Darren packed before breakfast because he wanted to know how little he would be leaving with.
Two changes of clothes, the nearly empty medical pouch, a knife, his identichip.
He wrapped the Earth pistol inside its case and counted the nineteen cartridges before closing it.
The local blaster stayed on his hip.
His abdomen still hurt when he bent over the bag, but he could fasten the straps without stopping now.
Five hundred and fifty-five credits.
Enough to eat for a while if he stayed, not enough to board Second Chance.
Sira’s contract chip lay beside the money.
He put both away and carried the bag downstairs.
Voran was already arguing with a driver.
Darren waited until the man left, then returned the dispatch cubicle key.
“Job with Besk,” Voran said.
“Yes.”
“He pays on time. Make sure you’re alive to collect.”
Darren asked to leave the bag behind the office counter until he came back.
Voran pointed at the same space where he had stored it before.
The permission was so ordinary that Darren found himself checking the straps again instead of thanking him.
Sira arrived while he was crouched there.
The wrap was off her hand, though she still favored it when she pulled her jacket closed.
“You ready?”
“That depends what you told him I can do.”
“Stand still. Keep quiet.”
“You’ve sold him someone else.”
She waited for him to straighten before leading the way to the lift.
The commercial level had clean walls, steady lighting and private guards in matching uniforms.
Darren followed Sira past a row of sealed offices to a room above a cargo depot.
Through the armored window he could see freight vehicles waiting below, their roofs bright beneath the loading lamps.
Jorran Besk stood beside the table with two bodyguards.
He was broad through the middle, his beard trimmed close and his hands crowded with rings.
A thick scar crossed his neck beneath one ear.
When he turned, Darren saw that his expensive coat was reinforced under the lining.
“This the guy?”
“Vale,” Sira said.
Jorran looked him over.
“Thin.”
“Food’s expensive.” Darren stopped beside the wall where he could see both doors.
“I hear you pay on time.”
Jorran laughed and told one of his guards to get the chairs arranged.
There were ten minutes before the other party arrived.
One bodyguard checked the window, then moved a chair so nobody could sit directly behind Jorran.
The second tested the latch on the service door.
Darren watched him leave it unlocked; a route out, if the main entrance became a problem.
Sira took the position opposite Darren.
Between them they could cover the table without standing behind their employer’s head.
She looked up when she caught him inspecting the ceiling.
“Anything?”
“One vent I don’t like.”
“Why?”
“Recent experience.”
Her mouth moved, almost a smile.
He could still remember her voice inside the duct, telling Milo where to put his hand.
In this room there would be no reason to climb anywhere unless the people who had hired them made a mess of it.
“Corellia,” she said.
“You know anyone there?”
“No.”
“Work?”
“Also no.”
She watched the main door.
“Tessa knows people.”
“I’ll ask. After I pay her.”
“Keep enough for somewhere to sleep.”
“Fifty-five, if this goes well.”
“That wasn’t reassurance.”
“It was arithmetic.”
Jorran complained about the temperature.
One guard adjusted the wall control; the other checked the corridor again.
Sira shifted away from the window as the main door opened.
“Don’t provoke anyone,” she said quietly.
“I never—”
“Anyone.”
“That eliminates important competencies.”
Varko entered with four men.
The Weequay wore a plain tunic and a vest with tool pockets, carrying himself like somebody more interested in what a room cost than how it looked.
Two of his guards checked exits before faces.
The other two kept their hands conspicuously near their weapons.
Jorran offered the chair across from him.
Varko sat, then looked at Darren.
“Vale?”
Sira went still.
“Depends who’s asking.”
“Kess called you a son of a bitch.”
“He was having a difficult morning.”
Jorran slapped the table.
“Negotiate the cargo before you become friends.”
Varko smiled without taking his eyes off Darren.
Then he turned to Jorran and named a price.
“One eighty,” Jorran said.
“Two fifty.”
“For parts I can buy two levels down?”
“For parts you can move through customs without leaving half behind.”
The price moved slowly.
Varko wanted payment before delivery; Jorran wanted to inspect the load before releasing anything.
Each had documents proving the other ought to trust him.
Darren listened long enough to understand what they were fighting over, then returned his attention to the men around the table.
The younger of Varko’s two competent guards stood near the service door.
He had checked its latch on the way in.
Now his eyes kept returning to Varko, not to Jorran or the weapons across the room.
A strip of sweat shone above his collar.
He shifted his weight back and let his coat fall away from the holster.
Darren moved his hand clear of his own jacket.
Across the table, Sira saw it.
Her gaze passed over the Weequay’s men and stopped at the service door.
“Two twenty,” Varko said.
The guard drew.
“Gun!” Darren caught Jorran’s shoulder and drove him below the edge of the table.
The first shot struck the chair back where his head had been.
Darren dropped beside him, hitting his own shoulder against the table hard enough to numb his arm.
Jorran’s nearer bodyguard drew but held fire; Varko was between him and the attacker.
The other guard moved toward the main door, keeping it from becoming another entrance for the ambush.
The gunman swung toward Varko.
One of the Weequay’s men fired first, striking him high in the arm.
The hit knocked him against the service-door frame without taking the weapon out of his hand.
Varko shoved his chair backward and dropped behind the far end of the table.
The space he left gave Darren a clear angle on the attacker.
Jorran was trying to get up; Darren held him down with his free hand and fired once.
His bolt hit the shooter’s shoulder.
The man hit the armored window beside the door, slid down and tried to bring his weapon up with his other hand.
Varko’s remaining professional kicked it away and held him covered until he stopped moving.
Nobody spoke.
A damaged wall panel spat a blue spark, and one of Jorran’s guards flinched toward it before lowering his muzzle.
Darren kept his blaster pointed away from the people getting up.
His shoulder tingled; he could feel his fingers again.
Under the table, Jorran swore with enough force to reassure him.
“Sira?”
“Clear. You?”
He flexed the hand.
“Still employed.”
The man by the main door called to the private guards outside and told them to wait.
Varko crouched beside the body.
He took a ring off the dead man’s finger and closed his hand around it.
“Cousin,” he said when he noticed Darren watching.
Darren looked away.
Jorran’s bodyguard offered his employer a hand, and Jorran rejected it long enough to check whether the damaged chair would still hold him.
“Two twenty,” he said.
Varko lifted his head.
“Your last offer.”
For a moment Darren thought they would have to stop another fight.
Then Varko began laughing.
Jorran waited, his coat dusty, one hand pressed against the shoulder Darren had shoved.
Eventually he laughed too.
They settled at two hundred and twenty-five while the surviving guards stood around them, less willing now to look away from anyone.
The depot’s private security made them wait while the two principals gave matching accounts of the shooting.
Darren stayed beside the window, watching the attacker being carried out.
The ring remained in Varko’s hand.
The Weequay had not put it on or hidden it.
The guard taking names asked who had fired.
Darren answered.
Sira did too; the surviving man beside Varko raised his hand without waiting to be asked.
The guard recorded their statements and went back to Jorran.
He wanted the room kept closed until his supervisor arrived.
Darren looked at the time.
Sira caught the movement and shook her head before he could ask how long.
Jorran was still their employer, and the transfer had not come through.
“The damaged panel goes on my account,” Jorran told the guard.
“The dead man belongs to his family. You have our names. What else do you need?”
The guard called his supervisor.
Darren waited with his hands empty, feeling his departure become somebody else’s decision.
At last the guard stepped away from the door and told them they could leave once their employers had settled the damage claim.
Darren’s shoulder had begun to ache where it had struck the table.
He rolled it once, testing the movement.
Sira came over and looked at the spent-charge reading on his blaster when he checked it.
“One shot,” she said.
“I hit.”
“You did.”
He seated the weapon in its holster.
The praise was small enough that she could pretend it had not been praise.
Varko stopped beside them before leaving.
His guards waited at the main door, giving him a little more space than they had on the way in.
“Kess really did talk about you.”
“He talks too much.”
“He said you don’t know which war you’re starting.”
Darren glanced toward the door where they had taken the body.
“Was this one mine?”
Varko’s fist closed around the ring.
“No.”
He looked Darren over, then turned to Sira.
“Keep him that way.”
She did not agree.
Varko left without asking again.
Jorran waited until private security had finished with the room before paying them.
Darren checked his own transfer: two hundred, exactly as promised.
No bonus for the shot, no deduction for the chair.
Five hundred and fifty-five became seven hundred and fifty-five.
For the first time since Tessa had sent the offer, he could afford the ship.
“More work when you’re back,” Jorran said.
“I haven’t left yet.”
“Then don’t get expensive before you do.”
Outside, Sira checked the time.
They had lost most of the margin she had allowed for the meeting, but there was still enough to collect Darren’s bag and reach the dock.
He sent Tessa one message: COMING.
She answered with the berth number.
They stopped at Pell’s office on the way back.
Darren meant to ask about the identichip and found her waiting with two records open on her terminal.
“Give me your chip,” she said.
He put it on the desk.
“Is there something wrong with it?”
“You’re going somewhere that checks more carefully.”
She inspected the transit entry while he stood beside the violet plant, resisting the impulse to watch every movement of her hands.
Sira waited near the door.
The office seemed smaller now that he knew where everything was.
“Corellia,” Pell said.
“Your birthplace on this identity. Don’t invent an employer to make the clerk happy.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“Good. Ask Tessa what she can actually vouch for.”
She corrected the transit field, checked it again and pushed the chip back.
Darren waited for the fee.
“You forgot the invoice.”
“I didn’t.”
He looked down at the chip.
“Thank you.”
Pell turned the terminal toward him.
“Now you can do something for me.”
“There it is.”
A broker had answered her warning about the Kessar data that morning.
His message accused her of damaging records that had served paying customers for months.
To prove his point, he had attached older transaction extracts forwarded by Kess with a demand that the sellers defend what they had sold him.
“Not our bait,” Pell said.
“The dates are earlier. Different consignments.”
“What are they?”
“Cargo references, charges, insurance entries. Some of it won’t open. I don’t know whether what’s left is genuine.”
Darren read the broker’s complaint.
It gave him the man’s anger more clearly than it gave him any reason to trust the attachments.
“You want them checked.”
“Tessa knows people in freight. If someone can tell me whether these records support his complaint, I can answer without guessing.”
“And if they don’t?”
“Then he can stop sending me threats.”
Darren looked at the size of the attachment.
A few extracts, not the archive Milo had copied or the routes Kess had carried away from the clinic.
Pell sent the broker’s message with them, preserving where they had come from.
“No customer routes?” he asked.
“I removed the live departure details. That’s all I’m giving you.”
He accepted the files.
It was not a paid assignment, and she promised him nothing he could use to buy another meal.
But she had just made sure his name would survive a closer look at a border.
“Send profitable work next time,” she said as he put the identichip away.
“You’ll be the first person I disappoint.”
She shook her head and opened the next call before he could thank her again.
At the warehouse, Voran shook Darren’s hand once.
He did not mention the pad thrown out of the clinic window.
Neither did Darren.
“Offer stands,” Voran said.
“I know.”
Marel came out of the workshop with his arm in its sling and wanted to know whether Corellian women were as difficult as women on Nar Shaddaa.
“Try learning one name first,” Sira said.
“Work up to planets.”
Vesk called from beside a pallet that Darren still owed him a power cell.
Darren had never borrowed one from him; the charged cell for the ambush had come from Voran’s supplies.
“Send the bill,” he called back.
“Come collect it.”
Darren lifted a hand and went to get his bag.
He checked it once, found everything where he had left it, and resisted the urge to empty it onto the counter again.
The cubicle key was no longer in his pocket.
That small absence bothered him more than the weight of the bag; until this morning, he had still had somewhere to come back to that night.
Renn was not there.
Darren sent him a short message saying he was leaving that day and thanking him for the warning at the north exit.
The reply arrived before they reached the lift: NEXT TIME LISTEN SOONER.
Sira read it over his shoulder.
“He’s improving.”
Darren put the communicator away.
“I preferred him quiet.”
On the way to the dock they passed the corridor where he had woken on his first night.
The pipes were still leaking.
Somebody had repaired half the broken sign and left the other half dark.
At the pawnshop, a new attendant stood behind the counter where Darren had sold his watch.
He slowed just long enough for Sira to notice.
“You forget something?”
“No.”
She waited anyway, then matched his pace when he moved on.
At the next platform, traffic lights spread through the haze below the window.
Darren could see three levels at once, each crowded with people making departures too small to announce.
“You coming?” he asked.
Sira looked at him.
“No. My life is here.”
He had expected the answer.
Hearing it still left him with nothing useful to say for several steps.
“I know people off-world,” she said.
“I’ll send you contacts. Ask before you use my name.”
“That’s almost friendship.”
“Keep talking and I delete them.”
The packet reached his communicator.
It was more useful than a promise that she would come after him, and he did not ask her to turn it into one.
“Thanks, Sira.”
She adjusted the strap that had begun slipping off his good shoulder.
“Don’t get sentimental.”
“Head trauma.”
“Go fuck yourself, Vale.”
He smiled, and they kept walking.
Second Chance waited with its ramp open and a cargo droid moving crates inside.
Its gray hull wore patches in several colors and two long scars along one flank.
The name had been painted by hand beneath the cockpit.
Darren stopped at the foot of the ramp.
“Second Chance?”
Tessa emerged from under the fuselage, wiping her hands.
“Problem?”
“No. Cosmic irony.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“Probably better.”
She checked the time, then held out the payment terminal.
Seven hundred.
He transferred it and watched the balance settle at fifty-five.
Tessa confirmed the receipt before pointing him toward the cargo bay.
“Cabin?”
“Bunk.”
“Food?”
“If you help load.”
He looked at the crates.
“I seem to have bought the expensive end of a job.”
“You bought passage. Leave the bag inside and take the light ones.”
He put the bag where she showed him, out of the marked lane, and came back for a crate he could lift without pulling at his abdomen.
The cargo droid took it from him at the top of the ramp.
Tessa corrected its placement, then let him bring the next one.
Between loads he showed her Pell’s message.
She read enough to frown at the insurance entries.
“Halden,” she said.
“He might look at it.”
“Friend?”
“Auditor. Don’t open with that question.”
He sent her the files and put the communicator away before she could ask whether he planned to carry anything else.
The last crate left a clean rectangle on the dirty deck where it had been standing.
Sira had stayed beside the ramp.
She watched Tessa secure the load, then looked at Darren’s bag inside the bay.
“Keep the other weapon hidden,” she said quietly.
“I will.”
She nodded.
He could have told her how many rounds remained, or asked again whether she wanted a seat on the ship.
Instead he stepped down to stand beside her.
“If we’re on the same world again,” he said, “call.”
“Maybe.”
“Terrible answer.”
“True one.”
Tessa called from inside that the dock had given her a departure slot and she intended to use it.
Sira moved aside, leaving the ramp clear.
Darren went up the ramp and collected his bag from beside the cargo lane.
When he turned back toward the dock, she raised two fingers in a gesture too casual to be a farewell.
He returned it.
The ramp began to lift before either found anything else to say.
Inside, Tessa showed him where to secure the bag and pointed to a seat with a restraint.
He fastened it.
The ship shuddered as the docking clamps released, and through the small viewport beside him the platform began to fall away.
For a moment he could still see Sira between a loader and the painted edge of the berth.
Then the ship turned and the hull blocked the view.
He put his hand against the pocket holding the identichip.
Pell could make his identity pass inspection.
Voran and Sira had given him people to call.
But none of them would be standing beside him when a stranger asked who Darren Vale was on another world.
He would have to answer for himself.
The moon’s lights receded beneath them.
Darren kept the communicator where he could reach it and waited for Tessa to tell him when he could unfasten the restraint.
To those who have been following this fanfic so far: thank you very much.
I would love to hear your thoughts on how the story is progressing and your initial impressions.
This is my first fanfic, and English isn’t my native language, so I would greatly appreciate your feedback.