To The Black

[Ayla]

Drive systems online.
Life support systems nominal.
Weapons systems idle.

Power generation within acceptable parameters, by point three percent.
Flag for attention.

Diverting power to communications array.
Scanning for nearest Holonet relay.
Relay found.
Connecting to message server.
Searching for new messages.
Zero found.
Disconnecting from message server.
Downloading latest news bulletins.
Searching job listings based on preset preferences; origin within fifteen parsecs.
Three found. Flag for attention.
Shutting down power to communications array.

Loading morning system protocols.
Activating corridor lighting.
Reducing cabin temperature in Captain's Quarters by seven point three degrees.
Preparing for depressurisation alarm test.
Ten second countdown.

Deep within the bowels of the Red Moon, strips of light emitters embedded in the corner between wall and deck began to stutter on in sequence, a trail of light scuttering it's way down the empty halls. It wasn't necessary. It wasn't the most efficient way to activate the ship's lighting. It was however the selected preset, and it conformed to some practice that the Captain described as aesthetic. Ayla did not understand; but it was not her place to understand. Not part of her programming. Her base operating system was configured with a few clear core protocols. Keep the ship functional. Keep the ship intact. Keep the crew functional and intact. And then there was the ambiguous follow instructions from registered members of the crew. With Captain Lucius Montegue -

Error: conflict with preferred nomenclature; correcting...

- with Captain Lux, that meant satisfying his desire for his environment to conform to certain expectations. It meant reducing the power to the door servos, so that they opened at a speed and with a sound that the Captain deemed appropriate. It meant reducing the intensity of the inertial compensators so that the Captain experienced a small fraction of the inertial forces associated with thrust vectoring. It meant running the life support systems at a lower temperature than human standard - for all areas of the ship except the crew and passenger accommodations - because it's meant to be cold in space, Ayla. It meant reprogramming her physical representation and her gender identity subroutines to conform with an apparent cultural perception that a ship should be female.

Perhaps if the Captain agreed to her request to have a protocol droid brain networked with her main processors, she would understand these seemingly illogical requests and customs. Until such a time however, Ayla remained compliant as always.

The internal speakers blared into life, an explosion of hideous, grating sound pumped through every inch of the ship.

Monitoring crew accommodation motion sensors.
Motion detected.
Terminating alarm test.

[Lux]

Lux swore in six different languages as a sonic supernova erupted from inside his skull, engulfing his entire body in spasmic flame. Muscles fired without conscious instruction, catapulting him from the bed and into a mad scramble to stop himself colliding face-first with the floor. A hand made contact with the deck first, and then a bare foot, and the supernova flame transformed immediately into iceberg cold. The urge to recoil flung him backwards onto the bed, miscontrolled limbs entangling themselves in a mound of blanket and linens.

A moment past, long enough for the deafening raucous to vanish, and Lux's struggles died along with them, leaving him dazed, confused, and bleary-eyed as he stared out into his quarters, the bracingly chilled air already puckering at his skin.

A hand slapped at his face, dragging itself down his face and beard, reshaping his expression like ply-putty into something more closely resembling a sentient and conscious human being. A few drool-encrusted whiskers crunched as they were liberated from their nocturnal encasement; the heel of his thumb scrubbed into the corner of one eye, a fingertip picking at the other to dislodge the still viscous build-up.

Enough wherewithal manifested in the Captain's mind for him to muster a scowl, and a few grunted words.

"Good morning, Ayla."

[Ayla]

"Good morning, Captain," the internal speakers replied, in the voice that Captain Lux had selected from a selection of 163 different female vox patterns. On occasion, the Captain had expressed frustration at how the audio parameters sounded far too upbeat when delivering bad news, but as yet he had not selected an alternative preference, so Ayla was software-bound to continue using it.

Continuing to monitor the motion sensors, Ayla assigned a condition prior to initiating the next phase of her morning protocols. As the Captain precariously manoeuvred himself from his mattress and began to traverse his quarters in the usual pattern - first the sink to apply water to his face, and momentarily observe it's evaporation from it in the adjacent reflective surface; then on a slightly variable course to retrieve his discarded trousers, jacket, and a fresh shirt; and then back to the mattress once more to begin attaching the aforementioned external coverings - that condition was met.

"I have taken the liberty of scanning the Holonet, Captain."

It was not a liberty at all, but rather an instructed part of her daily operating routine; but artefacts within her linguistic protocols always led her to select that exact same turn of phrase.

"There are currently zero pending messages, and three potential haulage contracts that meet our search criteria. I have forwarded them to your datapad."

A momentary pause followed; in reality it was processing lag as Ayla ran a pre-emptive triangulation protocol of the vessel's wireless data network, but to an outside observer it seemed more like a contemplative hesitation.

"Your datapad is currently located in the main cargo hold, four point three metres from your preferred entrance at a vector of negative thirty-eight degrees, and an elevation of eighty-seven centimetres."

[Lux]

Negative thirty-eight, eighty-seven centimetres...

Lux stared blankly forwards for a moment, subconscious impulses moving his hands as he tried to visualise the navigational sundry that Ayla had provided. How on earth was his datapad eighty-seven centimetres above the - ah. The plasteel cylinders in Osk Six. He'd been doing cargo inventory in that sector of the bay, checking that the perishables hadn't perished, and the fluids hadn't flowed out of any unexpected leaks; he must have set the thing down when he went off to yell at the Load Lifters, and not bothered to pick the thing up again.

He sighed as he fumbled his legs into the trouser holes, and tugged them awkwardly up and underneath him as he perched on the edge of the bed. Blasted droids. He'd have them scrapped, if they weren't so necessary for operating the ship, and so damned expensive to replace.

Bare toes wriggling as they were placed back onto the could to the touch deck plates, he reached up for the bunk above and used it as leverage to find his feet again. As per usual, his subconscious formulated a complaint about how cold it was; and as per usual, his subconscious followed up with a reminder that he'd chosen for things to be this way, before Ayla had the opportunity to correct him about it again in that annoyingly chirpy voice of hers. It was one of those things that blended form and function. A cold ship just felt right, drifting around in the void of space, a constant reminder of how wafer thin the hull-shaped barrier between you and oblivion was; but it also kept the power drain from the life support systems down to a minimum, shaving off a tiny percentage of his operating costs; and it discouraged any passengers he might have aboard from wandering too freely, encouraging them instead to stay in the designated areas where things were far more pleasantly warm. Besides, a little bit of chill in the air never hurt anyone.

...okay, so on reflection, it was entirely possible that it did. He imagined that someone from Ryloth or Tatooine would find his ship somewhat inhospitable, and with all the racial diversity out here in the galaxy, there were probably silicone creatures and lava monsters that would probably find the cold downright painful. But of much more relevance, a little chill in the air had never hurt him, and really that was all that mattered. Cold was why coats had been invented, and there was no point wasting credits on a technological solution when a nice bit of woven nerf wool would do the job just fine.

Gloves would probably be a good idea though, he mused to himself, zipping up the front of his jacket and then rubbing his hands together in front of him, letting friction do it's business. A slight adjustment tugged the jacket's cuffs up to his knuckles, thumb protruding from a specially cut and seamed hole on the inside edge of each. It was enough for now: enough to let him survive the few minutes it would take to wrap his fingers around a nice warm cup of caf.

Boots and laces fumbled into position, Lux braced himself beside the door, ready to step out into the even cooler corridor. This particular temperature variance was rooted in his own psychology. He allowed himself a little warmth while he was asleep, setting his cabin to an explicit optimal temperature for sleeping that he'd read about in a medical journal while bored at some point; but he had programmed the ship's AI to reduce that temperature as he awoke, using the sudden chill to shock him into consciousness. The corridors were colder still, as were all of the areas of the ship where he didn't want himself to loiter: a bracing coldness that encouraged him to hustle and bustle his way to the places he actually needed to be. That the cargo bay was equally cold was an inescapable feature of thermodynamics, and to Lux's mind there was a certain frugal wisdom in keeping as much of the ship at that temperature as possible: conservation of phonons, and all that.

Lux's breath formed a faint cloud in front of him as he advanced into the corridor. There was something satisfying about that too, he mused, bringing his hands before his lips to breathe a little internal warmth onto them, a short circuit to his body's natural thermal management. For a moment, his nerve impulses strained, force of habit urging him to head towards the mess, and the warm caffeinated beverages; better judgement urging him aftwards to go retrieve his datapad so he'd have something to read while he ingested his morning calories. Of course, if he went to the cargo bay there'd be things to do, and he'd be obligated to do them since he was there -

A sigh escaped him, a compromise sought.

"Ayla... be a dear and forward those contract options to the bridge, will you?"

Option three was the winner for the day: breakfast on the bridge.

[Shuvin Undhi]

The bazaar and market was loud and crowded; where such places and constant activity made Ben tired and reserved, she seemed to gain energy from them. She understood, having lived and grown comfortable in the mostly quiet and calming confines of Alderaan, the third generation Ghtroc-720 tramp freighter they called home. Still, she also like to wander through crowded places and simply bask in the presence of other people.

"Beautiful jewels for beautiful people! Come quick, you'll find something you'll love, I guarantee it!"

"No, you must be mad, seventy five is a bargain! A steal! Don't let the wear and tear fool you..."

"I don't know Andries, the colours wash me out a bit, don't they?"

"Mama! Mama, can I have one? Please please please please..."

"Useful for any situation, this will become a staple of your daily routine! Come and see!"

She ducked around standing customers, and weaved through the slower flow of the people walking in the main road, her hands dug into the pockets of her jacket, simply breathing and listening and watching everything with a slightly absent air, just taking some solace in the first hand impression of life moving on.

Storefronts started to dominate the thoroughfare, and Shuvin glanced up at the names and dirty, second-hand signs luring in customers.

'Aldric's Assembly: the largest collection of parts and sundry mechanical items'

A tattoo parlour had a hologram shoving off a woman's sleeve ink, a general store boasted great prices on bargain ceramic dishware and patterned linens and knick-knacks of 'an unheard of variety!'

She walked past all of these with only a slight interest in the tattoo parlour, though only enough to keep her eyes on the hologram as she walked past and not enough to get her to slow her gait one whit.

She stopped and walked up to a thick-paned glass storefront which had second-hand droids, however. Her eyes widened and a smiled stretched across her mouth as she nearly salivated at the sight of an R2 and R3 unit sitting next to a Verpine protocol droid, and a little serving droid complete with little tumblers on its wide tray.

She pressed her face up against the glass, trying to get the closest look at the R2 unit. It was refurbished and boasted a cleaned memory, multiple tools, a scanning dish and a universal computer jack.

"Oh momma," she breathed, fogging the glass and shifting her face so she was giving anyone inside with eyes to see a free view up her nose. "Now wouldn't that be useful. It looks barely used."

"Hey! Hey! Face off the glass, come inside if you're buying, if not, off with yeh!" A Bothan gruffed at her, nearly tripping as it rushed out the door.

"How much for the R2?"

The Bothan stopped and gave her a gimlet eye. "Seven hundred forty two."

She gasped, her face scrunched up in outrage. "Gouging! Outright robbery! No matter how nifty it is, it shouldn't be over three hundred!"

"That's the price, girl. If you aren't buying, get on now." The Bothan moved towards her, shooing with its hands.

"I'm buying, if there's anything reasonable or worth the price in there! All I'm seeing is greedy overpricing hawkers!"

The Bothan's nostrils flared, but it let her stomp past and into the store.

[Lux]

Captain Lux quirked an eyebrow at the raised voices from the doorway, but was far too polite and civilized to turn and look, instead feigning interest in a replacement motivator assembly for one of the older Industrial Automaton models. To describe Lucius Montegue as a droid enthusiast was akin to calling a Hutt a little on the heavy side - in other words, the understatement of the millinnium. The Red Moon was entirely vacant save for a handful of droids who helped with cargo loading and running repairs, and Lux liked it that way. Beneficial as company and kinship could be at times, a solitary existance was just so much simpler.

Even so, Lux had never found himself in need of an astromech droid. Ayla was more than capable of handling any navigation responsibilities, and a dedicated repair droid was often more cost effective - and more useful too, especially on a ship that hadn't been designed with astro droid accessibility in mind.

He sighed, setting down the motivator unit. That was what made this contract that Ayla had found for him so vexing. Pay him to supply a shipment of mech droids or cargo loaders, and he knew from first hand experience what capabilities you needed, and which ones you could safely do without. There was no point selling an R2 unit to a moisture farmer when all he needed was a maintenance droid: not unless his vaporators were hyperspace-capable, at any rate. But an enigmatic "Astromech Droids Wanted" was all manner of vague. Making matters worse was Lux's suspicion that the buyer was a front for some aspect of the Alliance of Free Planets, buried several layers deep in shell corporations. Lux had no qualms about dealing with the former Rebellion; but the dependance of Alliance starfighters on astromech droids, and the fact that Industrial Automaton fell firmly under Imperial control made the prospect of carrying a shipment of such droids a little precarious.

He'd found a loophole of course: a supplier willing to sell him twenty-five S19 (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/S19_astromech_droid) units. Lux had done his research, and had found that the manufacturer, LesTech, had been acquired a few years back by a Hutt with whom his father was intimately familiar. That was an uncomfortable discovery, but at least it meant he wouldn't have a cargo bay full of IA contraband to worry about. The boxy S19s weren't exactly the kind of high spec units the Alliance would be used to, but if they were indeed his customer, they'd just have to make the best of it. Beggers had no right to be choosers, after all.

Lux allowed his attention to deviate from the droid parts as the shopkeep returned, one of the precarious legless Gonk droids in tow. It seemed more like a mobile trash depository than a droid capable of repair and navigation, but you got what you paid for: two dozen units ready to be loaded onto his ship, and this one, so he could see the merchandise for himself.

He gave the S19 a cursory once-over; unnecessary of course, Ayla had already carried out all the necessary scrutiny on design capabilities, manufacturing quality, and a chain of custody on this model. Besides, this droid was bound to be fine: it was the twenty-four crated units back at the starport which were of greater concern.

"Everything seems to be in order," he said with a carefully staged smile, a thick and formal Coruscanti accent dripping from his words. "If we can just get this little fellow boxed up, and see to the credits transfer, I shall be on my merry way."

[Shuvin Undhi]

Shuvin stomped stonily into the store, a fierce frown marking furrows into her face.

"Razza frazza hawkers grumble mumble," she grumped under her breath as she turned into an alcove that boasted a full size Clone Wars era Separatist officer droid. She wasn't really interested in that type of droid, but it served to shuffle her out of her bad mood and into a more curious one.

"Everything seems to be in order," a man was saying, and she peeked through the detritus heaped haphazardly on a shelf to spy what looked like an astromech version of a Gonk droid wheeling nervously back and forth in front of another of the shopkeeps and a coated human with a shifty look to him.

Wubwub wubwubwub wub!

The droid vocalized its anxiety and distress, and Shuvin fell in love. The poor little darling needed help! She imagined briefly saving the droid and bringing it back to Ben:

'Shuvin, you brought back a droid! Just what we needed!' Imaginary Ben beamed at the new trophy she'd imaginarily returned with. But his face turned comically apprehensive. 'But how much did it cost?'

'Not to worry Ben!' a strikingly gorgeous and busty imaginary version of herself said, standing with her feet apart and her fists on her hips. 'I saved it from certain exploitation! It was free!'

'Shuvin! You're so smart and resourceful! What would I do without you? Nothing, because you're so awesome!'

Shuvin blinked herself out of her daydream as the S19 let out another string of anxious wubs; a determined look covered her face, and she knew what she had to do.

[Lux]

Lux let out a soft sigh as the S19 sluggishly resisted it's instructions to return to the box it had been delivered in. While yes, Lux supposed he could have left the droid out in the open air, mesh-weaved to the back of his speeder bike, that seemed like a recipe for damage and or theft, which were two factors he most certainly did not want eating into his profit margins.

It didn't help that the Bothan storekeep had adopted the most moronic approach possible. Abandoning his technical approach - as well as common sense and reason - he had begun trying to herd the droid in by stamping his feet and waving his arms, as if it was some sort of unruly loth cat on his lawn. The droid trundled and wobbled in a simulated panic, maintaining a position equidistant between both the salesman and the storage crate.

"Oh, for Cathar's sake," Lux grunted, barely managing to resist the urge to his his face behind his hand. Instead he reached out, dodging past the clerk, finger flying like a concussion missile towards the droid's emergency shut-down switch. One flick, and suddenly the S19 froze; but a solitary stationary moment quickly ended, and the droid began to tumble to one side. Both humanoids leapt into action, awkwardly fumbling their way to catch the droid before it landed face down on the dubiously grimy shop floor.

Much grunting and struggling followed, as the two men fought to wrestle the droid back into a box that definitely was large enough for the droid, but perhaps not quite large enough for the droid and a set of hands and fingers either side. By the end, Lux was forced to rely on a gentle but decisive thrust with his foot to skid the droid's motion-locked uniwheel into it's proper housing.

With a sigh of triumph, Lux straightened himself, brushing imaginary dirt from his hands. "Well then," he said, triggering the control on the storage crate that rose it gently from the ground on repulsorlifts. A satisfied pat atop the box followed, and then the hand was extended to the clerk with the faintest hint of a smile. "It's always a pleasure doing business with a man who'll help you move a body."

[Shuvin Undhi]

The second owner of Bothan Brothers' Bargain Bots huffed a laugh, and then fixed Lux with a dead stare.

"I don't know what you are talking about," he gruffed. Shuvin gasped quietly to herself. They had experience moving bodies?

'WHAT THE HELLS ARE YOU DOING SHUVIN RUN RUN RUN RUN!' Imaginary Ben was freaking out, and running in circles.

'It's okay, Ben!' Imaginary Shuvin placated, her large bust swaying magnificently with each movement. 'I got this!'

Ben stopped and stared at her for a moment, before continuing his panicked circle-run.

I can't even get an imaginary Ben to treat me like an adult, she sulked to herself. Despite the myriad thoughts and conversations she was holding with herself, she catalogued the storage crate and added satisfaction to her brew of emotion-cocktail. She and Ben had used the same model dozens of times; while they didn't have coded locks or biometrics, that particular style of storage crate had two things going for it: it was cheap, and it was easy to size. All of which meant Shuvin was going to have an easy time stea — liberating that cute droid from what was obviously a cruel and indifferent master.

[Lux]

Lux let out a grunt as he manoeuvred the transit crate into place behind his speeder bike, the mag-locks triggering into place with a satisfying thunk. Lux wasn't sure why the grunt was necessary. It never seemed to help at all; but it was what one did when one was exerting themselves, and who was he to argue with eons of tradition?

He thumped the top of the box, ensuring it was securely attached, and that the repulsors had properly synchronised with those on the speeder. He'd had that little glitch occur before: underactive repulsors on the rear end were bad enough, if you planned on driving anywhere without staring up at the sky from the weight imbalance, but having them fritz out and suddenly springboard the bike into a somersault was considerably more terrifying. A quick once-over was given to the crate itself, ensuring the lid was secure enough not to fly off, and all those sorts of sensible things that helped Lux maintain the illusion that he knew what he was doing.

His attention lingered on three Aurebesh characters stamped onto the side of the crate in faded red paint. Dorn. Mern. Osk. Separated by dots like some sort of acronym or initialism. DMO? That didn't ring any bells based on his research of the droids, the store, or the starport; but it hardly mattered now, and Ayla would undoubtedly be able to enlighten him later on.

Satisfied that he wasn't about to injure himself or others by departing, he spent a careful moment checking the charge in his blaster pistol and then, with a flourish to whip his coat out of the way, swung his leg over the speeder bike's saddle, and thumbed the prepulsors into life.

[Shuvin Undhi]

Shuvin followed the man out of the store with a studied air of nonchalance, ignoring the Bothan outside only by virtue of having her attention fixed on the human and her future astromech. She stopped and made a show of digging her hands into her pockets to pull out a packet of chewing gum; and popping one of them into her mouth, she put packet back into her jacket pocket and with a held out hand and a small hop, she latched herself onto the crate as he pulled away and into the avenue.

He pulled away from the bazaar streets and onto the somewhat less crowded roads to the starport. Shuvin started rethinking her actions, but it was too late to turn back, so she held on and waited as the bike picked up speed, knowing that if she detached while he was going slower, all he'd need to do is stop and walk back to her and her gambit was done. If he was going fast enough though he either wouldn't notice or wouldn't be able to get back before she'd make off with her newest buddy.

Thankfully the weight of the astromech and crate kept the bike's acceleration from pitching her off, but she still held tightly onto the small crevices while she made her way to the mag-locks, and reached out to detach herself and her prize. With a satisfying thunk, the mag-locks triggered, and the crate detached.

Pushing herself into a sitting position on the box, she grinned and watched the man look back with wide eyes.

"Thanks!" she called, saluting him jauntily; her grin was replaced with wide-eyed surprise as the box continued moving forward and to the side. "Uh oh. Yipe!"

The box careened onto the walkway beside the road, scattering onlookers and tossing the Togruta onto her face. After a moment, she rolled onto her back and just looked up at the sky for a moment.

"Ouch," she grunted. "Maybe shoulda thought that through a bit more."

[Lux]

The sudden surge in acceleration was his first indication that something was wrong. The speeder bike faltered, back end trying to swing out as the repulsorlifts struggled to compensate for the sudden change in mass. Lux kept a tight grip on the controls; picking a direction he steered into the bike's gyrations, killing engine power and letting the back end swing wide, banking into an elegant, skidding halt.

The second indication had been that brief glance behind him, and the casually waving Togruta who had disappeared into his wake along with his cargo. Well, to call it second was perhaps a little unfair, given how the two experiences had been largely simultaneous; but it was only now, finally stationary and not in danger of causing automotive death to himself or those around him, that he had time to process the odd spectacle.

He peered back down the roadway, looking for the telltale sight of speeders steering around an accident, or anything like that, but his eyes found nothing. A hand quickly delved into an inside pocket, pulling out a hand-sized metallic rectangle that, with a quick click, suddenly expanded into a functional set of microbinoculars. His technologically augmented gaze still found nothing on the roadway behind him... but there, the sidewalk. A white reticle settled over the container he had been so dangerously dispossessed of; a yellowish outline drew itself around the prone form of what he presumed must be the thief in question.

The microbinoculars were collapsed and stowed back in his jacket with a flourish. Wrenching the steering vanes of his speeder a few dozen degrees, he goosed the throttle and, letting the slowly tightening knot of frustration in his gut rob him of all conscientiousness and reason, surged off against the flow of the traffic, racing along the dotted line dividers between the roadway lanes until an opportunity presented to swerve across and make a bumpy ascent onto the sidewalk.

A hand strayed from the steering controls, patting the holster on his hip where his blaster was stashed.

"No one steals from Captain Lux," he began to say, but only made it four and a half words before a high-speed insect made a kamikaze dive for his mouth, and had to be awkwardly spluttered away.

[Shuvin Undhi]

Shuvin glanced up at Lux, back the group of people surrounding them and muttering, and then back to Lux.

Her eyes widened, and she opened her mouth; she could see Lux's own eyes widening, but before he could say anything, Shuvin started to scream:

"Ahh! Get away! I won't let you take me! Not again!"

She scrabbled backwards and made it to her feet, leaning back against the repulsor-crate and slowly pushing it back with her. Lux looked dumbfounded, but also more than a little peeved, with more than adequate reason, she could admit to herself.

"What's going on?"

"That girl, is that man threatening her?"

Shuvin continued to step backwards until she could feel the change in the walkway through her boots.

"I'll never be your slave again!" she shouted, and jumped onto the crate as it started to float down the incline of the hill the bazaar and its immediate surroundings capped, building up speed much more quickly than she'd expected. "Whoa! Look out!"

The repulsor-crate swayed dangerously as the road and walkway blurred past, and Shuvin could barely get a moment to think, as focused as she was with not falling off the box. She looked up, and yelped, seeing the road swerve to the right. Instinctively she applied her weight to the right side of the box as lightly as possible, and was gratified to see that she could influence the direction of the crate by doing so; calling it steering or driving would've been granting her far too much credit.

"Whaaaaaahahahaha!" she shouted as she rode her ill-gotten friend down the hill.

[Lux]

"Oh, bollocks," Lux muttered to himself as the scene slowly unfolded before him: the Togruta girl or woman - at best guess she was somewhere in that indeterminate grey area between the two, where anything more than a three second glance might place you at extreme risk of some sort of indecency felony on one of the galaxy's more civilized worlds - disappearing from view, apparently conspiring with the fundamentals of physics once again to make her getaway. This time though, she had apparently enlisted the aid of the local populace who, in an uncharacteristic display of common decency for a world in this corner of the galaxy, had chosen to protect a complete stranger from her alleged slavemaster.

Fortunately, Lux was prepared for this kind of situatuon. Not this situation specifically, he'd never been accused of slave trafficking before; but he had been in enough situations where the locals proved to be an inconvenience, and had learned a trick or two.

From his coat's cavernous pockets, he produced a palm-sized block of leather adorned with a polished shield. "Sector Rangers," he announced, holding it aloft so the closest of the bystanders could see. He chose his words carefully; not lies per se, merely statements that could easily be misconstrued by anyone who heard them. The badge was even his: not issued by the Sector Rangers of course, but it had been given to him legitimately and legally, as a gift. The badge was even engraved with Montegue, the surname he so often attempted to avoid having; one of the few passably helpful things his father could be considered responsible for.

"This is law enforcement business," he continued, loud enough to be heard; another misleading truth. "It might be wise not to stand around obstructing the pursuit of a known felon."

The crowd didn't respond immediately. Confused faces graced a lot of the civilians in front of him. It took Lux a moment to realise that on a planet as deep in the backwater as this, the average citizen only comprehended at a roughly kindergarten level.

"That means move out of the blasted way!"

Lux barged through the crowd, but the commandeered crate and it's apparent passenger were already disappearing back into tge more crowded areas of the bazaar. A side alley and a prybar from now, and he'd be searching for a needle in a haystack. Or rather, an astromech in a starport: more of a needle in a stack of needles, really. What he wouldn't give for a high powered ion rifle with a tactical scope about now: even at this range, a blast from that would have done little harm to the thief, but the disabled crate might have catapulted her quite satisfactorily across the duracrete.

Instead, the best he had was the 6-2Aug2 locked to the side of his speeder. He bustled back towards the bike, triggering the release and wrenching the rifle free. His arm wrapped around the webbing sling, pulling it taught, rifle held ready with surprisingly good form and poise for a man who outwardly was nothing but a simple spacer. One eye closed, the other peering down the ferro sights. His lungs emptied, body focused. About eight seconds remained until the crate disappeared into the safety of the crowds, and someone innocent risked getting in the way of his line of fire. Seven. Six -

The shot rang out as the trigger was pulled, magnetic coils sending the slug hurtling across the distance towards the misappropriated container. Wind, or atmospherics, or simple human error prevented the shot from hitting precisely where Lux had hoped; but with any luck, the graze that he'd just winged the box with might have done enough damage to let him catch up.

[Shuvin Undhi]

She didn't hear the gunshot, what with the wind and the people and the sound of the repulsors working overtime underneath her, but she did feel its effects on the box; the damned thing spun while still careening down the hill, tossing Shuvin into a group of people and the box to spin and smack directly into a wall.

"Ah, damn!" she gasped, dizzily getting to her feet and staggering over to the box which was laying on the ground, partially due to the slug, but mostly due to colliding with a brick wall at dozens of miles an hour. The lid, marked with the letters 'DMO' fell off with a flat 'thud', and Shuvin glanced worriedly inside. "Are you okay in there? You alive? C'mon buddy, let's getcha outta there and skedaddle before that guy gets down here!"

[D.M.O.]

// exiting standby mode
// systems online
// beginning function test...

Inside the overturned crates, a faint pulsing glow of red then blue began to emit from the S19 unit's photoreceptor. The pace quickened, back and forth, until pulsing became blinking, and then plunged into total blackness, returning a moment later as a steady constant glow. Subroutines fired in sequence, packets of software gradually waking the droid from it's mandated slumber.

The droid's optics finally activated, internal sensors running a terrain diagnostic of its surroundings. Telemetry from the gravimetric dynamo array indicated that the unit was currently orientated on its left side, and that it appeared to be in some kind of storage container. A calculation led to a programmed response, and an attempt was made to move forward, clearing the obstruction. At the base of the unit's quasi-cuboid chassis, the droid's single motivator wheel slowly began to spin, turning with utter futility, parallel to the ground.

// error: incorrect orientation detected
// error: unit mobility not functioning

A second wave of sensor scans followed, assessing for biometrics this time. An outline was painted around what was assessed to be a humanoid biological entity in close proximity. A facial analysis subroutine was run.

// error: no valid user data found
// error: no user database found
// creating: user database
// creating: user_0:Admin

The database query was repeated. A match was found.

// recognise: Humanoid
// species: Togruta
// designation: Admin

More calculations were slowly run, determining a next cause of action. Protocols indicated that submitting an error report to Admin was the appropriate course of action. A message packet was constructed -

// error: unit designation not found
// setting unit designation to: default

- and relayed to the unit's droidspeak vocabulator.

// [default] = error
// mobility = error
// Admin = assist [default]?

[Shuvin Undhi]

Wub wubwub wub wuub.

Shuvin's eyes grew large as she held in a squeal. Forget R2s, this one was adorabable!

"Let's get you out of there buddy, er— D.M.O.; bah, Deemo," she said, and disabled the locks on its unitrack with a poke, prod, and then finally a smack on the correct little control panel. Then she reached in and pulled, tugging the boxy astromech out of the crate with more than a little trouble, but also not enough of the same. She'd worked with R2 units and other astromech droid designs, and they were all heavy little jaa'u waari. This one was still heavy as a bitch, but not like the previous ones she'd worked on.

Still, she put that aside and strained to get the 'little' guy out of the crate and upright.

[D.M.O.]

// detecting: Admin input
// detecting: new unit designation
// setting unit designation to: Deemo

Deemo wubbed out a narrative of its inner processes. With a hint of sluggish delay, its subroutines reassessed its circumstances, once again checking its orientation and surroundings. The ground was in the correct place. The unit was no longer positioned in storage. Admin was in close proximity, and the software that decoded humanoid nonverbal communication suggested a high probability that Admin was pleased. A flag was triggered, delving into file storage for a preprogrammed command string: a response to Customer Satisfaction installed in the base operating system. Power was delivered to either side of the unit's bipartite drive system, the two halves of its drive wheel moving in opposite directions for short bursts, creating the outward appearence of a happy little shimmy.

The same analysis software predicted that, based on stature, Admin fell into the youth category for her species. That triggered the next stage of the new owner startup protocols. Another string of wubs followed.

// Admin + Deemo = friends?

[Shuvin Undhi]

With every wub that the droid wubbed, Shuvin fell a bit more in love. Sure, she didn't know what it was saying, but with time she knew she'd have at least some idea of it.

"I love you," she said to the droid, a small smile on her face.

"Hey! You! What's the deal with just flying into us, eh? Think you don't gotta be courteous like the rest of us?" Shuvin glanced up and blinked, seeing the group of men she'd flown into when the crate had been winged standing there with irritated looks on their faces.

"Ah, stars, sorry—" she cut off and squinted. Behind them in the distance, the guy she'd liberated this lovely droid from was making his way down the hill towards them. "Sorry! Gotta go! C'mon Deemo, gotta scram!"

She spared only a moment to gesture to the astromech and took off through the crowd, the droid hot on her heels.

"Boss, the thing... it's gone!"

"Wha? Hey! Get back here!" The 'leader' of the group of men shouted and took off after the girl, with his cronies not far behind. "Go that way! Swing around!"

[Lux]

Lux had barely even reached the edge of the market by the time the Togruta girl was on the move again, this time with an unpackaged S19 unit apparently in tow. What flourish of techno-thievery she had pulled to secure the droid's instant fealty he did not know, but apparently it had been quite effective. Slightly lacking in the effectiveness department was the systems that managed the S19's balance and mobility: the Togruta had fled as fast as her legs would allow, but the droid looked like it would barely manage fifty yards before the Togruta had disappeared too far into the distance, or the droid toppled over and scuffed up it's paintwork.

Further compounding the problem was the fact that the thief had apparently kicked a hornets nest on her way through, stirring up a swarm of angry locals that began to chase in her wake. They had a head start; and worse, they seemed like the sort of people who'd take out their frustration on the much easier to catch S19 unit, if the thief somehow managed to escape. That simply would not do. Not at all.

Slinging the rifle over his shoulder, Lux broke into a run, father's shield clutched in his hand and "Sector Ranger!" bellowed from his lungs every few seconds. He watched as the Togruta led her pursuit through the center of the market - smart: choosing terrain across which the S19 could follow - and so Lux attempted a short cut, vaulting up onto a pile of storage crates, then the precarious roof of a market stall, and then up onto the rooftops to continue his pursuit from higher ground.

"If that droid gets damaged," he hissed out between clenched teeth and exerted breaths, "I'm selling off your organs to pay for the repairs."

[Shuvin Undhi]

"Whoa! Look out!" Shuvin hooked a hard right, hearing Deemo's motor whirring madly behind her as it picked up speed coming out of the turn to catch up to her, and both of them barely evading a new crush of people coming to the market. "Watch out, comin' through!"

"Whaa, aagh!" a man carrying a basket of vegetables was pushed off balance and fell backwards, spilling the contents out onto the ground and into the air as he landed on his back. "My vegetables!"

"Sorry!" the Togruta called back breathlessly. S19 wubbed. "C'mon Deemo! We can make it! Eh?"

Her eyes, cast back to look at the mess she'd made, caught a glint on her shoulder. Something shiny, hanging from a chain, was caught in the shoulder lapel of her jacket.

"Wonder what this is," she panted to herself.

"Get back here you little bitch!"

"Erk!" Shuvin jerked back to full awareness and put on the speed. 'Time to figure that out later!'

A series of wubs caught her attention; she stopped and glanced back to see Deemo shimmy and rolling back and forth by a small alcove hidden by stalls and people. She grinned, and tore into the dark alley hidden by a couple rugs and hanging cages of nunas.

[Lux]

Whatever the Togruta was doing to antagonise these people, Lux was immensely grateful: the angry horde chasing her through the streets made her particularly easy to track, and allowed him to dedicate most of his of his attention to the important task of not tumbling from the rooftops he was now racing across.

He was also grateful - though less immensely - to the Imperial Stormtrooper Corps. As a recruit he had balked at the feats of agility his Taskmaster had directed them through. Who in the name of sanity needed to be able to ascend their way out of a thirty foot pit by jumping from repulsorlift platform to repulsorlift platform? They were soldiers after all, not Jedi, and Lux had never seen a real Stormtrooper ever perform such a feat. Of course, that was because Lux had never witnessed an assassin being chased by the authorities through the skylanes of Coruscant or atop the hovertrains of Corellia. He hadn't attempted to climb up to an elevated landing platform above a forest canopy, to thwart the shuttle thieves who had just disabled the elevators; nor attempted to navigate the bowels of a half-disabled Star Destroyer in the midst of a pirate assault. Like everyone else, Lux hadn't taken Stormtroopers seriously: not until he, in a backwards attempt at teenage rebellion, had become one.

Lux flung himself forward, utterly committed as he sailed over the modest side street. He allowed his leg to buckle as he landed, tumbling forward into a roll that bled off much of the unwanted attention. He watched as the myriad gangs and pursuers tore off through the branching avenue from the main market thoroughfare; and looked down, attention caught by the triumphant wub of an S19 in the alley beneath him.

Not hesitating for a moment, Lux vaulted from the roof, catching himself part way down the opposite wall and pushing off, landing with a crunch of boots against dirt and a flourish of his coat. His blaster clicked, and let out a faint charging whine as he levelled it at the Togruta.

"I think that's quite far enough, don't you?"

[Shuvin Undhi]

"Yah! Stars, you're gonna give a girl a heart... attack..." Shuvin trailed off as she recognized the former owner of Deemo standing in front of her with a primed blaster on her square. "Y'know, I'm gonna say no, this is not quite far enough."

She backed up, but the man followed her step for step.

"Now now, maybe this don't need to end in violence, yeah?" she said, her hands raised palms out. She glanced at Deemo, and whispered through the corner of her mouth, "Deemo, shock 'im. Shock 'im."

"Where'd she go? Find her! We can't lose it! I bet she was hired by the Figgon boys. Bastards!"

Voices rang out clearly over the din of a regular market day, followed by the sounds of sirens blaring. Deemo wubbed something she took as being a 'can't do it boss!'

"Shit, security's comin'! Hide!"

"Eh heh," she said, a wide grin stealing over her face.

"In here!" Just behind the guy burst two of the men she'd collided with earlier. "Huh? Oh shit, it's the girl! Boss, we got her!"

"Just move on out of the way fella," the other man said to the spacer she'd liberated Deemo from. "Whatever problem you got with her is gonna wait until we're done."

The sound of footsteps rapidly diminishing brought their attention back to the girl; or rather, to where the girl had been. All they could see was the last little bit of her boot disappearing around the corner and Deemo turning to follow with a blurted out 'Wuuuuub!'

The sirens grew closer.

[Lux]

"Well that was a bit of a tactical blunder wasn't it, Lux old boy?"

He supposed that when it came to alleyways, either option was fraught with downsides. Had he leapt down ahead of the Togruta, she might simply have reverse course and run off back the way she came. While true, their pursuit might have resumed with Lux far closer, and the Togruta's other pursuers far behind, it meant heading back through the crowds where her smaller and more nimble frame gave her a decided advantage. Discouraging her from fleeing in that direction had seemed prudent at the time; hindsight had helpfully corrected him on that front.

"Gentleman -"

The hand on Lux's shoulder attempting to push him aside was drained for momentum. Lux spun, knuckles cracking down hard on the man's nose. The turn continued, a stun blast snapped off at the second thug; the first received a knee to the groin and a kick to the knee to help him on his way towards the ground, before a second stun blast deposited him into unconsciousness as well.

Lux sighed and shook his head. "So uncivilized," he muttered, tucking his pistol away and tugging on his jacket lapels to straighten it, before setting off at a run in the Togruta's wake.

[Shuvin Undhi]

"Hah! Looks like we gave 'em the slip, eh?" Shuvin crowed to the droid, turning around to run backwards and give her new friend a wide grin full of teeth and dimples. It had taken some desperate juking and ducking into strange alleys and side-streets, but finally they seemed to have evaded their many pursuers, slowing down to a light jogging pace next to a canal. "All we gotta do now is get back to —"

"Hey, it's her!"

Shuvin jumped and spun around again, spotting two more of the men that had been chasing her. She turned to run in the opposite direction and saw the spacer, a look of grim satisfaction on his face as he turned a corner close to her and booked it in her direction.

"Aw, come on!" She whined, before turning again and trying to get away via a bridge that spanned the canal. Only, there were the last three of the group of men she'd somehow pissed off on the other side. "Eep!"

Footsteps stopped just behind her, and she turned to see the spacer there, glaring at her. Behind him were Goons One and Two, and behind her were Goons Three through Five.

"Damn it girl, just give us back the recording!" a voice called from behind One and Two. The man she'd flown into and that had been shouting at her back when the running had just started came up, his shirt stained with sweat, his hair mussed, and his face red. "Or there'll be consequences for you and your friend here."

She glanced at the spacer.

[Lux]

Lux had expected to find himself as part of the ring of pursuers, ready to stake his claim on the Togruta thief and bluff these local ruffians into submission with his wit, charm, and back catalogue of carefully crafted fraudulent identities and performances. Instead he found himself inside it, apparently misidentified as some sort of co-conspirator. He perhaps should have expected as much, given the familiar facial injuries he'd earlier inflicted upon one of the thugs.<br><br>"Everyone stay calm," he offered calmly, raising his hands in a calming gesture that calmly displayed his Sector Ranger shield, calmly. He turned slowly, ensuring the faux identification could be seen who he presumed was in some way the leader of these intellectually-challenged individuals. He lingered for a moment, before gesturing slightly to his hip, lowering his blaster and sliding it back into its holster. <em>Steady now, boys,</em> he thought, conveying the sentiment with his body language. <em>Look at how cooperative the nice authority figure is being.</em><br><br>When his hand emerged from inside his coat, a set of restraining cuffs hung from his thumb; again he ensured that the assembled crowd could see them.<br><br>"My name is Montegue," he explained, once again carefully threading a perilous course of deceptive honesty. "You can run my shield number against the Imperial Sector Ranger database if you like; you'll see that it matches."<br><br>Lux let that linger, hoping that they'd simply take his word for it; and if not, hoping that all the people who called him <em>the spitting image of his father</em> weren't talking as much out of their arses as he usually hoped they were. If there was ever a time for a little reciprocal xeno-prejudice, of aliens believing that all humans looked pretty much alike, now was the time.<br><br>Now however, Lux's course changed. <em>This woman has stolen something of mine</em> hardly seemed like a viable approach to this situation. That merely made him an equal of these malcontents. If he was going to defuse this situation in a way that might avoid anyone actually dying, he'd need to establish himself as considerably more deserving of dealing with the Togruta first; something significant enough that it would force these individuals to back down.<br><br>"This woman is the property of Grand Moff Augustus Valorum," he lied, grasping for a name that people in this corner of the galaxy would most certainly have heard of. "That's the Governor of the Western Reaches, if anyone is at all unfamiliar with their Imperial overlords. Miss Zhi here, and the stolen droid with her, have in their possession information that the Grand Moff is <em>very</em> keen to prevent from letting see the light of day. Information that, well -"<br><br>Lux's demeanour shifted, no longer playing the part of friend. A hint of threat crept into his expression, and his voice, his attention singling out the most impressionable of the thugs to prey upon.<br><br>"Lets just say that if Floo and her droid fall into your hands before I have safely retrieved the data from them, and if I'm not left alive to vouch for your innocence, then I'm afraid anyone the Grand Moff even <em>suspects</em> might have come into contact with the files should expect a visit from Death Troopers and Storm Commandos. As should their loved ones. And, more than likely, anyone they have ever known."<br><br>By the time Lux turned his attention back to the breathless, red-faced leader of the group, his eyes were pure durasteel.<br><br>"I have a forgiving nature. I suggest you take advantage of that, as those who come after me do not."

[Shuvin Undhi]

The man blinked twice and turned to his partner. A smirk slowly bloomed on his face.

"You hear this guy? Moff Augustus Valorum and the Death Troopers," he scoffed, and spat to the side. "Not freakin' likely, pal. If it were the Empire, I'm damn sure they would send more'n just one guy when they could send ten or twenty to do the same job."

The three others had smirks growing on their faces also.

"Now, we've got a little searching to do with this little chit, you get me? We'll be glad to leave you the droid and what's left of her after we've finished. She might have hidden our little gem inside it for all we know."

"Like hell you will!" Shuvin shouted back, her face turned into a nasty snarl. "Try an' touch me an' I'll tear 'em off before they get anywhere near me!"

"Oh, looks like she's gonna fight, boss. We got ourselves some fun and the blackmail."

Sirens wailed in the distance.

"Yeah, but we'll make this quick. Can't have the fuzz get too close." The leader of the four men clenched his fists. "Let's go!"

They charged.

"Come at me!" Shuvin snarled, taking two steps forward and unleashing a powerful kick into the leader's crotch with the toe of her boot, and was tackled to the ground by his partner in a flail of limbs and head tails.

[Lux]

Lux let out a heavy sigh.

"Worth a try," he mused.

With a flick of his wrist, the stun cuffs flipped upwards, caught and gripped by his fingers and then swung like a wrench towards the nearest thug's jaw. As part of the same sweeping motion he tugged his blaster free, taking advantage of the momentary distractive effects of the Togruta's outburst to catch a duo of thugs unawares with snapped stun blasts. The movement completed, the drop bringing Lux down into a slight crouch as if he'd been corkscrewed into the dirt, coat sweeping out behind him as his back turned to face the thug with the battered jaw. A swift strike with his elbow caught the man in the gut, and his free hand joined forces with the few spare fingers not occupied gripping his pistol, grabbing the thug by the scruff of his clothes and tossing him over Lux's shoulder into an abrupt and uncomfortable impact with the ground. Lux finished off with another swift stun blast to the thug's prone form, before turning his attention on the rest of the group.

Those that the Togruta had charged were conveniently occupied; those on the far side of the central melee had already reached for blasters however, and likely would be too stupid to consider the prospect of stray shots hitting their apparent leader before they opened fire. Acting on instinct and reflex, Lux shoved in a pocket, almost immediately triggering the button on the tiny half-sphere that he pulled free. He tossed it upwards into the air a few feet, and then recoiled away, burying his face in the crook of his arm. Half a second later, a concussive wave of light and sound erupted forth, frazzling retinas, rupturing eardrums, and turning everyone within the immediate radius into a stunned and stumbling mess.

Lux's head swam, the ground swaying beneath him as his ears struggled to provide valid balance information; but fortunately his eyes were largely unscathed, and a few blinks was all it took to let him compensate. He staggered forward, wrapping an arm around the Togruta's waist and hoisting her off the ground. "Droid!" he yelled, to distracted to even think about whether or not the astromech actually had a formal designation, and charged off towards the hopeful protection of alleys and cover.

[Shuvin Undhi]

What many humans continued to forget is that 'flashbangs' did exponentially more damage to species such as Togruta (and Twi'lek). Due to their method of hearing using not only an organ that functioned much like an ear, but also their montrals, which functioned as a set of crude if effective echolocation organs, a flashbang would not only blind them and disorient them with a wave of concussive sound, but the sound would be amplified by their montrals, more or less scrambling their brains. Togruta reported that it felt like a physical blow if they were close, and found themselves unable to parse their montrals' signals, or had trouble concentrating completely, for months, years, or in some of the worst cases the rest of their lives afterwards.

Shuvin's head didn't swim. One moment she was rolling over the man who'd tackled her, and the next she felt like she smacked in the back of her head with a hammer.

Her entire being hummed as if she were looking through faulty eye-visors, and she was only absently aware of being hauled to her feet and pulled away from the fight, or of the security speeders coming down from overhead, their sirens full blare.

"Everyone remain calm. On your knees, hands in the air where we can see them. Do not attempt to flee, or otherwise resist, or we will be forced to use potentially hazardous methods to restrain you."

[Lux]

Local law enforcement was less slow and incompetent than Lux had hoped or expected. Wonderful. That was exactly what one needed while fleeing a crime scene with an unwanted accomplice who was stumbling like a paralytically drunk Ensign on shoreleave. A few half-remembered passages about lekku and montrals from the flash device's terms and conditions floated through his mind, choosing now to dislodge from his memory rather than a convenient earlier moment. Even then, he might not have expected the reaction to be quite this profound: had he known, he might have pitched it to his superiors back in the day as a devastatingly effective solution to the rebellion on Ryloth.

Flinging the Togruta around the corner of a cramped side street, Lux risked a glance backwards, and grimaced. The local constabulary was focused on the crowd of criminals they already had for the time being, but it wouldn't take more than a few sentences of shouting about a Togruta and a droid for them to widen their net and begin searching. That gave them precious seconds, and the odds of them outrunning any sort of cordon they might establish with speeders was essentially zero. Lux cursed under his breath - still confused about why this Togruta stealing his droid had caused such a meteor storm of criminal activity - and ushered their mismatched trio further down the street, towards the momentary safety of an arched doorway that retreated a few feet into stonework before blocking their way with a durasteel hatch.

"See if you can get this open," he instructed to the droid, propping the Togruta up in one of the corners, attempting to get some sort of glimpse at her pupillary response.

The astromech wubbed out a mournful response.

Lux's eyes turned back to the droid, an angry frown on his brow. "What do you mean you can't? This woman stole you, I'm the one who -"

The droid wubbed again, repeating the first sound with a small flicker of clarification appended.

It took a moment for things to process, Lux's eyes blinking in stunned response. The S19 was not refusing to comply: it was incapable. Realisation dawned slowly, bringing exasperation in it's wake. A world as rife with crime as this, of course you wouldn't have a fully tricked out astromech unit sitting on the shop floor if you could help it. Leave anything valuable out on display, and it would simply get stolen. Take that approach, and you wound up with a unit like this one: devoid of anything besides a basic chassis and basic software, anything of any use or utility to be added later. Lux recalled the letters stamped on the storage crate he'd helped load it into. Dorn Mern Osk. Display Model Only.

Lux's heart sank, and then quickly descended through that into anger. Cursing under his breath again, he delved into a pocket and pulled out a small toolkit and datapad, setting to work overriding the locking mechanism.

"You, young lady," he muttered as he worked, "Are the stupidest thief I have ever met." His jaw clenched in concentration. "And I'm about as stupid for bothering to chase after you."

[Shuvin Undhi]

"Huwabafah," she gasped.

At no point in time could she ever remember being so scared. Or if she could, she wouldn't: every time she tried to focus through the curious haze and hum that dominated her, she felt nauseous and her head swam even more fiercely. She was only aware of her incapacitation, and the visceral gut fear that this was her entire existence from now on. With a desperation and drive borne from this, she tried to reach lucidity, and only achieved full body spasms and garbled words, but there were small, unnoticed glimpses of wakefulness. She was lucky; such responses were a good sign that she was not permanently disabled, though her panic wasn't helping her whatsoever.

"Ha—hawaja—murngah," she whimpered, feeling her energy dwindle. Her head lolled to the side, and one hand jerked out to Deemo instinctively, the small crystalline memory stick that had inadvertently caused all the trouble (after her stealing the droid, admittedly) swinging from its cord, which had wrapped itself around her wrist.

[Lux]

Stupid and useless, Lux mentally amended as he spared a momentary glance in the direction of the mumbling Togruta. At some point his irritation might abate enough for a few pangs of guilt to creep in, but as it stood, a few minutes of dazed discomfort for the woman - well, girl really, from the look of her - who'd dragged him into a pursuit across half a city and deposited him in the middle of some sort of gangland fiasco, felt perfectly appropriate and deserved.

The electronic lock let out a small burp of synthesised noises as it finally relented to Lux's intrusion, the magnetics disengaging just enough to allow him to wedge a hand between the door and frame and lever it open manually. He turned to the droid, expecting to be able to instruct it to do something useful; the unicycled box merely stared back at him blankly. Lux let out a sigh.

"Go... wait inside. And don't touch anything."

The droid wubbed an affirmative and trundled inside, leaving Lux with a brief moment alone with the girl. An uncomfortable thought crossed his mind: in her current state, he could merely leave here where she was, seal the door, and wait for his problems to go away. Even if law enforcement chose to search the building - Lux wasn't entirely sure of this world's specific stance on warrants and due process, so that might or might not happen - a few officers would be far easier to evade with only himself and the droid to worry about. In fact, the droid itself was largely useless: he could simply make a run for it alone, writing the display model off as unfortunate collateral expenses, leaving the girl to whatever fate she had managed to deposit herself in the middle of.

Another sigh escaped him, as he hoisted the Togruta up onto his shoulder and carefully manoeuvred the two of them through the door, blaster held at the ready just in case. It was not an act of kindness, or benevolence, or guilt: just the simple realisation that if he fled, he'd never figure out what the bloody hell had happened today, and that was the sort of thing that would nag at him immensely.

A few steps inside, Lux swept the room for an appropriately comfortable surface to deposit his cargo on. He misjudged his surroundings slightly as he turned, the Togruta's montrals bumping slightly against the door frame. A groan of discomfort came from behind him; a reflexive sorry almost escaped, but Lux held it at bay, instead setting his sights on a garishly orange sofa across the room, with equally garish yellow and lime throw cushions. The Togruta was lowered onto it gently - more out of concern over the likelihood of her vomiting on his coat than her actual wellbeing - before Lux returned to the doorway, sliding it closed and securing it in place with a portable mag-log retrieved from the depths of his pockets.

Turning back to the room, he slumped against the door, letting his body slide downwards into a sitting squat against it.

"People like you, Ms Thief," he grunted, staring intently at the floor two feet in front of his boots, "Are why people like me end up with drinking problems."

[Shuvin Undhi]

At some point, she must've fallen asleep, because the next moment of clarity she felt was opening her eyes to a headache and a darkened ceiling.

"Ugh," she groaned, her hands reaching up to her eyes and rubbing them. There was still a ringing in her head from the grenade. "What was the registration on the cargo speeder that hit me?"

She did a mental check, immediately noting that her clothes seemed like they hadn't been taken off and put back on, and there was no lingering pain in her crotch, bruising on her ass or tits, and she didn't have any bitter aftertaste in her mouth.

With that worry out of the way, she tried remembering what happened, and got as far as a fight on a bridge before drawing a blank.

"Well, that was smart Shuvin," she sighed, closing her eyes and trying to will her headache into remission. "Maybe Ben's luck is rubbing off on me."

[Lux]

Shuvin.

Lux made a note of that name. He'd act as if he hadn't heard of course, seek a name later on, see if what she offered lined up with the name she'd used to refer to herself in presumed privacy. He was hardly in a position to judge anyone for the use of an alias, granted, but there was a difference between his nom de guerre and the kind of falsehood that someone might engage in for deliberately deceitful reasons. What ever this young woman had done, and whatever had provoked the local gangs into pursuing her with such vigor, Lux fully expected that she had a considerable amount to hide.

He could have searched her, he supposed. That would have been the prudent thing, albeit a slightly sketchy activity to engage in when one had just deposited a woman unconscious on a couch. Considering the Togruta's fashion choices, the line between searching and groping had blurred to the point of total obscurity, and with the prospect of her regaining consciousness and law enforcement blowing in the door at any moment, Lux had no desire to be caught with his hands shoved into any part of Shuvin's tight-fitting clothing, pockets or otherwise.

"If that is some sort of poorly worded thank you for saving you from whatever mess you stepped in back there," Lux muttered, barely even lifting his head from where it had slumped into the crossed arms propped up against his knees, "You're welcome."

[Shuvin Undhi]

"It wasn't — eep!" Shuvin blinked and jumped, rolling off the couch she'd been deposited on with a muffled thud. Her head was killing her. "Who are you? Where am I? What the hell?"

Her questions came fast and somewhat garbled while she sat up and pushed herself back against the furniture. Her head swam and she closed her eyes.

"Ugh."

[Lux]

Lux could have answered that question a number of ways, few of them truthful, and none of them entirely so. The Captain's relationship with the truth was complicated. Some might have called him a con artist, but to do so was to misunderstand what he did. He wasn't a cheat, or a swindler. He didn't deceive to take advantage, never stole or exploited; he just found that the galaxy was inclined to run more smoothly if Lux wasn't himself.

If you ever insisted he label himself, he'd choose actor. He played the part that the situation needed, for the benefit of his clients and customers. Sometimes that involved lies and deception. Sometimes it was merely a case of reframing or repackaging the truth. Sometimes it required a surprising amount of honesty, particularly when it came to earning trust.

But what did this situation require? Lux decided to keep it simple.

"You stole my droid," he stated, keeping his hostility somewhat under control. "We're currently in hiding from every single gang on this sodding planet, who you also managed to piss off."

[Shuvin Undhi]

"I'd say I'm sorry, but I'd be lying," Shuvin sighed, leaning her had back and closing her eyes. "Jus' look at 'im! He's so bokkie, and I've always wanted a droid, and you look mighty sketchy, and that skelm of a Bothan was just askin' to be ripped off..."

She shrugged.

"As for those kaps," Shuvin gestured off to the side vaguely. "Dunno what got into them. All I did was run into 'im. Oh!"

She sat up, grimacing as her head throbbed. "Maybe they were after this, ne?"

She held out a little datachit, the crystalline memory piece hanging from a little thin chain.

"Found it on me back when I was runnin' from all of ya. Hangin from my anties, no less. Hey hey, Deemo, come an' play this, can ya?"