Private Smuggling 201: Introduction to Expectations Management (Seela)

[Jerec Asyr]

Jerec set his bag down and sealed the ramp of his nondescript shuttle. He ushered his tall, pale, Devaronian client into a sitting area - really just a mostly-empty cargo hold with comfortable crates.

He flopped onto one of said crates. "So here's the plan. We're on Ninn right now, the blandest backwater in the history of bland backwaters. Great spot to hop over the Imperial border to a place called Lur. Apart from pressing a bunch of local geneticists into service, the Empire does not give a dank ferrik about Lur. That gets us inside the Empire.

"I flip our telesponder to, get this, the real one - this boat's registered in the Tion Cluster and fully legitimate. Little less legitimate: you're looking at the worst distance ed student at the University of Rudrig. Whole bunch of paperwork bound up in that, but bottom line, Jerko Asser is a fully functional Imperial citizen with a paper trail I've been building for a while.

"And since New Lothal City is huge on immigration from the Tion worlds, exchange student Jerko Asser is moving to the colonies with - sorry about this - his new house slave.

"Any questions so far?"

Seela Khaan

 

[Seela Khaan]

Seela had been aboard dozens of smuggler vessels in her time as a Jedi, both as a passenger and in an effort to capture them. Somehow she'd never gotten used to the smell of coolant mixed with body odor, booze, and slowly rusting durasteel. Seela had already brought her belongings onto the vessel with less than a footlocker's worth of gear packed into the brown sack pack that sat at her feet. Hood down and cloak bundled around her for warmth she sat on one of the crates the man was transporting as she listened to him speak, her weathered, yellow eyes following him with a passivity that bordered on unsettling.

She wrinkled her nose at the word "slave" and quirked a brow.

"Really?" she said questioningly. "I couldn't simply be your co-pilot, transferring whatever this is?" She gave the box a light tap with her heel. The rest of the plan sounded good, and it wasn't that her pride was in getting in the way of her playing the role. It wouldn't have been the first time after all. It was just that...Well. Her eyes glanced around the freighter. She honestly wasn't even sure if he owned the ship that he sounded so proud of.

"It's just," she waved at the cargo hold with her open palms, "You don't seem like you have the money for a 'new house slave', University student tor no." She gave him a skeptical frown.

Jerec Asyr

 

[Jerec Asyr]

Seela Khaan

"Sad truth is, most slave owners are smallholders without much to their name. That's what legalizing slavery does in borderlands like Lothal. But if you don't think it plays, there's another way.

"Look, the copilot thing would get you to Lothal. What it wouldn't do is get you through New Lothal City. I've heard it's got genetic checkpoints, which is pretty wild. If you want me to drop you on Lothal and let you take your chances without the right papers and legend - the story, the life you've built behind the papers - I can do that.

"Option three. You're a Jedi with yellow eyes. We get you something slinky and black and you play Sith Lord. Nobody checks a Sith Lord's papers. Probably."

 

[Seela Khaan]

She sighed and looked away from the smuggler in thought. Was the situation in the Sith Empire really so dire? So vile?

"Fine," she said simply before jumping down from her container and picking up her sack. "We'll do this your way. Can you show me where my bunk is? I'd like to rest and meditate on our way to Lothal." Just as before she didn't speak with disdain or malice, just simple acceptance. The matter of fact tone had caused many to call her cold, but there wasn't much she could dow about it.

Jerec Asyr

 

[Jerec Asyr]

Seela Khaan

He took the brusqueness as a sign of frustration with the situation and not so much with him. After all, he'd had this kind of conversation with important people more than once. Smuggling in the real world tended to be low on both comfort and glamour.

"Sure, right through there. Door on the left."

A private cabin on a cargo shuttle bore a more than passing resemblance to a closet. In square footage it was identical to the adjacent 'fresher.

"And I'm not up to speed on the Force stuff just yet, other than making rocks wobble - but try not to do anything that'll tip off a paranoid omniscient Sith Lord."

 

[Seela Khaan]

"The Force?" Seela quircked a brow and looked at the younger man appraisingly. She had felt...something when they'd met, though it was more like she heard the singing or at least echoes of it. Usually the song was the telltale of nearby kyber crystals and was one of the many ways the crystals communicated with those attuned to the Force. Now she was putting all the pieces together. She took a step towards him, ignoring his short tour of her meager quarters. Tossing the bag into the room she placed a hand on the man's shoulder suddenly and cradled his chin in her other, turning it this way and that.

"Of course! You're that Jerec Asyr," she said, her voice suddenly filled with excitement. "How is your health? Have you been sleeping properly? Do shards of the kyber still reside in you? You weren't Force Sensitive before the incident were you?" As she asked these questions she began lifting his arms up and down, lifting up his shirt, pulling it down, looking down his ears, and all manner of touch things as she examined him, tossing caution, protocol, and privacy to the wind. Jerec had been put on a Jedi watch list. It wasn't anything official but several Masters had established that letting Jerec Asyr loose on the Galaxy could potentially be incredibly dangerous. While his relatively unknown actions may have very well saved the Galaxy, he also now harbored shards of kyber, both normal and corrupted shards of the Eye of Palpatine which meant his path could lead to the ruin of many. The Jedi though did not see it as humane to simply lock the man up though, nor did they have nearly the level of influence in the Galaxy where that wouldn't become yet another scandal.

Seela's interest came in that she was a scholar in the field of kyber research and a master kyber artisan. With her quarantine over after her rather violent reaction to Force Light, she had still been denied access into the chamber where the Jedi Order held a large portion of the Eye of Palpatine and this would probably be her only chance at getting even a sliver to study.

Jerec Asyr

 

[Jerec Asyr]

Seela Khaan

"Aghfeth, lady, buy a guy a drink first!"

There was no option but to submit to the examination and the rapid-fire questions.

"My health's as good as a guy without insurance can expect. I sleep great since my crew tweezered all the kyber shards and Palpatine crap out of me. I wasn't Force sensitive before Byss."

Metaphorically, he wrapped himself in the shreds of his dignity.

"And yes, I am definitely that Jerec Asyr."

 

[Seela Khaan]

No more kyber? That was definitely disappointing and she didn't hide the fact from her face as it fell into a sad frown. Letting the elastic of his trousers snap back she sighed and folded her arms in front of her chest, her yellow eyes looking him up and down again. Curious was the effect the crystals had on the smuggler. Maybe the Force had brought them together on her journey to Lothal for a reason, one that she would have to meditate on further during their journey. Letting her fingers cradle her chin in thought she shrugged and gave Jerec a smile.

"The Jedi will be watching your career with great interest Jerec Asyr," she said and clapped a hand on his shoulder. "I'll be in my quarters. Let me know if there are any developments along our path." With that, she retreated into the refresher adjacent closet space that Jerec had criminally called "passenger space" and shut the door behind her. In the dark of the room, she sat on her knees as the room was not wide enough for her to sit cross-legged, and reached into her sack. From within she pulled a light green Jedi Holocron and set it on the floor, its low hum filling the room with a calming ambiance and its dim light illuminating the durasteel floor.

"Show me again," she whispered coaxingly as she waved a hand over the cube. As her hand moved over the ancient device it whined slightly as the hinges clicked into place and the light fully illuminated the room. A male figure in miniature, lost to time, rose and his eyes locked with hers before he smiled and began to speak.

"Lothal has always meant the world to us here but there was something else that continued to bring us back. The Force is strong in this world..." And so the meditative lecture began.

Jerec Asyr

 

[Jerec Asyr]

After Seela Khaan left, Jerec took a sec to be alone and not touched. Like most Jedi, Master Khaan was clearly nuts. But she'd paid pretty well for this elaborate smuggling run, so she had resources. Maybe they could do a little more business.

While the navicomputer was running some scenarios, he dug through his cabin's effects. He came up with one of the last shards of the Heart of Palpatine, a little sliver of black crystal encased in black market Jedi nullification resin - the reason the dreams had stopped. He bonked a knuckle on the door, aware that he was probably interrupting something very Jedi.

"Master Khaan? I got a piece of the crystal for sale."

 

[Seela Khaan]

The sound of the smuggler's knuckles rapped on her closet door. She was still deep in meditation on her lecture but was snapped back to reality at the mention of the kyber. She waved a hand and the door hissed open revealing her in a kneeling position and a small holocron on the floor with a little man pacing back and forth and speaking. Pale light from the hallway flooded the room and the Jedi Master raised her hand instinctively to shield her vision.

"The Force perceives all things conjoined, the past, the future, and the present. Everything flows, and all is connected on Lothal. The World Between Worlds does not merely allow us to perceive reality, it allows us to touch the truth." The mini-lecture continued. She smiled up at him and stood.

"Captain Asyr," she greeted, "You said you had a shard from the Eye of Palpatine?" The holocron of the youngish Jedi continued to prattle on about time and the Force and the dangers of the fabled World Between Worlds. She frowned before stepping into the hall, escaping the claustrophobic closet this smuggler called "guest quarters".

"I'd like to examine it before I make a decision," she said. "Where is it?"

Jerec Asyr