after Her in a jiff. She didn't even remember when She had had to run so fast, or so long. She had sacrificed stealth for speed, and now both Junkers and the mercs were pursuing Her. Getting better all the time. It had felt like She was scooping up every hostile life form after Her, when racing through the decaying metal frames and garbage, and when running for Her life She had thanked all those hours spent training. Last thing you want to do is to run out of breath in the middle of a battle. That's what Thelon had repeatedly told them when putting them through excruciating training exercises again and again, and She had taken that lesson to heart. It paid off now. None of them had caught Her, miraculously no bolts had hit Her. Finally She had reached the Dalcassian, shouting R3 through the comms to prepare for the take-off. They had fried some Junkers with Dalcassian's thrusters, and even gotten out of the orbit. Then the mercs with their own YT -freighter had caught up on Her, and the luck had finally run out, when the blaster fire started showering the Dalcassian.