Nico's Gambit

Belly of the Beast

"Our next stop is Nar Shadaa," Rishsa said, walking into the lounge with datapad in hand, and looking extremely satisfied with herself. "The closest thing I call to home. This is one I'm actually looking forward to."

Odette felt her stomach twist a little. Nico looked over at her. Odette shook her head at him and folded a leg over her other leg as she sat back.

"Is Nar Shaddaa your homeworld?" Odette asked.

"I was born in space but it feels like it. It has everything you never knew you wanted. The only laws are the ones made with blasters or bribes. It's good to be back.

"Now, as much as I love it, we still have to tread carefully with this next one. We're dealing with a Hutt this time. Drooga's one of the richest, most influential gang leaders on Nar Shaddaa. He's also a bit of a spoiled dandy if you can apply that term to a Hutt. He, however, has a prototype starship engine we need to get to the fortune. In exchange, we're giving him the beast in the cage."

"How can a slavering beast be worth a starship engine?" Corso asked.

"It's a species called a shanjaru. It's nearly extinct and that makes it valuable. Drooga hosts a moving party on his pleasure barge and that's the only way he'll see us. Last time I tracked it, it was parked at the Promenade. I've let him know we've arrived and will be coming shortly but he never confirmed. Seems we'll have to make contact the old-fashioned way."

Odette snorted. "Figures, the rude, fat worm."

Risha nodded. "He's rich so he can afford to be rude."

Odette stood up and wiped her clammy palms on her pants. "I'm going to go get ready to depart."

"You sure you don't want me handling this one this time?" Nico said, grabbing her arm before she could get past him all the way.

She gently pulled her arm away. "Are you even able to walk? We can't have you three sheets to the wind talking to a Hutt," she said, rougher than she intended. She softened her face. "We need to talk after I get back."

"Oh, I should mention something else," Risha said, acting as if she hadn't noticed the exchange between father and daughter. "Seems you haven't entirely shaken Rogun the Butcher. Chatter on the HoloNet is there's a hefty price on your head now over some business on Ord Mantell. He's sent his personal bounty hunter, Zank Helrott, here to find you. Be careful."

Odette threw her hands up in the air and stormed out of the lounge. Just one more thing to make things today that much more fabulous. So not only would she need to be chasing some stinking, rude worm around Nar Shaddaa, she's have to be watching her back the entire time. She nearly made it to the cockpit when Corso caught up to her.

"Hey, Captain," he said. "Can I talk to you a minute?"

"Everyone else has," Odette said, rounding on him. "Why not you, too?"

Corso looked stunned for a moment but recovered himself. "I don't normally ask for favors but I think we've known each other long enough now that I don't think you'll mind. When we go down to Nar Shaddaa, I want to try and find my cousin, Rona. She's all the family I have left and she deserves to know what happened."

Odette relaxed a bit. She took a big breath in and let it out before answering his hopeful face. "You don't have to worry about asking, Corso. You're part of the crew now."

"Ok, great," he said, smiling. "She's just really important to me. She joined the Brigade with me but jumped ship the first port we came to. I was able to track her to Nar Shaddaa so she's probably still there. She reminds me a little of you."

"Really?"

"Yeah, she was the family rebel," Corso chuckled. "She liked me to run interference so her father wouldn't catch her on dates with off-worlders."

Odette smirked. "My kind of girl."

"You'd definitely like her," Corso said.

"Fine, we'll see what we can find when we're down there," she said. She turned and continued to hurry to get to the cockpit. She needed a second alone but her bunk was too small. In fact, everyplace on the Gambit at the moment seemed too small. The cockpit was the only place that had a wide view of space that made the space look a little bigger.

She threw herself into the captain's chair and held her arms around her torso. She tried to get the sick feeling that threatened to overcome her under control. Nar Shaddaa. Even to this day, she didn't have specific memories of the place, just shadowy impressions of things that may have happened there. She was only six years old. But she knew bad things had had happened because she could barely control the feeling of dread and fear every time she got within mere parsecs of the place. That's why Nico usually took responsibility of jobs out of Nar Shaddaa, but lately his binge drinking had been out of control and they'd avoided taking jobs that had taken them near Nar Shaddaa at all. Now that she'd gotten herself wrapped up with Risha and this crazy scavenger hunt of a job with a promise of riches galore she'd been snared right into the belly of the beast and hadn't even questioned it for a second.

Tears welled at the bottom of her eyes and she breathed in and out heavily as she thought about how soon they would be at the planet itself and how soon she would be expected to go there. She blinked rapidly trying to rid herself of the excess water. In her mind she told herself over and over that she'd just walk onto the pleasure barge, make the exchange and come back. They'd take a short side trip to find Rona and in a sprawling nasty planet like Nar Shaddaa it would be easy to avoid a bounty hunter among the millions of other people who came there to get lost.

From behind her, she heard someone ask her a question but she wasn't paying attention to whoever it was. She was staring ahead at the nav computer watching the dreaded planet get closer and closer.

"You ok?" the voice said again.

She took deep, breaths in and out. A fragment of a memory of some shadows chasing her through an alley played out in front of her, and her small feet carrying her forward as fast as they could go, knowing if they caught her then bad, scary, painful things would happen to her.

"Captain?" the voice said again. A figure knelt down in front of her and grabbed her arms. "Odette!"

Odette's eyes whipped over into Corso's deep, dark brown ones. She felt trapped by the concern and worry there—for her. His large warm hand rubbed her upper arms causing tendrils of warmth to flow from her arms into her frozen and confused brain.

"Are you ok?" he asked again, softly.

She shook her head at him slowly.

"Odette, you won't be going alone. I'll be there. We can take Nico with us too, if we can sober him up a bit."

All she could do was inspect the handsome lines of his face and focus on that.

"Are you breathing?" he said, taking one of her hands in his and massaging it starting with her pinky finger and moving to the next one. Each caress was like warm water being released up into her arm. She could feel some of the stress melting away at his touch. "When I was a kid, my dad taught me to use a shotgun for hunting and defense. But every time I would fire it, I would close my eyes. I don't know why. I knew I wasn't going to get hurt, but I was trying to protect myself anyway. My dad told me before I took the shot to focus on my target and take in a deep breath while I pull the trigger. The action of pulling in the air helped me to keep my eyes open until I could do it without needing to take the breath.

"When we get ready to down to the planet, just focus on me or your dad and take a deep breath and it'll be ok. You're the deadliest shot I've ever seen, so no one will be able to hurt you because you won't let them. And if, for some reason, you can't, then I won't let them. Did you hear what I said? I won't let anyone hurt you."

Something swelled in her chest as he said it. She reached over and hugged him tightly, getting as close to him as possible. She trembled a little but the warmth from his chest and his arms around her soon warmed her enough that they stopped.

"Thanks, Corso," she whispered in his ear. "I'm glad to know you have my back."

"Always," he whispered back.