"I'm not dissociating, I'm just lying to myself. There's a difference."
There are many ways of getting a room full of gangsters on your side. There are even more ways of getting on their good side. Some might try to combine sheer charisma with a healthy helping of booze and a very good time. Others would suggest money. Lots of money. Preferably applied liberally and frequently with as few questions asked as humanly possible.
Idiots would suggest threats and violence.
I was not an idiot.
Not that kind of idiot, anyway.
"I have need of a ship," I declared to the room full of Nikto, filling my voice with all the dignity expected of a Sith. Their eyes remained focused squarely on me as my guide scampered away. No doubt he was eager to get out of the potentially literal crossfire. "I am willing to bargain."
"As I recall, you have a ship," the one at the head of the table said, his Basic carrying an accent I did not recognize. "Did you run out of fuel? Blow a hyperdrive motivator? We do not exist to relieve your inconveniences."
"The ship is entirely functional," I explained. "But I have no doubt your people are crawling all over it as we speak and will be able to vouch for me in no time."
Unfortunately, depending on the mood of these gangsters, the ship might not remain functional for much longer.
"Then why do you need a ship?" another Nikto asked. He, too, had the odd accent that my guide had lacked. Perhaps it was a Nikto accent? Something to research later. "What's wrong with the one you got?"
"I have been seen flying it," I said simply. "No doubt you can appreciate the value of anonymity."
"Don't know how to do a transponder overlay?" asked yet another Nikto. "Doesn't take more than a few minutes, if you know what you're doing."
"That would only buy me a few minutes at best," I said, rejecting the idea. Any slicer worth their salt could work through it given a bit of time. That kind of training was no doubt standard for traffic control. "Less than that if someone put a tracker on my ship. No doubt a bunch as resourceful as you can figure out if my fears are misplaced, but I lack the skills."
"So you want to trade ships?" The Boss Kajain'sa asked. "One of ours for yours? How do we know that crate of yours won't lead a strike team of SIS agents right to our front door?"
"You cannot," I admitted. "But you all seem like the clever sort, so let me ask you this: if I really had the intelligence service of the Republic hot on my tail right now, why would I be asking for your cooperation?"
That caused them to freeze. Well, almost all of them.
"You raise a fair point, Sith," the Boss Kajain'sa said. His voice remained admirably calm. "Simple business, then. But a one-for-one trade isn't going to fly too well. We've got our deliveries planned around our current fleet. Changing the plans is going to take a whole lot of work."
"Compensation, then." Money, bribes, and favors. The universal languages, those. "I'll have a friend of mine send a few crates of supplies your way. I'm certain he can rustle up something on Dromund Kaas."
"What did you have in mind?"
"How do you feel about blaster rifles and body armor?" I suggested. I could probably get those. And come up with a suitable cover identity for delivery. Wait a minute, I already had a suitable cover identity.
"We'd-" one of the Nikto at the table began to speak, an excited look on his face, before clamping his mouth shut with an audible click as self-control reasserted itself.
"Weapons and armor would do nicely," the Nikto in charge allowed. "And who is this friend of yours?"
"Nestor." No doubt there was going to be some kind of backlash from setting up false identities for myself on every world I visited. But that was a problem for later. And if I could get to later, then I would accept a bit of difficulty down the road. "From the Sphere of Expansion and Diplomacy. An up-and-comer, but he's always good when it comes to his debts."
"The one from the tabloids?"
"Don't say that to his face, if at all possible," I said with a wince. Was that really for what the galaxy knew me?
"Noted," said the Boss Kajain'sa, rising to his feet and walking around the table. "How long until you deliver?"
"Depends on how fast the ship is," I answered, not moving from my spot. "Travel time to Dromund Kaas and back plus one week."
The Nikto walking over until he stood in front of me. He did not quite tower over me, but he was taller by an appreciable degree. For a moment, he just looked down at me, leaving me to wonder if I needed to toss him across the room a few times in order to get him to take me seriously.
"You got yourself a deal, Sith," the Nikto said, about fifteen seconds before I was going to listen to the intrusive thoughts. He extended a hand, and we shook in a vaguely binding verbal agreement.
I was still going to follow through on it.
Professional pride and all that.
And just like that, I was back on my way. On a long and lonely voyage to Dromund Kaas in a borrowed light freighter as I tried to guess what was waiting for me on that God-forsaken world. Probably disappointment, a mountain of paperwork, and a lightsaber in the back. Not necessarily in that order. Thus, when I reverted back to real space, I awaited the inevitable incoming transmissions with no small amount of trepidation.
"Freighter Kach- Kaj- Kai…" A static-laced voice came in over the comms. From past experience, I could identify the frequency being used as belonging to Kaas City Traffic Control. From more past experience, hearing them struggle to pronounce the name on the borrowed ship's transponder filled me with warmth, pride, and childlike joy. "Inbound Freighter on vector zero-eight-four by zero-four-three relative to Entry Point South, please transmit your travel authorization."
And because something as basic as this name was a nightmare for the cream of the mundane imperial bureaucracy, they had answered with spite. Why do the simple and logical thing and spell out the name when you could force every pilot currently in the system to check their current heading and orientation relative to each of the eight navigation buoys?
"Dromund Kaas Traffic Control, this is freighter Glorious Kajain'sa," I answered, my voice full of the imperial gravitas that had been drilled into me so thoroughly. "Please open a secure channel to receive authorization."
"Freighter, this is Dromund Kaas TC. Acknowledged." The line abruptly went dead, and a light began to blink on my console. Flicking the indicated switch, I waited a few seconds for confirmation from the man on the ground. "The channel is secure. You may transmit when ready."
"Gradeskipper." Instead of transmitting any sort of data package, I spoke into the microphone.
"Freighter, please transmit your travel authorization in a standard format," The man on the other side of the line spoke.
"Verbal authorization, code eight-one-four-eight, Pattern Aurek," I said. "Please confirm previous transmission."
"What are you- oh. Oh." Where there was once confusion in the voice of the person in the metaphorical tower, panic swiftly replaced it. "It's asking for the second part, m-my lord."
"Anoesis," I said as clearly as I could.
"A-authorization received, my lord," the voice became quite a lot more nervous now. On my face, a slightly malicious began to grow. "Please stand by to receive approach vector and landing pad, my lord."
On my navigational display, a string of numbers showed up. Navigational coordinates, the heading I needed to take, speed limits, the landing pad assigned to me… everything a novice pilot needed to make a safe and uneventful landing at a civilized spaceport.
And like the safe and responsible pilot I was, I followed them.
The light freighter hurtled through the atmosphere, plowing through the thick layer of dark clouds that blanketed the upper atmosphere. And the middle atmosphere. And the lower atmosphere, too. The whole planet was blanketed in the things, blocking out most of the natural light and leaving the world in perpetual night.
But I knew where I was flying. I was guided by the Force, navigational data, and a very bright set of blinking pylons that pointed me toward the spaceport, so I wasn't too worried. For most of the flight, at least. I was maybe five minutes from landing when the numbers on my display changed. Gone was the landing pad number. Gone was the approach vector. The coordinates changed, shifting enough that I was absolutely certain that I was no longer being sent to the spaceport.
And then the comm came back to life, with Traffic Control's voice somehow even more nervous than before.
"My lord, I'm afraid we need to divert your course."
"There had better be a good reason for this," I said, already twisting the control yoke to put me on a course that was in roughly the right direction. To my satisfaction, I saw my own coordinates shift closer and closer to the target.
"The orders came from the top, my lord," the shaky voice responded. "Transmitting now."
"What is there to-" I did not have the time to finish my sentence before one of the monitors to my side displayed the new information. And rather suddenly, I considered the benefits of smashing my ship into the jungle below and dying the ensuing conflagration. Quite reasonably, you may ask why.
It was because I had a copy of the order that had been sent to traffic control a mere minute earlier.
An order with seals of the Sphere of Expansion and Diplomacy and the authorization code of the Dark Council.
Which meant my former master's master's master wanted to speak with me. Personally. And had been waiting for me.
Yay me.
...
Hey guys I would really appreciate it if you could throw some power stones to help elevate the ranking.
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