Private Hey, This is Crazy...

[Mirah Mackali]

Mirah listened, finding that she was automatically leaning forward as he explained. Curiosity was peaking, anticipation building...

Her brows rose, waiting for the punch line.

“Purses,” she echoed flatly. “Purses!?”

She grabbed the nearest thing, an empty noodle cup, and chucked it at him. Again, she let out an annoyed groan. Just how dumb were people? Ugh, these rich snobs needed these purses that bad? She rolled her eyes so hard that it almost hurt her head.

“Fakes, I'm assuming,” she said, glancing at him sidelong. And here she'd been thinking that it was something absolutely illegal and dangerous. With the coordinates laid in, the course set – she made the jump to hyperspace and let out a heavy sigh. They were going to be stuck here for a while.

“Fine, it's... whatever,” she muttered. “So, who were those guys chasing you, anyways?” Mirah swiveled in her chair to see Nej. “Did you cheat them out of some purses, too?”

Nej Tane

 

[Nej Tane]

She didn't understand- not many people do. Even I didn't.

Nej swat his arms in an attempt to avoid the incoming noodle cup- realizing that the woman was skinny simply because she probably didn't have a healthy diet of anything other than noodles. Proteins were a thing.

Nej couldn't tell you what proteins did, or where they came from, but he knew that they were in food other than noodles.

Unless the noodles had protein in them.

"No, no, honestly legit brands. Don't know the brands, but they're there. Don't care either-"

He raised both brows when she asked who was chasing him immediately after.

So, Nej had a funny problem- he had such a long rap sheet, and had such a bounty in some places, and had done a lot of questionable and downright stupid things in his formative (and last) years, that it was hard to say who exactly was chasing him. Well, less so who- bounty hunters was the easy answer. But the real question is for what exactly.

"Taxes, I think."

Probably the case. Or might've not been. Hard to say. Good guess, though.

Nej never paid taxes.

Mirah Mackali

 

[Mirah Mackali]

Okay, so the noodle container didn't smack him in the face like she'd wanted. But it still made her point. Mirah watched Nej as his brows went up into a seemingly innocent expression. Mirah canted her head to the side when he answered, and blinked a couple of times, incredulous.

“Taxes. You're telling me that those guys with guns were just trying to collect taxes?”

This guy. He was a liar and probably a cheat, too. But he was lucky that playing dumb seemed to work so well in his favor. Mirah threw up her hands; she gave up. It probably wasn't worth the breath trying to get a straight answer out of Nej. At any rate, they had some time to kill before getting to Tatooine and maybe getting themselves killed for real.

“C'mon,” she said, pushing out of her seat. The ship's AI would do the flying, this was another reason she liked this research vessel so much. “You can hang out in the kitchen or the lounge – but stay out of my lab.”

Mirah moved for the galley herself. It was time to do some stress eating.

Nej Tane

 

[Nej Tane]

It was time to relax- as much as I could, you know.

It wasn't necessarily a lie- or even an outright lie. It was just what he thought it was. Could've been one of the many, many, many small, or one of the few larger bounties that Nej had on his head. Pretty much in every system. But thankfully, most of the bigger ones went away when the "EVERLASTING EMPIRES" went away, then came back under a rebranded name with an even more red-on-black-with-white logo.

Nej was all too happy to fall through the cracks.

Which one was the lab- there was stuff everywhere! Hard not to press all the buttons.

She didn't say anything about not poking things, though.

As soon as she began her trek to begin stress eating, Nej stood in the doorframe, crossing his arms.

"You never told me your name- I'm Nej Tane."

Nej Taint was often a funny joke.

Mirah Mackali

 

[Mirah Mackali]

Inside the galley, Mirah began to rummage through her cabinets. What she needed was comfort food. Something warm. Something to take her mind off of her current situation, trapped here with that guy. And during her fruitless search, she did manage to start a pot of caf brewing.

She had a feeling she was going to need a hella big cup in order to get through the rest of this.

Pulling open a drawer, she found a crunchy granola bar – which she left right where it was. “Ughhh.” But her eyes shifted to find Nej in the doorway, almost taking up the entirety of it.

“Mirah,” she answered in that same flat tone, something between bored and annoyed. “Mirah Mackali.”

She wasn't the best at carrying conversations. Angling her head slightly, she spotted a couple more noodle bowls on a high shelf. Mirah already knew that she wouldn't be able to reach it, anyway. But then her eyes flickered back to Nej.

“Hey,” she started, already nodding towards the shelf. “Can you, uh, get that? You're, you know, tall.”

Nej Tane

 

[Nej Tane]

Perfect people come along perfectly fine and on perfect time.

"Mirah."

He repeated out loud, as if savoring the name and the person that held it. He walked over at her request, cocking his head as he retrieved the bowl of noodles for her, holding it out for her.

And then that part of Nej that wasn't always so obvious came out- the smart part. He was more lucky than he was smart, but he did have his moments.

"How'd you get it up there in the first place..?"

He realized how close they were, but smiled instead, laughing at the situation at hand.

"I'm a lot more than just tall, you know."

Mirah Mackali

 

[Mirah Mackali]

Mirah pretended not to hear him when he spoke her name aloud. But, there was something nice about the way it seemed to roll of his lips. Reaching out, she gently took the bowl from him – not snapping it away like she'd planned.

“I had a stool around here at some point,” she said, shrugging. It was true, but she vaguely remembered tossing a bunch of stuff up there simply because she hadn't really cared where it landed as long as it was out of the way.

The botanist glanced up when Nej continued, commenting that he was more than just tall. That easy smile was on his face again, and there was laughter this time, too. Mirah had the feeling that she'd been lied to a lot since she'd met Nej, but was he lying this time?

She wasn't completely sure.

But with only the noodle bowl held between them, Mirah quickly ducked away. She walked with slightly hunched shoulders and dialed the hot water dispenser up to boiling.

“You... were in my bubble,” she said, indicating the immediate space around her person. Mirah dispensed enough water to almost fill the bowl and walked over to the small table, just big enough to seat two. She lifted a pair of chopsticks and looked over at him. It'd be weird to eat like that in front of him.

“Uh, you can eat one, too,” she said, nodding to the high shelf again.

Nej Tane

 

[Nej Tane]

Ever wonder what the inside of a star looked like? All I had to do was look down at her eyes.

"Your stools often get up and walk away?" He said with a bemused grin, glancing around the kitchen. Nej was actually very particular about how he set up his own personal ship. And kept it clean. The botanist? Science lady. The science lady was not indifferent to being clean, it was simply a matter of that she simply couldn't- what with all the dirt and all.

The stacks of noodle cups, did concern Nej about her diet. And or a lack thereof.

She moved rapidly, almost making Nej flinch with her sudden, sharp movement. She indicated with her hands that she wanted her space- and he imagined a person that valued their space so much, obviously also didn't usually have visitors, or guests on their ships. Or people in general.

"Too much salt. Have to keep up the figure."

Nej had a good figure. A fighter's body.

"So...what is it that you do, with all this dirt and rocks and stuff?"

Mirah Mackali

 

[Mirah Mackali]

“The salt is what makes it good,” Mirah said, shaking her head at him like he'd said something very wrong. There was probably enough sodium in one cup of noodles to last her body a lifetime, but the way she ate them it'd last her many. That wasn't exactly scientific. But hey, she wasn't a doctor.

Her eyes shifted to him momentarily, unable to help herself. Yeah, he did have a nice bod. Underneath his clothes there was probably toned muscles. Arms that had obvious strength, shoulders that were built like brick houses, and pecs that could probably crush cans or something. But she shook it off, she had no reason to picture anything beneath his clothes.

She slurped some noodles, loudly.

And she looked up again when he asked what she did with all of her dirt and rocks. A bitter flame ignited, and her expression turned sour. “I'm a botanist,” she said, wiping her mouth on her sleeve. “All of that dirt and rocks are my research.”

Mirah let the chopsticks rest along the top of her cup.

“Also, it's not dirt – it's soil,” she said, annoyed. Everyone made this mistake, though. It just happened to be Nej that caught the brunt of her mood. “I visit different worlds to collect data and samples. Like what I was doing when you... busted all of my stuff.”

Nej Tane

 

[Nej Tane]

"Actually I'm pretty sure a lot of it-"

His health advice was going to fall on deaf ears, by the look alone. She ogled him while she slurped on noodles- which caused the corners of his mouth to angle upwards, and his eyebrows raised.

He knew. Somehow that made it worse.

"Boteenist? Why study soil?" Nej corrected himself. Nej was not a scientific man. Or a scholarly man. Or a man who could read well. He had to sound out the words sometimes.

"What's there to know about soil? It's there, you put stuff in it, it grows or it doesn't. Boom."

He had a very limited scope of science and it's applications.

"And also technically speaking- the other guys blew up your stuff."

He neglected to remember he fell on a significant amount of it as well.

Mirah Mackali

 

[Mirah Mackali]

“Different worlds, different soil, obviously.” Mirah said this, slightly affronted on behalf of soil, everywhere. “There's different compositions – minerals, organic content, nutrients for plant life to consume. Different pH levels and levels of nitrogen – and don't forget about microorganisms! If something doesn't grow, we want to know why.”

There was a lot to study, a lot to sift through, so to speak.

But sometimes, they'd make a discovery. They were always learning about how they could further enrich and amend soils, especially on barren worlds. But Mirah figured she ought to stop before she got too hot-headed. Her face was already a bit red, from her passion for soil and the salty soup.

“Whatever,” she said when he blew off the responsibility for wrecking her stuff. And now she was slightly annoyed, the feeling seemed to follow her around these days. She ate her noodles and tossed the container in the trash receptacle.

“Stay here, okay?” she said, finally, as she stood up. “I'm going back up to the bridge. I'll let you know once we've arrived.” But she paused in the doorway. “You can use the lounge, too, there's a couch if you want to sleep.”

With that, Mirah stepped out and went up to the blinking console and silence.

***
After some time, the tawny orb of sand came into view. Tatooine. Mirah had spent some time thinking. Maybe she'd been too grumpy? Well, no... grumpy was her default mood. But maybe she'd been a bit too... agitated? Not that she'd every openly admit that. But Nej didn't seem like a terrible guy, despite the fact that he was obviously shady.
She felt a little bad about it.

“Hey,” she said into the comm, her flat tone betraying nothing of her inner turmoil. “We're here, so, uh, meet me in the cargo bay in a few minutes.”

Those minutes slipped by, and she went to join him, feet dragging.

Nej Tane

 

[Nej Tane]

A lot of big words were thrown at Nej. He knew some of them. For the time being, however, Mirah got a bit of a blank stare, clearly indicating that Nej had no idea what she was talking about. He opened his mouth to respond, but found himself silenced at her change in attitude. He should've taken a bit more responsibility for ruining her work- only now was he beginning to see how important it was to her.

And he felt like an nerf herder.

He took her up on the couch offer- he was tired to all hell, and curling his arms under him, Nej slept. Nej slept like he was on guard constantly, never relaxing- his stomach always facing down, his pistol tucked under his arm well within reach.

He never relaxed- not ever again.

----

He woke up to the sound of her voice, eyes fluttering open as she asked him to meet her in the cargo bay. Odd place to meet- wasn't she in the bridge? Better view. Maybe, right? Or maybe there was something she couldn't touch, lift- or she had to show him something.

It'd be pretty awkward if he met another smuggler unintentionally.

She was dragging her feet, and through his brief trek through the ship, got a glimpse of home. For a moment, Nej stared at the orb of the desert world approaching, his eyes glossing over. Memory, pain, fondness, longing- betrayal. All culminated in a few spaces between seconds of a longing stare. He found her in the cargo bay first, cocking his head.

"Head to Mos Eisley Spaceport- we can catch a ride where we're going from there. It's a backwater but it's home."

Mirah Mackali

 

[Mirah Mackali]

Mirah was walking the length of the cargo bay. Pacing. Back and forth, back and forth. This was crazy. It was definitely crazy. She shook her head a couple of times, the corner of her eye twitching somewhat irritably.

And she wasn't contemplating the mission ahead.

It was something else entirely; an apology. She jolted slightly at the sound of Nej's voice, even though she'd been expecting him. “Mos Eisley?” she asked, then nodded as she walked over to a console and tapped in the coordinates. “The ship's AI will get us there.” That was another thing she liked about the ship, it could do pretty much anything without her.

Here in the bay, there were cargo containers, similar to the ones that Nej had knocked over before. As she looked at them, she wondered if they could be of use.

“So,” she started, trying not to sound as grumpy as before. “Do... we need to hide these purses or something? Like, we can put them in one of these. Of course, they aren't labeled or anything but they might think they are for my work, I guess.” Mirah shrugged, looking at him.

“But I guess I'll have to follow your lead here. I'm not the criminal mastermind.” Mirah then, felt a pang of nerves. Was she really about to let him take over now? Did he even have a plan or did he just fly by the seat of his pants, as they saying went?

Nej Tane

 

[Nej Tane]

Her ship had an AI.

His ship didn't have an AI.

...He didn't think so at least.

He then remembered there was a few buttons he'd never pressed on his ship. Was it IA or AI? Did you press a button for an AI? Or was it always there?

For about a minute, Nej stared downward at a forty-five degree angle while he worked through the problem, then remembering that the button he was thinking of was the place where he kept his sunglasses.

"Somehow I think that a boteenal scientist and me will only garner somehow more suspicion than normal."

The purses were in boxes. Right? I mean, there wasn't just a giant pile of purses somewhere. right?

"No no- I'm not even a criminal mastermind. Or much of a criminal."

Obviously that was a lie.

Nej was a career criminal and thief.

"We'll have to see what they sent them there in first, I guess. Ever been to Mos Eisley?"

A big smile, eyebrows raised.

"It sucks!"

Mirah Mackali

 

[Mirah Mackali]

When Nej remarked that he wasn't much of a criminal, Mirah squinted at him as if to say 'really?' And when he asked if she'd ever been here, she shook her head. “I haven't--” she started to say, but stopped short.

“Yeah,” she said. “I thought so.”

She heard it was hot here because of the two suns – that sucked. And there were all sorts of annoying riff raff milling about – also sucky. Mirah didn't even want to get started on the topic of sand, either. For it also sucked – in a big way.

“Alright,” she sighed, resigned. “Let's get this over with.”

For her own part, she had a simple rucksack and a single blaster hidden beneath her leather jacket. It wasn't something she kept in the habit of keeping with her, but she figured it might do well to have something this time. She'd been chided before for coming into the desert unarmed, after all – a story for another time.

As they departed, leaving her vessel at the mercy of the 'guards' posted at the spaceport, she'd look to Nej. “So, where's your ship?” She glanced around, was it here? Could she tell which one matched him? Nah, almost all ships looked the same to her.

Nej Tane

 

[Nej Tane]

"Six bays down. We'll have to get the access to it, though- the bay's not mine. Didn't rent it either."

Nej had to go to a special place for that- home. The streets of his home city were bustling, but in a sort of reserved, quiet way. People, creatures, droids, dodged left and right as Nej lead the scientist through the sandy streets of Mos Eisley. It was one of the larger spaceports on the planet, and one of the few remaining. It was historic, in fact- many of the galaxy's heroes passed through here time and time again. The planet had been known for it's sand- but also for the secrets it held.

Nej turned his head as he rounded a corner.

Confederate troops on patrol passed, and Nej, out of habit, turned his head downward to avoid being seen, then turned back to face Mirah.

"We're going back to where I was raised up- the bays belongs to the house."

As they continued to walk, more and more children were seen, although- in somewhat decent shape.

And some of them... were wearing quite expensive jewelry.

And much too large for them. As if it was taken from someone else. Nej reached behind him and pulled Mirah closer.

"Mind your pockets. Do you speak Huttese?"

Mirah Mackali