Now Departing (open)

Mallis took a quick glance around her dank quarters on the travel ship, the deep grey walls only welcoming to the grimey layer that was already a resident upon it. She dreaded to think what was still on the bed- her decision to bring a sleeping bag and depart at the nearest opportunity had proven to be the wisest course of action. Of course, seeing as one stop was all she could afford, wisest choice was kind of misleading- but given the state of her room, that wouldn't be the story she would be telling.

She made her way back to the ships cantina, though even that- on this hunk of junk- was stretching. Three tables packed into a glorified cupboard. After ordering some food, she placed her backpack on the table, afraid to leave it in her 'room', in case of theft, or the ridiculous but present paranoia that the dirtiness of it would envelope her belongings to become part of the single unit of trash that was the space-lane equivalent of a seedy motel. A droid wheeled past dropping her order on the table, then scurried away.

She rummaged through the backpack and withdrew a small object. She had been treating it like a good luck charm, but she hadn't figured out why she had found it appealing- after all the crystal was heavily flawed- to a degree that it visible without magnification and ultimately made it worthless. She saw a pair of shining brown eyes reflected back at her, as she continued to eat the meal, by the pale yellow gem. Of course she recognised them, they belonged to her.

She slumped down on the table, resting her head on top of her arm, gazing at the force crystal at the end of her fingertips, as though mesmerized by it. It was only after she tried to raise her head again that she realised the hypnosis was not a result of the crystal- but instead from the drugs now coursing through her system, from eating the meal. As her eyelids drooped and the crease of light began to fade, Mallis was left with just enough time for a single thought:- 'even the food is unclean on this bloody ship.'



Mallis' eyes fluttered open and were immediately snapped back shut as the light assaulted her from every direction. She didn't remember going to bed, nor ordering anything that would normally leave her in her current state. She forced herself to look on the bright side- at least she was a day closer to her destination. Feelings started to fleet back to her brain from all over her body. Her feet were ice cold, but there was a warm liquid running down her right leg. Something cold was putting pressure on her nose and while she couldn't feel her left arm, there was a tingling sensation coming from it.

"Ubwahs ron." She muttered aloud- a lame effort to state the obvious. Something was indeed wrong. She had awoken with some of these symptoms before, but never all at the same time. She lifted with all her might, finally cracking open the weighty stone eyelids and struggling not to wince them closed again. The last two mysteries were immediately solved and the last memories of her consciousness were restored. She had been lying on her arm the entire time and upon awaking her face had dropped onto the steel table.

Mallis lifted her head slowly, to prevent the world spinning too much. She chuckled at the prospect of the thought before realising that she couldn't tell if the world was spinning due to the severe blurring of light. She turned her vision downwards and after about half a minute the gravy stain on her trousers came into focus. Oddly her boots lay in front of her bare feet, on sock strewn across the chair opposite from hers, the other was nowhere in sight.

Panic set-in immediately. Her groggy revival had slowed down her approach to grasp the obvious. She had been robbed. Her force crystal was missing along with the backpack containing the other three. Mallis sprung up, hoisted her sock on and slipped back into her boots. She glanced around the room and something struck Mallis as odd.

"Is there no-one else on this crappy boat?" She groaned. "Why am I surprised? Look at this nutbucket..."

NIk's head was pounding. His cabin was a less than spiffy, in fact if he hadn't missed his guess the place had been turned over. The small rucksack that contained his worldly possessions was no where to be seen, what wasn't valuable-which was most of it- had been thrown around willy nilly without much care for the sentimental value their owner may have place upon them.

Considering they were all he currently owned, that was a fair whack. He fought back the thumping madmen that had invaded his brain and worked his way from the table he had been previously eating the paltry ships meal at- before face planting directly into the mashed potato- and stood up. His knees did quiver but they held once he steadied himself upon the edge of the small fold down table and then began the precarious action of actually walking.

The Corellian stumbled once and twice but finally found his center of gravity again before his mind caught up to the fact that he had been robbed. All thoughts currently not predisposed with not passing out quickly turned to self preservation. One hand reached to his gun belt and found it wanting; the bastards had taken his weapon.

The next logical course, he figured, was reporting the theft to the greasy captain of this rust bucket. However when he opened the door onto the corridor-straight facing a viewport to the world outside- he got the distinct impression that maybe the captain wasn't at the helm

The stars outside were spinning and once a rotation he would catch a glimpse of a small barren rock that might have passed as a planet growing closer and closer.

"Bugger..." He muttered and thanks the gods the artificial gravity was still working.

'It's a small ship.' Mallis thought to herself, a little too loudly for her liking. 'The scumbags who stole my crystals have to still be on board.' The bag, the sleeping bag and the clothes of no concern, but the crystals were important to her. Each one had a story of how she procured it, after all, wherever they are- something nasty seems to be in close proximity.

She reckoned the thieves had no knowledge of such things, or else they would have at least left the flawed gem behind. The others were slightly more valuable, however. Two of them were said to be coloured crystals, which she thought was strange, since they all had a colour- the fourth one appeared to be different, but she was yet to get it appraised. In any case, she hadn't revealed it to anyone, certainly not on the ship- so that wasn't the reason for her being targeted. As far as she knew, anyway.

Mallis found her way to the nearest corridor, where the droid that served the food lay wrecked. The decapitated, or her best approximation of it, piece of metal lay by entrance, while the rest had been torn apart and was left sprawled across the length of its floor. She had to assume there were pieces missing, but since they thieves would have taken them and she had no knowledge of the inner workings of droids- she couldn't tell what parts they would have taken.

On one of the removed panels with a reflective surface, she caught a glimpse of herself for the first time since gaining consciousness. Her hair was a mess, the thieves had even taken the scrap she used to tie her hair back. The vibrant brown locks only flowed to her shoulders, but she liked tying it up during the day. Her left cheek and the tip of her nose was covered in a thick grey spatter of dust from when her face had come into contact with the table and once again she found herself spreading a nice chunk of sarcasm on her gross-measure-of-this-ship sandwich.

At the end of the corridor, there was what looked like a ladder leading up, to a small bubble of blackness. She wasn't a fan of looking into space- it made her paranoid of some horrible disaster breaking through the hull and making the inside not so inside. Closer inspection revealed the ladder to be the track of an elevator and at the base of the panel lay a small caterpillar track of wheels that appeared to have been crushed by the elevator.

'There's another droid.' She thought. 'It looks like this one was used for navigation, correcting the course of the ship as we travel, to prevent asteroids colliding with the vessel.' In honesty, she was surprised that THIS ship had such a thing- but in fairness- it no longer did. Not satisfied with ripping this one apart, they appeared to have taken the whole droid- minus one leg.

Most worrying to Mallis was the fact she still hadn't found anyone else on the ship, with or without a pulse. Mallis couldn't help like something larger than she had comprehended so far was in the works. Either that or a sock-stealing, foot fetishist was really out of proportion in covering their tracks.

The ship had begun to groan by the time he'd staggered down the corridor, it seemed whatever duct tape and gum held the heap together was beginning to come undone. Panic had well and truly taken up residence. Now he had only one option, aside from pissing his pants, and that was to get to the cockpit and see what could be done.

It didn't seem likely that there would be an escape pod on board, if the ship had been raided then their first course of action would be to ensure escape wasn't possible after the goods were got. Although he had a sneaking suspicion that he and his fellow passengers had been had from the get-go. There was something about the ships crew that struck him as more than shifty, he just put it down as being because it was the cheapest flight out of Bonadan. If you wanted perfect customer service then you had to pay more than a handful of creds.

The ship suddenly lurched and he found himself plastered to what was the roof of the corridor. He attempted to stand and found, after his brain had adjusted to his now upside down position, that it wasn't the ship but the gravity system beginning to malfunction.

He could almost feel that first warm stream waiting to make an exit down his leg as he picked up the pace, hopping over ceilling lights and air vents toward the front of the ship. Someone-and he didn't know who yet-was about to receive a strongly worded letter.

Mallis continued down the corridor, when she was ripped from the floor and the roof started speeding towards her. 'This is a hell of a drug.' She thought, leaving herself very little time to snap to the realization that she was suddenly falling head-first towards the large metallic grate the was the roof. She tried to turn as quickly as possible, but her shoulder slammed into a large cross-section of the metal. It was too thick and blunt to pierce the skin, but the sudden switch in gravity and angle at which she landed dislocated her shoulder.

Mallis released a small yell, feeling less pain than she would've expected- undoubtedly a result of the substance still dissipating from her system. As she struggled to her feet, she noticed the right was hanging, twisted in a peculiar fashion from the shoulder. Any attempt from her to move it still gave her an incredible surge of pain, along with an awkward sensation from the joint itself.

Left with little option, she stomped on a nearby light fixture until the glass shattered. She lifted the largest piece with her left hand. She was right handed, so with the fact her right arm was now out of commission, she felt the urgency of needing to defend herself if she discovered the culprits.

Turning the corner, she faced the top of the door of the room she believed to be the cockpit. She was certain someone was inside who could aid her- unless they were the culprits themselves. Otherwise- at the very least- she might have been able to discover what had caused the ship to flip. Unfortunately for Mallis, however, the door was closed.

She struggled for several minutes, trying to pry it open or reach the control panel to open it, before eventually resting her back against the wall that would normally be above the door and sinking to the newly appointed floor.

Nik was running quicker than he thought himself capable- planetray collisions will get the wind up anybody- and as he rounded a corner he attempted to stop. This did not go as planned and found himself flipping mid-air-upside down-and onto his back which still remained upon the ceiling.

What had stalled him was the girl trying to jimmy the cockpit, his mind raced and he came to the conclusion-aided by her giving up-that it was very locked. He got upright and scrabbled forward, grabbed the glass from her hand, sent his boot into the locking panel above her head and said "Looks sore that, fancy staying alive? Names Nik by the way." And the door swished open a second before he was inside parking his arse in the pilots seat. It was at this point he realized he was now upside-upside down, only the harnesses were stopping him faceplanting back onto the ceiling.

"If you're coming in I'd do it fast!" He yelled his hands a blur over the barely functional control board. A discarded panel and some sparks with the occasional yelp and he had somehow managed to restore backup engines. "No seriously! Now would be good, sooner would have been better!"

The next moments happened all too quickly for Mallis to understand, before she was aware of what was happening, the protection in her hand had been swiped away from a man who seemingly appeared from nowhere. His boot soared overhead, crashing into the computer interface above her.

"Looks sore that, fancy staying alive? Names Nik by the way." The man stated.

"Uh, Evans." She responded still trying to grasp what was happening, as the man charged into the room. It was her go-to response as far as giving her name to strangers was concerned. It just sounded better than giving her first name, which was often open to ridicule- mostly because it sounded like she had been named by an emo equal parts mid-way through a terrible poem and a stroke. Apart from that, giving a second name sounded sort of official- almost, military. Often landed a good first impression.

She made her way to her knees, as she turned and watched the hurried man shuffle to work and hoisted himself into the chair above him.

"If you're coming in I'd do it fast!" She pulled herself to her feet. She was soon stunned with the noise of the engines spluttering to life. Stunned, of course, in her own ineptitude to realise the background noise was missing in the first place. "No seriously! Now would be good, sooner would have been better!"

She didn't need telling a third time. She rested her arm on the top of the doorframe and pulled her rear end up onto it, then swung her legs over. The process of getting inside was more complicated than it needed to be, but after all, she was avoiding any process which might involve her right arm coming into contact with something.

"I'm glad one of us knows how to fly this thing." This man seemed to fit the bill of precisely what she needed and suddenly, this made him quite suspicious. She scanned the cockpit hurriedly, only deciding that she didn't require another weapon- after thinking through the logical points that with the engine off, they would be out of breath soon, so he had just saved their life once already- and as the person in control of the ship, was thus in control of her life again. Any act against the man would put her life straight back into peril. Furthermore, he already disarmed her and had ample opportunity to use it on her, from an advantaged stance and with Mallis injured. The final point in her self-contested battle of logic was that everything in the room was nailed down. To the floor. Now roof. The only chance anyone had of reaching any object usable as a weapon and prying it free would be from the captain's chair.

Mallis placed a fore-finger and thumb on either side of her nose and closed her eyes for a second. The attempt to clear her mind failed from the buzzing of electronics coming from the chair. The only thing she could bring herself to say was the one question that had been on her mind since she came to.

"I don't suppose you have any idea what's going on here?"

"Glad you could join me." Nik said as she came into the cockpit. He was still fighting the sabotaged systems, trying to shut down everything that wasn't vitally essential while being all too aware that the brown blob he had seen minutes ago was now a large asteroid desperate to make friends.

"I wouldn't really call it flying, more...shimmying and hoping for the best, also you may feel a slight jolt." With that he flipped the gravity back to normal and he into the cushions of his seat. Nik braced himself, this would either gently nudge them out of their collision course or blow up the ship. He faltered for a moment and then thought "What the hell?"

The ship juddered and ever so slowly began to swing left but not quick enough, they passed the asteroid which was easily bigger than the tramp freighter and a nails-upon-chalkboard screeched that it would require a new paint job. They were safe though, well...safe was relative they would probably die of asphyxiation or starvation if the backup generator packed in.

"There. Safe and sound, unless that minor collision caused a hull breach." He had purposefully ignored her last question until now, more because it wouldn't have really mattered if they had blossomed into a pretty ball of fire.

"We were set up, plain and simple. Robbed and left for dead. Silly people, they took my gun you know..." Nik's eyes became hard balls of hazel fury. "I like my gun.."

There was always a way to find a culprit, a galaxy this large had just as many loud mouths and avenues of information and job like this, so haphazardly executed, he would put money on an amateur outfit. This far out on the rim that left only one port of call "Ughh...the sandbox..." He thought.

Mallis watched in awe. The huge rock speeding towards them was only outraced by the flurry of movements from the arm of the man strapped to the ceiling.

"...you may feel a slight jolt." Mallis caught the end of his sentence and once again, the ground started stampeding at her, like they hadn't seen each other for a while and it was overly friendly. Since she was aware it wasn't a side effect of the ordeal, she managed to spin her head away from the ground before making impact, instead landing on her knees and catching the ground with her left hand before her right shoulder made contact with the ground.

She let in a deep breath, trying to suppress the agony that was building as the drug lessened its hold on her. The jolt, while nothing made contact with her, had still shifted the weight in her arm- creating a seriously painful twist. These in conjunction with the slight tremor down the ship and the ear-piercing screech which forced her to squeeze her eyes closed for the duration all coincided to create a nauseated state within her.

"There. Safe and sound, unless that minor collision caused a hull breach." Mallis wanted so much much to argue the point, was very afraid what might come out if she opened her mouth. She did however make a mental note to repay Nik for saving her life- perhaps with a dictionary- so he could learn the proper definition of the word safe, because his understanding clearly differed from hers.

She took the seat nearby and pulled the straps closed, while listening as Nik finally answered her question. She considered what he had stated, that they had been set-up. She couldn't believe that to be wholly accurate- unless, she wasn't the target. Nik had a favoured gun, she had a couple of rocks and she hadn't shown the fourth one to anybody, getting it appraised was pretty much the purpose of the journey. She was suddenly getting the feeling that this person was far from your run of the mill character catching a taxi. Which was fine by her- if he was so adamant to get his gun back, then her keepsakes would be right alongside it.

She looked over at Nik, who was now showing a fierce look on his face. She couldn't help but feel like he already had something in mind- and she wasn't about to argue any point.

"If we're going somewhere with a doctor, I'd appreciate it." She fought off the urge to vomit to speak weakly.

Nik let his hands finally fall from the control board. They were not out of the woods, not by a long shot but they had a few seconds to spare- probably. He looked to his impromptu co-pilot and winced as he saw her arm.

"Where we're going you'd rather a blind drunk nashtah treated you." He responded as he unstrapped himself and half turned in his seat to face her. "As a man who finds himself in more tight spots, and with more injuries, than I care to count I could fix that for you." He nodded toward her arm.

He was lying. He'd never dislocated his shoulder before but he'd seen Thuse Trillis in Death Solid do it once. As far as medical training went that was better than most of the doctors claimed to have in a Galaxy Far, Far Away.

Mallis glared at the askew joint that was her shoulder. The horrific mound beside her head directly connected to the dangling, limp appendage she was focusing on not moving it.

"Alright." Said Mallis. The man had done everything in his power so far to keep them alive. It just needed to be popped back in, she thought. "Let's get this over with while my pain receptors are still on the fritz."
She swayed her right arm towards him.

She felt a terrible pain just from a grip on her arm and she opened her mouth to stall for a moment while she braced herself.

She screamed horribly as a crippling wave of pain- equivalent, in her mind, to mortar fire launched bricks covered in sandpaper throughout her body, each one that reached the end of an extremity exploded into a whirlwind of snapped dagger blades and wasabi.

"Sinister pragmatic sandals." Her weak delirious voice spoke, before the world seeped out of existence and she blacked out.

Nik tried not to cry and scream "I'M SOOORRRYYYY!!!" as her arm was wrenched back into place. After it was done and she lay out cold upon the co-pilots chair he scratched the back of his head and sighed.

"That wasn't bad for a first try, eh? Dr Ball eat your heart out." He smiled to himself and even hummed a little tune as he turned back to the other tasks he had put aside- like keeping them from exploding.

The control board was pretty much a life day tree, all red and blinking. The hyperdrive was knackered, the main engines were gubbed and the toilets were backed up. He got up from his seat and poked around the various compartments, coming up with a hydrospanner some adhesive tape and a mallet. As everyone knows, these are the essential tools for fixing any mechanical problem.

The engine room wasn't far away, the ship was relatively small compared to most passenger ships, and he spent a solid ten minutes bashing at machinery, taping up snapped wired and burst pipes before screwing it all back together again. He stood, his cheek smeared with grease and surveyed his handiwork. It looked like a child had tried to put it back together again and a pile of nuts and bolts lay at his feet; their purpose unknown.

The engine failed to give a flicker of life and his dark brows creased in anger he raised the hammer and miraculously the hyperdrive and sublights rumbled to life. The mere threat had obviously been enough.

The ship began to light up, the aircon began to push out a cool breeze and the toilets looked on with jealousy. It wasn't that he forgotten them, it was purely that he flat out refused to do plumbing. He didn't have the facial hair for one.

Mallis groaned as she came back around, automatically clutching her head and pulling her head down as far as the harness keeping her in the chair would allow. The headache had her imagining a thin laser consistently bouncing around the inside of her brain.

She opened her eyes to the sight of the metallic floor. Her arm still ached a little, but the headache was vastly overshadowing it.

"Ugh." A guttural moan was all she could manage initially. "I'm still on this damn ship." She hoped in the midst of clutching her head that she'd gotten plastered and dreamed any of the recent events that she had gone through.

She raised her head slowly and to her surprise, the objects outside of her window had gotten majoritively more colourful than she had last seen. She pulled her head back down upon catching a sight outside of the window of their docking bay.

"Will someone turn down the sand down." She turned to the man on her left, who currently had an aura of smugness exuding from him. "Why'd you bring us here? I didn't pack for a desert....shit." She felt about ready to weep. Her belongings had been stolen, she'd nearly died twice, she had a headache that rulers would use an excuse to start a war and worst of all- she was going to get sand in her good boots, with still only one sock.

"Morning sleepy head." Nik grinned as she began to stir. They had landed, in the interim, on Tattooine-or the sandbox as he called it. It still looked like as much like a dried turd as the last time he'd been here. In short he shared her sentiments entirely.

"Being a criminal and all, oh didn't you know that? Sorry, slips your mind when you're about to die. Its the damnedest thing." He furrowed his brow as if continuing to examine why that always happened and then pushed on. "Simple really, every amateur criminal knows that if you want to sell your pilfered goods then this is the place. So we go build us a sand castle around these little pricks and then stomp it bloody down." He slipped off the chair restraints and stood, stretching up onto his tip toes and back down again.

"Well come on, we can't fart around here all day. Besides I'm pretty sure I taped the main fuel line to the engine coupling. We could die at any moment." With that said he sauntered out onto the waiting boarding ramp into the crowded star port of Mos Eisley.

A criminal. Well, that ended any speculation in her eyes, he was definitely meant to be the target of this little charade, Mallis was simply plucked up as an extra willing payday.

To be honest, now that she could give him a hard stare, he seemed like the sort who could charm his way past some security guards with contraband. Or maybe just a straight up confidence man. he had the appearance of being able to earn anyone's trust. Including, incidentally, hers.

Either way, they had been robbed, he appeared to know where thieves hang out- it worked out rather well.

"Oh, I do hope so. I would happily roast marshmallows on the burning wreckage of this wheelie bin of a ship." She commented as she unstrapped herself, after his instruction and followed his path of the ship. She couldn't help but think that after this adventure, she might never step foot off of her home world again, but as far as those with knowledge of force crystals go, it's extremely lacking.

She perked up momentarily at the thought, however, of the world they had stepped on. She had no way of knowing where to find a force cave, but a desert world must be home to several such possible troves. She'd already had the adventure- if she was able to buy one, regardless of it's insignificance, she would have to jump at the opportunity. She now had one hell of a story, she'd be damned if she didn't end up with something to show for it. Assuming there was any of her credits left amongst her belongings. She had to admit, the thieves were thorough- she wouldn't have imagined they'd have thought to take off her boots and the emergency credits that she had stashed within.

She immediately began to feel the heat of the planet and saw little choice but to remove her jumper and wrap it around her waist. She wished she could have changed clothes entirely, what with the large gravy stain that was running down her trouser leg. She was just thankful it was on the front. Alas, the vest would have to do.

They walked down the sand strewn pathway out of the space port and onto-you guessed it- yet more sand. The streets and low domed buildings were a bustle of activity. Aliens from all walks of life filled what passed for streets and they found themselves in among the crowd.

Nik didn't like it, they were unarmed and that didn't sit well with him. Any thug or mugger could easily hold them up. They didn't have anything but that wouldn't stop the bastards. Thankfully they reached a side street off the main, this one had no stalls and less foot traffic but what it did was was a fence that Rillians had used once or twice.

"Okay, just let me do the talking and if anything goes sideways let me escape first." He whispered as they stepped in through the doorway. The room was cool, then again where wasn't compared to Tatooines binary suns? It looked like a boutique, if those sold useless junk. An aged and sun kissed human female sat at the rickety counter and looked up with a toothless smile as they entered. She saw Nik and all grandmotherly feelings left in a hurry.

The old woman nodded to the backroom and Nik took her advice. This was where the real business happened, where stolen goods from a hundred worlds traded hands. They'd find what they needed here.

Mallis followed Nik's path, almost footstep for footstep the entire length of the streets, following the manouevres he took to get through the fence.

Upon entering the building, Mallis' first thought was to the slight drop in temperature again. Any feeling of anxiety was immediately subsided as as she took one look around the room at the selection of miscellaneous goodies laid out in every direction.

She didn't know where to begin in her foray for the collectible that she would use to tell this tale, but then she caught glimpse of a gesture pointing them to the back room. She remembered the reputation she had just been told of the underhanded side of business on the planet and decided that she probably shouldn't show too much interest in the stuff here- she had the feeling once they sniffed out a victim, things would not go well- especially with the assuredly heart-wrenching news that she didn't have any money.

She hurried along towards the back room, almost a little excited to see what, precisely, a black market looked like. She was not prepared however, for what lay beyond the the door.

The Twi'lek they saw was even more ancient than the woman out front. The room was little more than a broom closet, a rickety desk sat in its middle and the dealer perused a datapad. His skin was a faded blue, what might have been a cool sapphire in his prime was now mottled and dulled by his long years. The lekku that hung around his neck twitched absentmindedly as he read, clouded and watery eyes scanning the green text of the latest sector news.

"Pra'tari..." Nik said in way of greeting but made damn sure not to take his eyes off the apparently frail sentient.

"Ah, Nikolas." The voice was gentle, soft, like velvet slipping over glass. It was exactly the way you'd imagine a grandfather to sound in a holovid. "What can I do for you?" A fly buzzed around them and landed next to the Twi'lek, it met its end blindingly fast via the back of the datapad.

"We were recently...." Rillians thought how best to word what had transpired. "Relieved? Of some goods. I was wondering if any of them may have passed through here."

"Even if they had you know my policy, son." He set the datapad aside and rested his forearms upon the tabletop.

"I am aware, however this isn't your usual run of the mill heist. They took on passengers in good faith, drugged us, stole my bloody gun and then set us on a one way trip to asteroid city."

"The cheeky buggers, what ever happened to the good old days of gentlemen thieves?" Pra'tari scoffed, with a snort.

"I don't really have time for this, I have business elsewhere. Business that could be expedited so much more smoothly if I was armed. So cut the crap and name your price." All warmth went out of the black market dealer then and the soft smile that had adorned his wizened face faded into memory.

"As blunt as ever, Nikolas....you never were very good at foreplay. Or so I've heard." He picked up the datapad again and reclined back in his seat, that could have been as old as he. "Fine. I need something delivered. Do that and I'll comm you the co-ordinates of your thieves."

"Do I look like I drifted up the hyperspace corridor in a banana boat? Co-ordinates, we get our stuff then I do the job. If its anything like your last few I'll need my pistol.." Rillians countered.

"Judging by the ship you came in on, I'd say that would be a step up but I guess you're right. I've transmitted the co-ordinates to your ships nav-computer and my men are also loading up the cargo you are to deliver. Don't look at me like that dear boy, I'm no fool either. Besides, you are going to the same place." The Twi'lek smiled with a spark of mischief in his eyes. "Be careful around this one my dear," He said leaning around to address Mallis. "He's liable to get you killed. Now off you pop, my stories are about to start."

Mallis felt out of place entering the room and steps had to be taken for her to blend in, she felt.

She attempted to make herself look bigger, puffed out her chest and raised her shoulders. A man like Nik would certainly have use for a bodyguard, or some muscle, in any case. Alas she was forced to give up her charade with the thought that if anyone was in need of a bodyguard, a lanky young woman would never be the sensible course of action. Also he had just told the Twi'lek that they had been robbed, so that would make her seem terrible at her job.

She had already been seen, so it was too late to play the role of a ninja and since they were already talking, a translator wasn't going to work either.

Of course, she would be his receptionist. She tried to make herself look as ordered as possible, placing one hand on her hip and trying to make it look like the other hand was extremely busy, a hard task with no props.

She wrapped her arms around her back, she would be the doting- no. In underhanded deals, the girlfriend always gets kidnapped. Mallis was already having a rough day, she wasn't losing an ear, too.

The mood turned tense as Nik appeared to have lost his temper. Slave, might work, she thought. She brought her hands down in front of her, as though she were shackled. Of course the cuffs were entirely fictional, but it didn't mean she couldn't play the part.

"Do I look like I drifted up the hyperspace corridor in a banana boat?..." She heard Nik state and her mind drifted. The only food she had eaten today- or as best approximation as she could estimate for a day, given the planetary time zones- had been the stuff that knocked her out and she barely got to taste it. She really wished their ship had been a banana boat, at least then it would be good for something.

"Judging by the ship you came in on, I'd say that would be a step up..." The Twi'lek seemed to voice exactly what she was thinking and that was when Mallis realised that she had absolutely no idea what they were talking about amongst all of her erratic mental derailments.

She snapped back to reality just in time to hear the Twi'lek's words of warning and then pushing them out. Mallis didn't need a warning about being careful, she would probably second guess every plate of food she encountered for the next year, except the very next one. It wouldn't sit long enough to get examined, much less scrutinized. She followed Nik back out the way they came in, unwilling to admit she had kind of zoned out for a minute- she didn't really care so long what happened during the meeting, she was just content with never again having to step foot on that ship.

"Oh."

"You can say that again..." Nik grumbled as they were once again in the will-never-pass-its-mot- shadow of the ship they had arrived on. True to his word, the Twi'lek had loaded up the cargo hold with at least three dozen crates-their contents best left uninvestigated.

The Corellian trudged up the ramp muttering obscenities to the universe at large and stopped by one of the lower crates. Atop it sat a note written upon flimsyplast and beside it a small palm sized blaster.


"You couldn't splash out on something bigger you old bastard?" Nik was heard to grumble but none the less slipped the holdout pistol into his empty holster.

"Any good with machines? By that I mean can you spot when something has a big frakking hole where it shouldn't?" He asked turning toward Mallis.

As Nik muttered to himself whilst ascending the ramp, Mallis was also grumbling to herself as she undid the laces in her boots in order to dump out the sand. Replacing them one her feet, quickly, she could still feel the awkward graininess on the bottom of her feet.

She approached the boxes of stuff that Nik was examining. When he turned to face her.

"I've never had a look at a spaceship, but I know the basics. I basically had to reconstruct the innards of my speeder. Although, the name is a horrible misrepresentation of the facts- but it runs and all I had was the chassis, initially." She explained, in response to the question. "As far as having a hole where it shouldn't, that's pretty much how I would describe this poor excuse for a cutlery drawer, never mind a space vessel. If by some miracle we've got some parts stashed away, I'll see what I can do."

"There has to be something we can scrounge. I doubt we can get any weaponry but shields, engines, life support and the hyperdrive. Those are the main things we're gonna need. So yeah, I suggest you take a look around. Anything that isn't vital to the above can have its innards scooped out." With that said he hammered a fist into the ramp control and it ground its way upward, sealing with a thunk.

The longest job was actually assessing the damage the ship had sustained after that he knew what was needed and spent more time crawling through ducts than was prudent for a long and fruitful life in a sci-fi setting. Thoughts of large beasties around every bend had him on tenterhooks but with each trip he came up trumps. It would always be a jury rigged job but without credits they had to make do. Several claustrophobic and machine-hating hours later he was pretty sure he had seen to the shields and life support systems. Half the ship was dark-those being the main source of wiring-but they had air and wouldn't burst into fire if one of them sneezed.

"Ey." Nik said into the ships intercom. "I've done what I can back here. Whats your sitrep Red?"

Mallis had been in the engine room for close to an hour- and as of yet had not worked up the courage to touch anything. It wasn't just that the stuff was old or falling apart, but they were also connected in a certain way and she had to understand what was strapped to what, before she could accurately throw anything together.

She feared it didn't help that half of the stuff were strapped together with tape- but considering they were never intended to have survived their journey- there was no room to complain about it. She picked up some scraps of metal that still lay in the room.

She started by unwrapping some of the tape. It was a working fix for the thrusters, but she knew she had to reroute through another part of the engine or they would burn themselves up quickly. The piece of pipe it should be running through was now in her hand- a leftover of the efforts to keep the ship afloat. She wrapped the tape back around an exposed wire and pulled it from the engine entirely. She extended the wire, stretching it to it's fullest and plugged it into the other side.

"At least if the engine goes, we'll still be able to breathe." She murmured to herself, having just wired the oxygen production component directly to the battery. "Of course if the battery dies, or the engine explodes, we're still going to die."

The artificial gravitational system was completely wrecked. It was a wonder all they did was flip around, at any moment it seemed like it could give out and they'd just be floating within the deadly metal shoebox. As far as priorities would go- she didn't really know how to fix it- speeders don't have gravitational units. They would be fine if they were just floating around. It hadn't made the lost of essentials anyway, but if they ever hoped to get it functional she would need to see what it looked like to get it working.

She wasn't sure about what was actually running the shields. As far as her experience with them went, it was just a piece you fixed in place and it worked. The specifics weren't details she had gotten the opportunity to examine.

It wasn't pretty, but if the thrusters were physically fine, it would hold. This left her with one thing, the time had come to face what she was familiar with- the engine.

She pried the plating off of the engine, to reveal the metallic mass of jig-saw puzzle that lay underneath. Remarkably, the inside of the engine itself was in fairly good condition- it had some minor tinkering she could notice, evident by various scratches around the joints of specific parts- but based solely on appearance the component parts were good. She made note of what exactly had been changed- they were in the correct place now, but from the damage and the leftover parts in her hand it became clear that it had previously been set up to prevent cooling of the core. There was no guarantee where the ship would drift, the original intention was to let it hit a lengthy running time and it would eventually blow itself up.

She could think of very few reasons of why the outside would look so old and worn, while these pieces were relatively new, when it dawned on her- incompatible parts. Someone had replaced the components of their old engine- this much was obvious- but it was someone who only had experience of older engines. They hadn't noticed that the basic shape of the camshaft was different. It made it look like the valves were continuously getting jammed and most people ended up assuming the engine was a lost cause. It would start sometimes, but it was always a matter of time before it gave way, then the valves would get replaced and the thing would continue until they caught the mistake or it was written off as a lost cause.

After the long and arduous task of removing the cog from the end of piece of machine, then searing a small hole into it, in order to reposition it on the camshaft she was able to reattach it- leaving her secure in her belief that the safest thing on this ship was now the engine.

She moved onto the hyperdrive unit. She had much less experience with this than normal engines- none, in fact. All she could do accurately was hook it up to the engines and then have a look at the insides and figure out was meant to go where- a terrible task given that the drive was currently broken, so she had no way of knowing if she was setting it up correctly. It's not like she could take it for a test run. However- as best she could recon- it was just a bigger, more powerful engine so maybe she could figure it out. Perhaps it was no different than setting up a nitro boost on a speeder, given that it was for incredibly quick bursts on demand. She hadn't gotten the parts for her own speeder- but she knew how it was supposed to string together.

Mallis found herself desperately craving a new subject to think about. All this internal monologue-ing was boring even her at this point, when Nik's voice crackled through an intercom panel.

"Bypassed the life support to run from the battery instead of relying on the engine- a bit unnecessary in the long run, the engines good for now. The hyperdrive..." Mallis paused at her response as she looked at the inside of the drive. "...I think I can get it running." She said optimistically, before realising she was nowhere near the intercom panel. She walked back to it and repeated the statement.

Nik listened intently. He understood nothing but none the less the subject demanded hi full attetion. When she was done he 'Hmmm'd for a moment before responding. "If we blow up, we blow up! Get up here we're dusting off in a minute." With that said he made his way to the cockpit and tentatively powered up the ship, surprisingly warning lights did not wink at him in their usual incessant fashion and he took that as a good sign.

The engine came on first, a dull whir and a subtle rumble through the ships frame that held steady. Next he tested the shields, noting that the generators were charging as they should and that there were no notable weak points across its coverage of the ship. He ran a passive check of the hyperdrive and the readouts spoke of good power flow with no fluctuations. So far they deserved a bloody gold star, it was his experience however that when the shit hit the fan the fan usually broke.

Mallis rearranged some last few components of the hyperdrive together and hooked it up to the engine and she quickly replaced the panel as Nik called her back to the cockpit. She prayed that they weren't actually going to use it very often, or for long durations.

She slouched against the wall beside the engine for a moment and reran the events that had gone down since she had boarded the vessel. There was no way to face what she had and not think about life in general. Her perspective had changed on quite a few things. She had almost died trapped in one of the machines she had learned about- just like her father, who had died when he crashed his speeder. The one she had been repairing. It was before she could remember, but the occurrence was what made her interested in machines- she felt that if she could learn to be a mechanic and rebuild his speeder, she would be following in his footsteps. She just wouldn't race in it- he had been a great mechanic, but a sub-par pilot- and Mallis knew not to repeat this mistake.

Mallis and her mother had fallen out over her interest in machinations and it had been years since they had talked. Her mother consistently liked to drive home the point that his mechanic-fascination was one of the two mistakes her father made. (The other was being given the final decision of naming his daughter, unable to choose between Marissa and Melissa. The truly absurd part being that in forming a combination of two, he dropped the 'a' at the end.)

She rose to her feet and her boots made a steady clang on the floor for the entire trudge back, left with consideration that maybe her mother was right. The noise of the engines kicking in began to surround her, proving that it was a good skill-set to know. However, her idea of placing faith in the abilities and opening a garage to make a living at her age wasn't a wise idea. Following her mothers instructions, if she was still able, was a better choice- it was time for Mallis to stop living in her little bubble and realise there was more out there than the small patch of land she was accustomed to.

Mallis took her seat and fastened the harness.

"Let's go get our stuff back." She spoke to Nik, whilst glaring out of the window ahead. It wasn't witty, nor was meant to be- all of her faculties were now charged with a single purpose in mind and there was no failing now.