Cloudy with a Chance of Espionage

[Rai'raa Anjumi]

She squealed a bit at the sight of the datakey. "What! How...?!" Rai'raa hugged him tightly, and then released him. "Which one is it?" Her blue eyes were dancing with anticipation of what sort of ship would have its key locked in Sasseeri's safe.

[Kale]

"Well, that's what we gotta find out," Kale said. They were surrounded by airspeeders, many of them expensive, but only good for hopping from one sky platform to another, or taking joyrides through the local cloud formations. The key in his hand was oversized, which meant it went to something bigger than a sedan or sports skimmer.

Kale offered an arm to Rai'raa. There would still be cameras in a parking garage, and they couldn't afford to draw attention to themselves. "Come on," he said, "there are docking platforms outside the garage."

There was an open-air promenade deck that wrapped around the casino complex, and it was studded every thirty meters or so with a raised landing platform, all of them with prime access to the Cloud City skylanes. Kale mostly saw personal cruisers - Sorosuubs, Corellians, the odd Incom model - along with one or two military transports that were probably on retainer for some Imperial with tassels on his shoulders. He eyeballed each of them as they strolled by, but none of them felt right - until they stopped by a Luxury 3000 yacht on a corner landing pad with Corellian tags and an ivory finish.

Kale looked up and down the gleaming beauty of a ship and fingered the datakey in his hand. "I got a good feeling about this."

He raised the key and thumbed the door locks button. And then he jumped when he heard a piercing electronic chirp - not from the Luxury 3000, but from behind them.

There it was, looming on an elevated platform marked for staff parking - sleek and powerful, it was the A-Wing to the Luxury 3000's X-Wing, and even sitting on a landing pad it looked like it was going lightspeed. Kale felt his jaw drop.

"Do you know what that is?" he said, keeping his voice low as if it might spook and fly away. "That's a Horizon-class Star Yacht... fastest model Sorosuub makes. It gives the Corellians a run for their money."

The main body of the ship looked like a stripped-down, streamlined version of the Luxury's cigar-shaped fuselage, but the similarities ended there. Instead of the blocky back observation deck with floor-to-ceiling windows, the Horizon sported a graceful pair of forward-swept wings capped by massive engine pods. It made Cloud City more aerodynamic just sitting there; you couldn't look at the thing without a sense of vertigo.

And as they watched, the boarding hatch in the side of the yacht slid open as if to welcome its new proprietors.

[Rai'raa Anjumi]

Rai'raa realized she was squeezing Kale's arm too tightly, and released it, only for him to grab her hand and tug her toward the extending ramp. She followed him, excited but also nervous.

"Therrre's no securrrity?" Kale reassured her that the key they were using would deactivate any latent systems designed to keep out unwanted intruders. "The key to the kingdom," he declared, walking briskly up the ramp.

Rai'raa followed, tugged along by her hand. "Its beautiful."