Creatures of Habit

Sherobah Angau stood in the shadow of an alleyway, briefly illuminated by the stuttering flicker of neon lights, and watched with cold eyes as the Stormtroopers paced by. Her hands trembled, so she closed them tighter around the small, stolen blaster. No one had heard the sizzle of blasterfire or the dying squeal of the Ugnaught she had stolen the blaster from. Her fingers still prickled with the memory of wrapping around his throat. With luck, no one would find his body in the dumpster behind her, covered beneath so much filth and detritus. Sherobah waited the length of ten heartbeats, then let her hold on the blaster slip. No one was coming. Without looking back, she exhaled and stepped out into the flow of Port Town’s foot traffic.

Ahead of her, she could see the white helmets of the Stormtroopers. Occasionally they paused, lazily turning their blaster rifles towards shop owners or pedestrians they had taken a disliking to. Sherobah kept her distance, crossing from one alleyway of stalls and peddlers to another, but never letting the Imperials fully out of sight. Not until she found the doorway to a cantina and slipped inside.

It was as if she had slipped into the engine room of a freighter. Dark and loud, the air thrumming with a mechanical baseline. Patrons huddled in booths, hunched over their drinks as if peering into the innards of machinery. Sherobah studied the shadows, looking for the stranger she had been told to seek out. Her gaze caught on the shape of someone. Could that be them?

With no time to waste or need to hesitate, she approached the table where they sat.

“I understand you’re looking for passengers.”

"You've come to the right place, sugar tits."

A synthesized voice called out from the cloud of smoke that was consuming the small table. From deep within it's depths a shape emerged as the speaker leaned forward. A long, hooded coat obscured the body of the individual, and peaking out of the hood was the cold, unfeeling reflective glass of a helmet that revealed nothing but the world around it; distorted into a fish eye. A cigarette stuck out of one of the vent holes at the bottom lip of the helmet. The tip glowed red for a second and then a jet of smoke shot from the exit vent on the helmet.

"Name's Abaddon. I'm taking passengers. Any passengers. Don't matter who. Got me a kickass ship and I'm a great pilot, and I'll get you wherever it is you be going."

There was a fleeting, faint twitch in Sherobah’s upper lip as she studied the featureless mask emerging from the smoke.

“How much for passage to the Halla sector?”

Pulling the cigarette out of the vent it was lodged in and making a show of knocking it out in the ashtray on the table gave him the time he needed to connect his HUD to the cantina's holonet access point and do a quick search for the Halla Sector. The firmware on this armor was getting a archaic and taking it's sweet time finding the results, so he filled more time by grabbing his drink from the table, complete with straw, and inserting said straw through the vent and taking a long swig of the fountain rum. Disgusting, but effective. Finally the results hit and he almost choked on his drink before hastily setting it back down.

"Halla is on the other side of the galaxy, across the border and right up against Hutt space. That's a dangerous trip, little lady. Factoring in fuel costs, wear and tear, bribing the border patrol... gonna cost you ten thousand credits. Half now, half when we get there."

The expenses were pretty mitigated in truth. Getting across the border was easy if you went out of your way. It's a long strip of space and the Empire and Alliance can't guard all of it, can they? Just the hyperspace routes. You can go off the beaten path easy peasy. Just takes longer, and is considerably less safe. Still, complaining about it gave him the leverage to tack some extra credits on the price. Halla wouldn't be a terrible place to end up with. Plenty of work out there on the edges of the Alliance, and although he didn't usually get along with the Hutts, there might be work out there for an enterprising young gun hand like himself. Hopefully at least enough to fly back to this more civilized side of space with something left in the bank.

He wouldn't even be doing these stupid transportation jobs if he wasn't so strapped for cash in the first place, and Rath wasn't going to give him any more jobs until he "cooled his head for a bit". Bunch of bullshit, is what it was. Hopefully this lady had credits to pay up front because otherwise his ship was not making it out of port, and the cantina owner was going to try and break his kneecaps again.

Sherobah inhaled a long, deep breath, her lungs filling with the rich smoke that engulfed the table. Ten thousand credits. She had done her research, as best she could, and the price on offer wasn’t bad. Then again, she wasn't flush with funds and there were undoubtedly haulers that could get her to the Halla sector and Boz Pity for less. Without the luxury of time on her side, however, she couldn’t afford to quibble over the fare.

“Fine. As long as we travel to Halla directly, I’m willing to agree to those terms.”

She took a step closer to the table and withdrew a datacard from an inner jacket pocket and slid it across the table.

“Give me your credit account details. I’d like to leave as soon as possible,” she added, reflexively glancing back over her shoulder at the cantina entrance.

"Sure thing. I don't have anywhere else to be. You're priority number one."

Abaddon blathered on a bit, filling the empty space between them with words as he desperately attempted to pick up the thin datacard off the slick tabletop with his thick gloves impeding him at every step. Eventually he cut out the middle man and just slid it the rest of the way off the table and into his other hand. Thankfully the gloves were made with some utility in mind and had contact points to help with these touch screen interfaces. Unfortunately the armor was about three seasons out of fashion and the fingertips were heavily worn down and eroded from use. After a few false starts he finally got all the information in and passed it back across the table.

"Any special circumstances I need to know about? Enemies chasing you down, or you've got a pocketful of coaxium warming up in your pocket? Just to be clear, I don't care who you are or what you've done. I just want to know if there's gonna be trouble."

Sherobah thought of Hoth, thought of waking up from the decades in cryostatis that Sheev Palpatine had condemned her to. A bitter smile twisted her lips. She had outlived himself and for all his power, he could not pursue her from beyond the grave.

“There will be no trouble,” she said. “And I have no contraband.”

Not long after escaping Hoth, she had tried to access her Banking Clan account. It had been a pleasant surprise to discover that not only was the account active, but there were still funds in it. With a touch, Sherobah authorised the transfer of some of those funds to Abbadon.

It took a minute for the balance change to hit his account. It sure was nice to finally have more than double digits. Slurping loudly he finished off his drink and set the empty glass down and grabbed the cigarette on the way back.

"Looks like everything's in order. I'll go get everything ready for departure. Docking bay T17. Just look for the cool ship. Should be ready in an hour."

Because that's how long it was going to take to get the impound clamp removed and smooth over the situation with these fresh credits. Standing up he pulled his coat closer to his armor and glanced from side to side, taking in the room, before turning and heading out the door with his hands in his pockets. Smoke trailed behind him as he walked.

As soon as he was safely out of sight he whipped a datapad out of his pocket for easier access and quickly logged into the docking bay holonet site. Bills and fees were quickly paid and orders placed for immediate refueling and resupply. That would cost a mint, but he couldn't very well blast off across the galaxy with no fuel or food. It would be nice to have something other than stale Prangaals to eat. Speaking of Prangaals, he should use this trip as an excuse to swing by Jovan and see Beck. Maybe not. That might be lame. Maybe he should give her more time to want him. Can't go given out all this for free all the time, even to a fine booty hoochy mama like Beck.

By the time he slow walked his way to docking bay T17 everything was in action. Service droids busied themselves attaching fuel lines or dragging crates to the foot of the sleeping Firespray 31. Abaddon had yet to not stop and allow himself to enjoy the fresh paint job; hexagon plate pattern with black, white, and a stripe of gold. It looked cool as hell. A few scratches and carbon scoring had messed up the paint in a few places, but he would get that fixed just as soon as he had credits to spare. It was tight right now, and a fifty thousand credit paint job had not done him any favors. He might even be able to make a few payments on that with this job. He was getting tired of shooting debt collectors in the knees.

The passenger would be here soon enough, might as well get these supplies stored and arrange his departure. First things first, getting his RSKF-44 heavy blaster from the weapons locker on board and holstering at his side.

Abaddon had seen enough holos to know that jobs like this always have unexpected problems. Best to keep an eye out.

Sherobah watched the back of her pilot until he vanished into the smoke and darkness beyond the cantina’s entrance. Only when she was gone did she slide down into the back of the booth, into what remained of his cigarette smoke. An hour. What was an hour, given how long she had waited? Still, she could not help but resent it.

She studied the bar, it’s patrons, noting with some relief that there were no white-armoured soldiers patrolling. This was the type of place that they did not deem fit for their attention. A satisfactory place to wait, while Abbadon prepared.

Docking bay T17 housed a ship that was somewhat more ostentatious than she would have liked, but it would have to do. Droids fretted about the ship, busy making preparations. Sherobah ignored them as she examined the ship’s hull.

"Don't look so concerned. You'll get wrinkles."

As I stomped down the gangplank of the ship with a hand on the blaster on my hip and my other hand gesturing up toward the ship. I made sure not to physically step off of my ship and back on to the dock. I don't need another technicality infraction on my record because I took a blaster into a restricted area. My ship was sovereign space and Bespin can suck it.

"I have a four star rating on Zoomer. You don't have to worry. Come on, let's get you settled into the Nemesis of Reason."

The dockhands were finishing up with the resupply and refuel. I imagine we'd be on our way momentarily, and not a moment to waste. The sooner I offload this passenger and collect the rest of the creds is the sooner I can move on to the next job, and hopefully something far more interesting than some milky escort mission. The main floor of the ship was a tight affair with a bunk wedged into a shared cargo space that was almost entirely filled with military grade weapon lockers and several cages. Bars, forcefield covers, chains and stuncuffs. Everything a bounty hunter could want. Well, almost. I would love to wedge a carbonite booth but there was simply no room.

"I primarily bounty hunt. I'm not some weird slaver or something. If you've never flown on a Firespray before it can be a bit weird. The cockpit rotates so we'll be spending most of the trip up there. Drop your luggage wherever."

A staircase with a very noticeable gap between it and the upper deck was the only way to the cockpit. The whole thing was like a large half disc complete with a pilot's chair and a set of grav couches behind it. I gestured to one of the couches before taking my seat and pulling the folding control panels toward myself. It was definitely not the most comfortable cockpit out there, but you traded a lot of comfort on a high speed, quick flying, tight controlling, missiles firing from every angle type of gunship like this. It was totally worth it, and it was total babe magnet on top of it. Best half-mil I ever spent getting this old patrol ship cleaned up and retrofitted.

"And the million credit question is are we taking the back lanes only, main trade routes, no lanes; and are we avoiding a border inspection when we cross over?"

There was absolutely no way this chick had a clean nose on her entire body. Unless it was somebody else's nose. It's a good thing I'm a suspicious mother fucker who takes every precaution. I trust her about as far as I could throw her, and this armor doesn't do a damn thing for my strength.

What little luggage Sherobah had was enough to fit into the small satchel slung around her body. She kept it with her as she took the seat her pilot had indicated. Her pilot, a bounty hunter. She felt the weight of the small blaster tucked inside her satchel and hoped that she would not need it.

“Take whichever route you like, though I’d prefer to avoid the delay of a border inspection.”

A worm of curiosity nibbled at her, as she wondered who was likely to inspect them. If she had not been eager to reach her destination, there might have been some value in allowing border patrols aboard, to better understand the forces that governed the Galaxy now.

“Do you hunt on behalf of a guild?”

No border patrol. So she must be hiding something after all. I knew it. Must be wanted by one side or the other, which made it a real shame that I couldn't find a bounty in the system for her. That could just mean that it's being reserved for the Guilds that are more friendly to one side or the other. As an InCon I don't get access to all of the jobs, which is why most of them come down the pipes from Sheegoth. The old crocodile has access to a lot more shit than I'll ever have. Stupid guilds...

"Nah. I'm an independent contractor. It's a lot more freeing to not have a Guild controlling you and taking a percent out of your pocket. I'm my own boss. Plus I get to do side gigs like this. Ain't no Guild Hunters out there gonna stop and give you a ride."

The nav computer had already thrown up a travel plan but with a few presses of my fingers I move a few jump points around to bring them to a particular part of the border that wasn't so much unguarded or unwatched, but rather that certain palms had been greased to look the other way. Being employed by Sheegoth had a lot of benefits, and my boss liked me to be able to slip through the border when needed. I knew he'd be in a shit mood if he ever found out I was using it outside of one of his ops but that's why we weren't going to tell him. I heard an old spacer say once it was better to ask for forgiveness than permission. Hopefully the worst I'd have to endure if a tongue lashing, because I've seen what Sheegoth does to his own people when they fall out of favor.

He calls me to blow their heads off.

"Nav is set. Strap yourself in. The whole cockpit is going to shift as we turn upright. Try not to get sick. Those couches are real Corellian leather."