Private Sleepless in Scillal

[Council of Captains]

Zebitrope IV, Spice Lizard Ranch

The warm savannah of Zebitrope IV, dominated by rolling plains of golden grass interspersed with stubby trees, quiet pools, and tall rock formations, was far from unique in the galaxy. Countless other worlds boasted similar climates. The planet wasn't pretty enough, or exotic enough, to make for a convincing resort world, and had few natural resources valuable on the galactic market, so most colonists weren't particularly interested; there were far better candidates for habitation, even within the backwater Centrality. But there was one unique and valuable thing that flourished there, and the Spinward Cartel had moved in to exploit it at the first opportunity.

The spice lizard ranch, one of many that dotted the isolated planet, was a simple affair. A few squat buildings of tan duracrete, worker housing and product storage, stood clustered around a wide durasteel landing pad. Beyond them the plains continued uninterrupted, though a higher concentration of foul-smelling green-black plants peeked out from among the golden grasses than elsewhere on the planet. A high energy fence surrounded the perimeter, keeping predators out and livestock in. And what strange livestock they were: meter-long lizards, grey-green and bulging-eyed, patchily covered in a purple mould that lent them a sickly-sweet smell.

Trios of workers moved among the lizards, many of them poor refugees from Sith and Bryn'adul space with no other job prospects - Noghri, Weequays, Mon Calamari, Voss. One held a long stick with a ball of malodorous vegetable bait at the end, to attract a lizard's attention. Another held an electrified catch-pole, to loop around the lizard's neck and hold it still. The last carried a plastoid bag and a tool that resembled a spatula, which was used to scrape off the mould. This was the production chain of lesai spice, a party drug treasured throughout the galaxy. It was the basis of the Spinward Cartel's wealth and power.

That day, five small, round containers sat by the landing pad, awaiting transport to those who wanted to party all night...

Tris​

 

[Tris]

Zebitrope IV was...Quaint, if not a little dry. The sun beat down on her as she walked down the ramp of her little freighter. Slow as it was, she'd managed to make it in time. She was surprised when there wasn't anyone waiting at the landing pad. The drug wasn't illegal here but it was where she was going and despite the small amount it was lucrative. Honestly, she could probably handle this and another legitimate cargo run on the way if she played her cards right. Her boots clanked softly on the ramp and crunched when they made contact with the hardy brown grass that was growing through the cracks. A gust of wind peppered her with dust that she instinctively shielded her eyes from before making her way to the pile of canisters.

Right on her heels was Gee-Gee, the intrepid little G5 astromech that had come with the ship. Honestly, it had been a steal. A basically brand new astromech on a used ship that was already cheap new? The seller had tried to up the price but a little Jedi manipulation and she was down even lower than his first asking price. Gee-Gee tweeted happily as it hit the ground and did little donuts in the dirt.

"Hey, are you gonna help with this or what?"

"Womp womp. Womo womp womp womp, womp womp." It waved its manipulator arms around in protest.

"Yeah yeah, I know. That's why I said to bring down the gurney, remember?" She grunted as she hefted two canisters under her arms and started climbing back up the ramp. "Hurry up Gee, time is money, and we need A LOT of it!"

Council of Captains

 

[Council of Captains]

As Ariona began hefting the cargo pods up the loading ramp, she heard a squawk of surprise behind her. "Hey, wait!" Running in from the fields, its bandy legs and taloned feet propelling it forward in an odd, peck-like gait, was a green and yellow-feathered Targonnian waving a datapad. The alien finally slid to a stop at the edge of the landing pad, sucking down desperate breaths that whistled oddly through its beak; a cloud of savannah dust rose from behind it. "Let me get you checked off." The creature swallowed hard. "Please don't tell them I wasn't here to meet you."

With long-taloned fingers, the flightless bird flicked through the cargo manifest and checked off the five cargo pods. Then he tucked the datapad away and rolled the other three into his arms, trying not to overbalance under the oddly-shaped weight of them. "I used to be a surgeon, you know," he said quietly as he moved up the loading ramp. "Back on Targonn. I had a nice house, a luxury speeder, a beautiful family. Then the Bryn'adul came." He stopped for a moment, lost in thought, shoulders slumped. Then he shook his head and kept moving.

"Now I'm lucky to have this job, checking off cargo, instead of working the lizard fields. I get twice the pay, maybe enough to pay off my transport indenture in five years, if I'm good about saving it up." He carefully deposited the pods on the floor of the cargo hold. "Yeah, I'm real lucky." Shaking his head, the Targonnian produced the datapad again, tapping a few more icons. "It's a straight shot up the Cadma Conduit from here to Scillal. You'd better find a good way to conceal this cargo, though. Centran Customs patrols have really stepped it up lately."

He shook his head again. "Centran government can't nearly feed everyone, but they sure can confiscate low-impact party drugs."

Tris​

 

[Tris]

The voice came as she was half-way up the ramp, surprising her. She turned at the waist and cocked a brow before she shrugged and continued up the ramp. She started to listen but felt a familiar, cold rage begin to build up in the pit of her stomach. She'd heard of the Bryn. Those monsters that came from the Deep Black in Wild Space a few years back. Before most, herself included, thought that them being so close to Sith worlds, they would just be crushed or at worst assimilated into the Sith military machine like the Graug had been back in the One Sith days. What happened was so much worse. They cut a bloody swath through those lesser-known and lesser-traveled sectors, enslaving many, destroying the rest. Now the size of their horde rivaled the nascent Galactic Alliance.

And still the Jedi did nothing.

She'd tuned out the story, the details were always the same. But she was trying to calm the white-hot anger storm into its usual choppy sea of regret and disappointment.

"Sure, no skin off my back," she called to the strange bird creature. She opened a panel in the wall of the cargo hold, revealing a smuggler's hold and a rack system. She slid the canisters down in a little rack, the spice receptacles hissing and clicking into place, a green indicator light coming to life as they locked into place for travel. She didn't remember asking the bird for help, but it sounded like he was just prattling on as if he expected her to DO something.

"Don't worry about that. Here, give me those," she started towards the bird thing and took one of the canisters, showing him the mechanism. When the bird's canisters were locked into place she slammed the panel shut and dusted her hands.

"Reflec coated panel. As far as their sensors are concerned, this is just a wall like any other on the ship." She offered the bird a wink. "Now I appreciate the help, but I've got a deadline to meet."

Council of Captains

 

[Council of Captains]

The Targonnian shook his head, shaking himself out of his chatty reverie. "Right, sorry. You're cleared for takeoff. Good luck out there, and try not to get caught." With that, the bird-like alien strutted back down the ramp, and was soon swallowed by the dust of the ranch. The freighter was soon forgotten; the ranch workers had enough to worry about on their own. Keeping their heads down and finishing their shifts meant staying out of trouble and getting paid; there weren't many opportunities for refugees to do both here in the Centrality.

Zebitrope IV was technically under the jurisdiction of the Centran government, but in practice their authority struggled to reach this far down the Cadma Conduit at the best of times. These, with an unmanageable tide of refugees pouring in and swelling the region's central planets to four times their normal population, were not the best of times. There would be no customs patrols in the Zebitrope system, not with all hands needed on deck to protect Erilnar and its main planetary allies. That meant that Ariona could expect a peaceful take-off, at least.

Her destination, though, was the industrial heart of the Centrality: Scillal, home to the region's largest and most productive shipyards. With its military and police forces stretched thin, and a Bryn'adul invasion expected at any moment, the Centran government would brook no threat to its main producer of starships. The further up the Cadma Conduit that Ariona got, the more security she could expect, and the more paranoid they'd be. They'd dealt not just with smugglers but also with Renatasian insurgents and their bombs; their searches were thorough.

Hopefully Ariona's reflec compartment, and whatever cover story she had about why she was headed to Scillal, would hold up.

Tris​

 

[Tris]

She watched the Targonnian leave her small little freighter, his bird-like form slowly disappearing into the bright sunlight of Zebitrope IV. Part of her wanted to stay and dismantle whatever cartel was holding him and his people by the throat to harvest this variant of spice. But then her stomach growled and she was given a stark reminder that she wasn't with the Jedi Order anymore. A girl had to eat, and she had to keep the ship fueled and stocked, which meant she was moving this junk to the next pair of hands and ruining someone's life. She sighed and turned towards the cockpit as the cargo bay doors creaked shut. Just in front of the cockpit and to the side a little were the refrigeration units that she was hoping would get her through Centran security. She had Kyprin on board, both live and dead and both frozen in advanced stasis pods. They were both a delicacy fish and exotic pet from Corellia that were rumored to grow as large as Purgill in the deepest waters of that smuggler world. In her youth, she remembered riding the giant fish with her master. Elephant Kyprin were no joke, but it was a great way for her to connect with her roots and develop her empathy skills. She smiled at the memory before continuing on into the cockpit.

"GeeGee, are we ready to fly?" She flipped a few switches as the droid tweedled at her from the droid port that sat behind the navigator's chair. The engine hummed and the whole ship vibrated as the atmospheric flight turbines began to spin up and the repulsors warmed up.

"Pre-Flight checks were completed while you loaded the cargo. We are ready to fly," the words came across one of the screens on her dash, translating the droid's electronic language. She didn't bother responding and eased the freighter into the sky, heading to break the atmosphere. GeeGee was incredibly efficient and a lot more agreeable than other droids she'd met in her past. She was already looking at jump coordinates for their first major jump. Maybe it was because the droid was essentially a factory-fresh model. Despite the G5 series being a few years now, this one had been tucked away in a cargo compartment, forgotten by the previous owner, and never activated when she first bought the vessel.

She pulled the hyperdrive lever and was sent hurtling through the stars.

Council of Captains

 

[Council of Captains]

It was a smooth ride up the Cadma Conduit; the spacelanes here were well-patrolled, and the Centran Navy ran off any pirates who attempted to interdict cargo ships in the area. Nor did any customs ships pull Ariona out of hyperspace along the way, focused as they were on surrounding the Centrality's important worlds rather than conducting random searches of ships traveling the Conduit. They didn't have the manpower to do both, so they'd prioritized. So the hours slid gently by as Ariona's YV-87 streaked through the blue tunnel of hyperspace.

Before too long, the navicomputer beeped, and the freighter reverted into realspace at the edge of the Scillal system. The first impression the planet gave was of a splatter-painting in metal. Dozens of dockyards radiated out from the shining planet, corporate manufacturing stations that carried the industries of the planet below out among the stars. Dozens of Centran frigates and cruisers drifted around the planet, patrolling or performing naval drills. Dozens more civilian ships had formed orderly processions down toward the surface.

Soon, Ariona was hailed by one of the customs cruisers. "Welcome to Scillal," a bored voice echoed over the comms. "Home of the Centran Navy. For your safety, and the safety of all Centran citizens, planetside access is currently restricted. No offworld immigrants are currently admitted except by express permission of the Office of the Scrivnir. Registered freighter captains may obtain permission for a twelve-hour stay to drop off or pick up cargo. Please state the nature of your visit, and we'll begin your registration."

Tris​

 

[Tris]

The ride from the edge of the system to the planet's orbit had been a sight but uneventful. During her time as a Jedi just prior to and during the Sith Wars, most of her time was spent either in the Core Worlds or along the TIngle Arm, deep in Sith territories. Though she knew, had heard and even seen a lot of Outer Rim planets go through hyper industrialization like Mandalore, Tattooine, Geonosis she had no idea that even small independent governments in the area had the resources to do so. Along her flight she followed nav points to avoid heavily mined areas of space, took micro jumps to to hyperspace beacons to avoid naval exercises and in a few hours was within range of the system capital world. When the hail came through she flipped the blinking green switch and listened with half an ear as she searched the datacards under her seat. She pulled one out, made a scrunched up face and dug in for another. The process continued for about one minute until she found what she was looking for and tossed it to the astromech who promptly plugged it into a console that looked jerry rigged to the navigation console. She waited until her display shifted color from green to blue and nodded satisfied with her work.

"This is the independent freighter Whisper of the Heart," she said, inserting the name of the false transponder she'd plugged in. She wasn't wanted in this sector yet, and she wasn't exactly infamous, but it always paid to play it safe. "I've got a shipment of Corellian Kyprin on board for a local restaurant I figure. Came a long way, any idea how long I'm gonna be waiting for a pass down? Chefs hate spoiled fish as much as I don't wanna smell like it for the rest of my life."

Council of Captains

 

[Council of Captains]

"Whisper of the Heart," came the bored voice again, the voice of a man who said practically the same words over and over all day, every day, until the day he finally choked on his caf and died, "please move to the designated 'foodstuffs' queue. Transmitting coordinates now. You will be required to submit to an inspection before you land. Your estimated waiting time until your inspection is two standard hours. Your twelve-hour cargo visa will become active when a customs officer declares your inspection complete."

The foodstuffs line was pretty long; Scillal was devoted to industrial production, and grew little of its own food. Most of the ships in the line were big bulk freighters, carrying thousands of tons of grain or meat or vegetables from elsewhere in the Centrality. Ariona's ship, small and nimble, definitely looked out of place among them; she couldn't have carried one percent the amount of cargo that they did. If she could persuade customs that she was a specialty courier for a restaurant, though, she might just be able to explain that difference away.

Slowly, sluggishly, like a Hutt trying to swim up a river of nectoral syrup, the line moved along. It took a huge team of customs officers and scanner droids to inspect and clear the bulk freighters, and even with all those personnel it took a good chunk of time. Traffic in other lanes mostly moved at the same pace, though the 'passengers' line - composed of skippy little shuttles full of graduation guests - was going pretty quickly. Oh well. If Ariona had any final preparations to make before trying to beat the inspection, this was the time.

Tris​