A Hole in the Head

[Jak Bexel]

The jump was, like every other part of this venture, largely uneventful. Jak disengaged his coffee mug from its post and left the cockpit, tapping his new recruit on the elbow as he left. "Come on, I gotta show you stuff." Meanwhile, Stretch summoned their RX pilot droid from the holonet terminal to replace Jak in the captain's chair.

Van Teek followed him into the antechamber where the holonet terminal resides. "You good with computers? he asked.

"I get by. I know where to get bootleg holos and whatnot," Van Teek shrugged, thick veneer of confidence doing nothing to help her cause.

"Yeah, kid, we're gonna need a little more expertise than that. I'll set you up with a slicer pal when we get to base. It's just a matter of browsing ahead of the systems we are flying past, making note of changes or alerts that may be waiting for us when we come out of jump. We have to be three and a half steps ahead of every other low-rent raider or else what are we? Moving on," he waved her off the holonet terminal seat she'd somehow made herself comfortable at in the short time he was talking.

He threw a thumb past his shoulder. "Bunks. Make sure they are clean and dusted. Sometimes we have to change the air filters or else you're just sleeping with dead skin cells filling your lungs. It's better than spiders, but this is my ship and you should be able to eat off any surface."

"Wait, you want me to clean this place? What is this, slavery?" She argued, stopping halfway in the corridor.

"No kid, it's an internship. You want to be a pirate? This is what we all do - exceptmebutthat'sdifferent... When you're good at cleaning the bunks, I'll teach you how to clean the undercarriage. Come on..." he waved her on, and she followed in a huff.

[Zechs Merquise]

Boom.

The YT snapped out of hyperspace at the random Alliance shipyard planet place they had selected some time ago in a system far far away. It was groovy. Zechs didn't even have to do anything. A co-pilot could land it. A droid could shovel whatever it was in their hold. He could hit up a cantina! It was going to be great.

It took half an hour though to get all the clearances worked out. Dotting those death star sized i's and those wiggly verpine t's. But they eventually got down to the surface, and the hold opened. It was going to be a fruitful haul that'd boost something somewhere for some reason. Again, Zechs hadn't exactly read the cargo manifest. He had probably snoozed through that part of the broadcasted briefing.

Splash. That was the sound the ice made when it hit his drink. Nothing else mattered.

Slurp.

[Jak Bexel]

The tour continued through the turret well. Teek was interested in the gunnery posts, which was encouraging to Jak and made him less regretful of kidnapping a minor. He guided her to the spotless refresher and the impeccably clean cargo holds. Ellem decided to leave her post in the engine room and follow them as well. As the two walked around the central hall that wrapped around the ship, she decided to speak her mind further.

"This ship looks too clean," she declared. "I get you're trying to appear legit, but where's the grime in the fresher, or random boxes of carpet samples and lady perfume in the hold?"

"You sound disappointed," was his response as they rounded the center column into the crew lounge and autochef -- very clean. "We're working on that. I haven't had the opportunity to really dirty her up. This ship was initially a burner ship, sort of a placeholder til I could find my real ship. An Arakyd Helix, burnt orange, sort of an oxblood... she just handled so well. I miss her. Now THAT was a real bachelor pad. Anyway, here's the autochef. Gotta be careful with it, we had a severe toast blockage not too long ago."

"I know all about autochefs. If there's one or two things I'm good at, it's autochefs and sublight drives," she said, shooting a look to Ellem who chirped with the excitement of discovering a kindred spirit.

"When were you going to tell us that?" Jak cocked his head at Teek, but her curiosity was peaked by a random shirt sleeve hanging out of a storage compartment. "What else are you hiding?"

"Is that a duck-print shirt? Oh my..." Van Teek stifled a chuckle as the ship jolted out of hyperspace.

[Ben Kenobi]

He awoke to the klaxon alert which announced the imminent reversion from hyperspace. After checked the manifests over thoroughly he had gone to the bunk room and taken a well deserved nap since the jump itself had taken several hours and there was ever very little to do when in hyperspace. So he’d slept and like a rock at that. Usually Ben didn’t sleep well and when he did it wasn’t very long. No nightmares or anything but rather the miles on his body, the aches in his back and other various joints got stove up after long prone instances and he got headaches. Nothing was overly detrimental at all but it was enough to wake him and once awake he simply decided to get up and begin his days.

Today though, he’d slept the best he’d ever done since he could remember. Instantly he gave thanks to the new pillow he’d purchased from the bazaar in one of the more unscrupulous run down residential sectors on Theed. It was said to be filled with the feathers of a native bird of which Ben always had trouble pronouncing. The Gungan salesman that had sold the item though was gone the next business day and so Ben hadn’t been able to return the item, if he had chosen to do so. He hadn’t, but this was the first opportunity he had to really rest on the plush pillow.

While it wasn’t overly soft and quite flat in fact, and it didn’t contour well to the shape of his head, and it was an ugly off-white thing; when he laid down it wafted a strange aroma into the air that was pleasant yet spicy… moments later he’d gone unconscious and now he had finally awoken well rested. His bones didn’t ache and his headache wasn’t there to greet him. Happily, he stood though when he did the world spun around him and he nearly face planted into the wall. Catching himself, the world continued to spin rapidly and he began to wonder the truth behind the contents of the pillows aroma…

Meanwhile, the vessels of Kalidor Freight broke from hyperspace in formation with the convoy and began to ease their way through towards the checkpoints. They may have arrived early, but the checkpoint scans would take a pretty long time considering traffic conditions in this area seemed pretty dense today.

[Ben Kenobi]

The next six hours were spent in the local area checkpoint, apparently the checkpoint’s sensor array went on the fritz and the delay was catastrophic as a result. New parts had to be shipped in from the planet below and that alone was a cluster seeing as they needed to find the part in question which in itself was outdated by about three decades. Once found, in a privately owned industrial sector, the Alliance rep had to negotiate a fair price since the shop owner suddenly supposed that this item was of high demand. Thus, after gaining a small fortune for his rare piece of scrap, the shop owner closed for the day and the Alliance rep raced the component back to the orbital checkpoint where the installation didn’t exactly go as smooth as the breeze.

Finished, the scanning resumed and while as swift as they could manage it was still a time consuming process. This made for plenty of time in which Ben was able to recover his wits and recover from the ensuing hangover. While no drunkard by any means, he’d had his share of adult beverages in the past and he knew a hangover when he felt one. Shortly thereafter he secured the questionable pillow and would take it to the lab the next time he found himself near an Alliance Military or Jedi installation.

For now, he resorted to painkillers, a very large cup of steaming caf, and a datapad awaiting the Alliance Staff to receive and unload his cargo so that he could get back on the ‘road’ and head back home where he could get some real sleep and a hot meal.

[Master Buggie]

The rest of the trip was unremarkable, especially with the anticipation of arriving at the spaceport playing a factor. Buggie chose to pass the remaining time in silent meditation, having found a quiet corner on the ship to suit his needs. The Force flowed through him, as it did all living beings, and he drank in the sweet serenity of the light side as he lost himself in the infinity of the Force. With the Blue Star Pirates, Buggie tried to not advertise that he was a Jedi Master, though there were dozens who were well aware of the truth. The result of that secrecy was that he could not openly meditate or embrace the Force as he once could within the temples of the Jedi Coalition. Embracing the Force once again was like greeting an old friend after a long journey; the welcome sensation washed over him and eased his mind.

When finally the twin heavy freighters of Outland Transport landed, the droids went to work unloading their cargo. Another safe journey through the dangerous spacelanes was complete.