By the forty-seventh case in their verification pass, Darren had developed a personal hatred for precision engineering and a grudging respect for anyone willing to become boring on purpose.
“Three point six.”
Koro Dess entered the figure without looking up from the manifest.
“Next.”
Darren lowered the case, reached for the one beside it and checked the serial before lifting.
“Three point six.”
“You already said that.”
“I am trying to create suspense.”
“You are weighing identical housings.”
“Then the suspense is structural.”
Koro’s expression did not change.
Darren had spent enough hours beside the Herglic to understand that this was not proof the joke had failed; Koro’s face made most human reactions look financially irresponsible.
From somewhere beneath an open floor panel, Tessa said, “Stop corrupting my security chief.”
Darren glanced toward the maintenance opening.
Only one of her boots and the end of a hydrospanner were visible.
“You’re under the floor.”
“Observant.”
“Why?”
The hydrospanner disappeared.
“Port compensator relay.”
Darren looked at Koro.
“She told me the ship was fine.”
“She always says that.”
The answer arrived so dryly that Darren stopped with the next case halfway off the deck.
“You’ve been saving that.”
“No.”
“That was deliberate.”
“No.”
Tessa’s head appeared through the opening, dark hair tied back and a smear of grease across one cheek.
“Both of you can walk home.”
They were in hyperspace between Commenor and Cato Neimoidia.
Darren decided that explaining the logistical problem with her threat would only make the floor panel close more violently.
Koro tapped the next entry on the manifest.
“Work.”
Darren set the case on the scale.
Three precision optical relays had been found missing at Commenor.
That left them with a loss they could document and a theft window they could not.
Before departure they had weighed and photographed the remaining contents; now Darren and Koro were checking the sealed cases against those records.
He had helped insist on a better baseline.
His back was beginning to regret it.
“Four point one,” he said.
Koro recorded it.
Darren reached for the next case.
“This is why people become criminals.”
“No.”
“Strong counterargument.”
The next housing produced the same value.
Darren checked its serial against the specification: another identical unit.
He logged the match and reached for the next.
Cato Neimoidia emerged beneath cloud nine hours later, and for several seconds Darren forgot both cargo and crime.
The world presented itself first as stone: enormous pillars and canyon walls rising out of a cloud layer so deep that his eyes tried to assign it the logic of weather rather than geography.
Then the bridge cities became visible, structures spanning the impossible gaps between formations and carrying towers, gardens, landing platforms and entire districts above the void.
Tessa brought the Second Chance into its assigned approach corridor while sunlight moved across polished stone and metal in long bands of gold.
Darren stood behind the cockpit seats, watching the traffic display over Tessa’s shoulder.
The fact that nobody ordered him back to cargo felt like a small promotion.
A palace complex occupied one end of a bridge so large he initially mistook the foundations for part of the mountain.
“Jesus.”
Tessa glanced sideways.
“Translation?”
“Expensive.”
“That one works.”
A Trade Federation vessel crossed above their approach vector, and Darren’s memory answered before the present had a chance to introduce itself: Naboo, battle droids, Nute Gunray, Sidious, the blockade, Queen Amidala.
He disliked how quickly the association arrived.
Somewhere inside were pilots, loadmasters, technicians, probably at least one asshole.
He could not see any of them from here, much less know what they thought of Nute Gunray.
Tessa noticed the change in his face.
“Problem?”
“No.”
“You made the face.”
“What face?”
“The one where something you won’t explain becomes personally offensive.”
Darren kept his attention on the traffic outside.
“Cultural baggage.”
“From Terra?”
That word still landed differently.
Tessa used the name on his documents rather than the one he had once let slip, and she had never tried to force the distinction open.
“Something like that.”
Tessa followed his gaze to the Federation ship.
“You know someone aboard?”
“No.”
“Then tell me if that changes. I need the approach display.”
Darren stepped aside.
“Cargo management for the psychologically burdened.”
“Another service I should charge for.”
He smiled and went back to the window.
Their receiving assessor was a Neimoidian named Pev Dorran, and Darren disliked his own expectations before the man had finished introducing himself.
Pev wore a practical gray commercial coat, clean gloves and a compact optical reader fitted to one wrist.
His voice was quiet, controlled and entirely free of the theatrical cadence Darren’s Earth memories had assigned to the species.
A polished metal cap covered the crown of his head beneath a narrow administrative headpiece; nothing about him resembled the robes Darren had expected without admitting he expected them.
He greeted Koro first.
“Chief Dess.”
“Assessor Dorran.”
Pev checked the arrival record.
“Twelve minutes late.”
“Twelve?” Tessa said from behind Darren.
Pev let her argue with the arrival entry while he checked the next manifest.
When she finished, he glanced at the clock.
“Fourteen now.”
Tessa stared at him.
“I already dislike this planet.”
“I am devastated.”
The corner of Pev’s mouth tightened.
Darren decided that counted as a professional declaration of humor.
Twenty bonded cargo units remained from the original shipment.
Eight were scheduled for local transfer on Cato Neimoidia; twelve would move onward under a new carrier along the Quellor Run.
Their contract ended when custody transferred successfully, which meant Darren’s remaining three hundred thirty credits were now physically represented by cases of industrial hardware he had spent four days pretending not to care about.
Pev reviewed the new internal-mass documentation and stopped scrolling.
“You weighed every retained case.”
Koro nodded.
“Yes.”
Pev looked toward Darren.
“Your idea?”
“Partly.”
“Why?”
“We found three optical relays missing at Commenor. We could prove absence. We could not prove where the change occurred.”
Pev’s attention sharpened.
“External seal?”
“Authenticated.”
“Internal case seal?”
“Authenticated.”
“Mass variance?”
“About four point three kilograms against the shipboard stabilization response.”
Pev checked the qualification attached to the reading, then the photographs.
“You documented the limits. I can work with this.”
Darren glanced at the waiting loaders.
A usable record might get him paid before the evening was over.
Pev handed the manifest to an assistant and indicated a yellow boundary line painted across the receiving floor.
“You remain behind that during transfer.”
Darren looked down.
“You people have a color for everything.”
“Yes.”
“Coruscant has two blues.”
Pev gave him a long, unreadable look.
“I do not know what that means.”
“Trauma.”
Koro passed him on the way toward the inspection station.
“Behind the line.”
Darren stayed behind it.
Jara’s receiving instructions authorized the outer containers to be opened for case inspection.
Koro witnessed each opening while Darren watched the handlers.
Six units passed through mass checks, case authentication and custody release without a discrepancy.
Unit Twenty-Three changed that without changing its mass at all.
The receiving scale displayed the same mass as their baseline.
Darren saw the value and looked automatically toward Koro, expecting the number to count as reassurance.
Pev had stopped over one of the internal cases, turning his wrist reader to catch the manufacturing mark.
“What?” Darren asked.
Pev passed the reader across the side of the housing a second time.
“Manufacturing seal.”
“Invalid?” Koro asked.
“Valid.”
Darren waited.
Pev did not look satisfied.
“Newer than it should be.”
Tessa stepped up beside Darren and leaned just far enough to see the projected record without crossing the yellow line.
“Explain.”
Pev enlarged the authentication data.
“The corporate root verifies. The production-key variance does not match the age of the housing.”
Darren understood every individual word and almost none of the sentence.
He waited instead of pretending.
Pev noticed and translated without condescension.
“The housing is six years old. This manufacturing signature is eleven months old, and there is no renewal entry.”
“Replacement seal,” Darren said.
“Or a repair someone failed to record.”
“Copied?”
“Also possible.”
Darren sighed.
“My favorite word has migrated.”
Pev scanned two more points before requesting authorization to open the case.
Koro contacted Jara Noll, who approved the inspection remotely four minutes later with insurer recording enabled.
The internal seal broke under Pev’s tool.
Inside the case sat twelve precision control assemblies in black foam.
All twelve spaces contained parts.
“Mass matches.”
“Yes.”
“Quantity matches.”
“Yes.”
“Then what am I missing?”
Pev lifted one assembly, turned it over and handed it to Tessa.
Her expression changed before Darren could see why.
“Oh.”
He held out a hand.
“Educational moment.”
Tessa passed him the component.
It looked exactly like the others to Darren: machined housing, connector block, serial plate, the dense practical ugliness of industrial equipment designed by people who did not care whether security contractors found it visually interesting.
“It’s old,” Tessa said.
“How old?”
“Older design revision.”
Pev scanned the serial.
“Refurbished.”
Koro removed a second assembly, then a third.
By the time they finished checking all twelve, four had been identified as legitimate refurbished units of the same product family.
Their masses were nearly identical to the declared components.
Their certification class was lower.
Their resale value was perhaps one quarter of what the shipment claimed to contain.
Value had disappeared while weight remained obedient.
Darren looked at the four replacement units lined up on the inspection surface and felt the elegance of the theft before he felt the irritation.
“Son of a bitch.”
“The scale worked,” Tessa said.
“Perfectly.” Darren put the component down beside the other three.
“Four very expensive weights.”
Pev was already attaching the lower certification values to his report.
The discrepancy grew on the display while the mass column stayed unchanged.
Darren brought out the photographs while Pev traced the replacement serials and Tessa checked the hardware against the order.
The four refurbished assemblies carried legitimate serial numbers.
Two had passed through an industrial repair dealer on Humbarine.
One had changed commercial ownership three times.
The fourth came from a dismantled factory line on Tepasi.
None was contraband.
None belonged in this shipment.
Koro enlarged the photographs Darren had taken on Commenor before resealing the case.
All twelve original assemblies were visible.
That narrowed the opportunity window dramatically: after the Commenor photographs, before Pev opened the case on Cato Neimoidia.
Darren looked around the receiving bay and felt suspicion turn toward the ship behind them.
“The Second Chance.”
“Maybe,” Tessa said.
He looked at her.
Koro opened the ship’s access records.
Alongside the crew and the three of them were two maintenance contractors who had worked in an adjacent compartment under escort.
Darren leaned over it.
“Who was still aboard after resealing?”
“We check,” Koro said.
“And we include the handling here.”
Beyond the yellow line, the receiving team had stopped moving the disputed cargo.
Pev requested the local custody record and camera retention while Tessa opened the ship’s boarding and pressure-cycle logs.
The names Darren knew made a short, uncomfortable list.
His eyes found Tessa’s name, and he wanted it off the list.
Nothing he had read gave him a reason to remove it.
Tessa caught him looking from her name to her face.
“Don’t.”
Darren looked at her.
“What?”
“You’re making a list.”
“Yes.”
“Don’t make me special because you know me.”
He almost denied it.
The lie would have been easy and useless.
“I was.”
“Then stop.”
He nodded.
“Okay.”
Koro had heard the exchange.
He offered neither reassurance nor judgment.
“Ship logs first,” he said.
Tessa found seventy-three missing seconds in an automated maintenance cycle.
Six hours after leaving Commenor, the Second Chance had run a routine cargo-environment diagnostic.
Every smart case was supposed to answer the ship with temperature, shock status, seal health and registered cargo class.
The suspect case in Unit Twenty-Three answered normally, then vanished from the diagnostic bus for one minute and thirteen seconds before returning.
Koro marked the same interval in both cargo-camera feeds and preserved the recordings from resealing onward.
Unit Twenty-Three’s service hatch faced a neighboring rack; neither camera gave them a clear view of the opening.
Darren studied the gap.
“What happens when a case stops responding?”
Tessa leaned over the architecture diagram.
“Depends.”
“There it is.”
She ignored him.
“The bus tries a reset. If the case stays offline, it flags maintenance.”
“Can the bus open it remotely?” Pev asked.
“No. Physical latch still requires local access.”
Koro looked at a secondary permission tree.
“But service mode can be authorized through the bus.”
Tessa stopped moving.
“Fuck.”
Darren looked between them.
“Translate before I become imaginative.”
Tessa turned the diagram so Darren could see the side of the container.
“There is a service hatch behind the case rack. Separate lock. The main cargo door can stay sealed while a technician gets in here.”
Her finger moved to the case itself.
“And this cover gives access to the sensors. With these housings, you can reach the foam tray through the same opening.”
“So somebody opens both service covers and leaves the seals alone.”
“With local access and valid service authorization.”
“Would it take seventy-three seconds?”
Tessa looked at the gap again.
“I wouldn’t bet on it. That could be the authorization, a fault or a cover for something else. It is not a recording of someone opening the case.”
Pev saved the diagram with the diagnostic log, then brought up the authorization list: ship engineer, security chief, certified cargo technician, manufacturer service key—and one entry none of them had mentioned yet, a third-party bonded logistics administrator.
Koro looked at Pev.
“Which administrator handled this case?”
Tessa opened the archived transaction record.
ORDEL TRANSIT SYSTEMS
The name meant nothing to Darren, which had become a reassuring first reaction whenever a new fact appeared.
Pev recognized it immediately.
“Sector-scale bonded logistics. They touch an enormous amount of freight.”
Koro pulled the three historical theft reports Jara had given them.
The ports, handlers and ships differed, but one infrastructure provider repeated across all three: Ordel Transit Systems.
Darren reached for his communicator.
“We can ask them who used the key.”
“Preserve the records before asking anyone to explain them,” Pev said.
Darren stopped with the contact search still empty.
Ordel’s name had given him somewhere to put his anger.
It had not told him who would receive the call.
Pev copied the transaction references into the evidence request.
“Their system may have been used. That could mean their staff, a contractor, a stolen credential. We need the records.”
Koro asked the question that mattered next.
“Who owns the investigation now?”
“Insurer first,” Pev said.
“Ordel compliance if they cooperate. Port authority when the insurer has enough to refer. Possibly commercial crimes if the pattern expands.”
Darren looked at Koro.
“And us?”
Koro closed the active security file.
“Finished.”
Darren kept his hand on the console.
“There is a way into sealed cargo. We have another theft, and we are walking away.”
“Yes,” Koro said.
“And Jara is paying us to leave a record the insurer can use.”
“What if it goes nowhere?”
Pev looked up.
“Then this record still exists. Call the people you think did it, and you may lose the next one.”
For a moment Darren wanted to argue that he could be careful.
He looked at the empty contact search, then closed it.
“Keep our copies,” he said.
Koro tapped the archive confirmation.
Already done.
Jara confirmed final custody and paid exactly what the contract promised.
The ninety-credit travel advance had already been consumed getting Darren to Brentaal; three hundred thirty arrived six hours after the handover, taking his personal balance from eighty-four credits to four hundred fourteen.
She also sent a performance certification.
Darren read it twice.
TEMPORARY SECURITY CONTRACTOR — SATISFACTORY PERFORMANCE.
He looked personally offended.
“Satisfactory?”
On the call, Jara read from her terminal.
“The theft was identified, the service-access lead was preserved, and nobody was injured. No unauthorized discharge. No customs violation. Satisfactory.”
Darren looked toward Koro for support.
“Accurate,” Koro said.
“You are all terrible people.”
Jara looked up from the terminal.
“If the insurer confirms a compromised logistics path, there may be future work.”
“Investigation?”
“Security.”
Darren confirmed his contact details and sent the certification to his contractor file before anyone could reduce it to adequate.
Tessa booked an overnight berth on Cato Neimoidia.
The port-compensator assembly was cheaper there than on Brentaal; how long replacing it would take was still under argument.
Cheaper, Darren learned, meant nine hundred eighty credits before Tessa began bargaining.
He watched her argue with a Neimoidian parts broker across a table on a commercial terrace built over a canyon.
Cloud filled the depth below them; at night the bridge cities glowed in white, gold and green, their traffic moving through the mist like small constellations that had decided gravity was optional.
Darren had been sitting there for nine minutes before he realized he had not identified the nearest exit.
The discovery made him strangely pleased until habit immediately corrected the oversight.
Tessa returned with a datapad.
“Eight ninety.”
“You insulted his ancestors.”
“He insulted my ship.”
“Then he escalated first.”
She sat, and a service droid placed two drinks on the table.
Tessa touched her credit chip to its reader before Darren could reach for his.
Darren looked at his.
“You ordered for me?”
“You drink anything.”
“Dangerous reputation.” This chapter was taken from g.com without permission.
“You drank Voran’s workshop liquor.”
“That was disinfectant with ambition.”
Tessa raised her glass.
“To employment.”
Darren touched his against it.
“To getting paid before the ship breaks.”
“Fuck you.”
“Cultural exchange.”
For several minutes they managed not to discuss Ordel, missing relays or the next contract.
Darren let the drinks last while traffic crossed below the terrace.
There was nowhere he had to be until his next watch, and he no longer had a next watch.
He looked across the canyon and then back at Tessa.
“What do you actually want?”
Her expression changed.
“That sounds dangerous.”
“Professionally.”
“Worse.”
“The ship. You keep putting money into it.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Tessa rested both hands around the glass and looked toward the bridge lights.
When she answered, the words came without the defensiveness Darren had expected.
“My father owned a third of a freighter.”
“He called himself captain?”
“He did.”
“Was he?”
“No.”
Darren smiled despite himself.
“Healthy start.”
“The ship was always somebody else’s. Bank, partner, client, whoever he owed that month. He spent twenty years telling everyone one good season would make him free.”
“And?”
“He died owing more than the ship was worth.”
Tessa took a drink and looked back toward the bridge lights.
Darren left the silence alone.
“So the Second Chance.”
“Half of it, when I bought in.”
Darren raised an eyebrow.
“I own sixty-eight percent now.”
“Specific.”
“I like numbers when they are mine.”
“Halden would love you.”
“Do not ruin this.”
He laughed.
“Goal is one hundred?”
“One hundred percent of the ship. Then a berth.”
“A berth?”
“Repair berth. Small. Enough independent traffic to keep work coming, not enough corporate maintenance to crush the rates.”
“You want a garage.”
Tessa looked offended.
“I want a repair berth.”
“Space garage.”
“You want to walk back to Brentaal?”
Darren laughed again.
Sixty-eight percent, then one hundred, then a repair berth: the plan already had a shape that did not require him.
“You’d be good at it,” he said.
Tessa studied him.
“No joke?”
“No.”
“That sounded sincere.”
“Alcohol.”
“I ordered weak.”
“Sabotage.”
She smiled.
Darren noticed, not for the first time, that she was attractive.
Tessa caught him looking.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Liar.”
“Yes.”
He raised the glass without looking away.
For once, he had no joke ready to make it easier.
Tessa did the same.
Pell collected sixty credits at 23:18, reducing Darren’s balance from four hundred fourteen to three hundred fifty-four.
Her reply arrived almost immediately.
RIVO NALL.
Then:
RODIAN.
MOS ESPA.
COMMERCIAL SKIP-TRACING, DEBT RECORDS, OWNERSHIP CHANGES, EMPLOYMENT VERIFICATION.
A second message followed.
DOES NOT WORK FOR FREE.
Darren typed:
SHOCKING.
Pell answered:
YOU’LL LIKE HIM LESS THAN ME.
IMPOSSIBLE.
PAY HIM FIRST.
The encrypted introduction token arrived with a contact address and no promise beyond an answer.
Darren saved both before opening a draft.
He stopped before typing.
His memory still presented Shmi most vividly in the Tusken camp, Anakin holding her while grief collapsed into rage.
Darren forced himself to think past that scene to the ordinary hours she was living now on Tatooine.
Giving her name to another person would enter those hours.
He drafted carefully.
Need current public status of Shmi Skywalker, human female, Mos Espa.
Previously associated with Watto, junk dealer.
No contact with subject.
No approach to associates.
Confirm current legal/employment/ownership status and any publicly verifiable change of residence.
He read the request twice, removing nothing.
An encrypted acknowledgment appeared three minutes after he sent Pell’s token.
PELL VARO SAYS YOU PAY.
Darren smiled.
SHE EXAGGERATES MY FINANCIAL STABILITY.
The answer came quickly.
EVERYONE DOES.
25 INITIAL.
“Of course,” Darren muttered.
He paid, taking the balance to three hundred twenty-nine credits, and sent the query.
There was no tremor in the Force, no warning vision and no impossible woman at the edge of the terrace.
Rivo sent only two lines:
RECEIVED.
UP TO 48 HOURS IF SIMPLE.
MORE IF NOT.
Nothing else followed.
Sixty credits to Pell.
Twenty-five to a Rodian Darren had never met.
A woman’s name placed into a search with explicit instructions not to contact her.
He had paid for discretion; he would have to wait for evidence of what it bought.
Tessa left him at the terrace to settle the parts purchase and reached the Second Chance before he did.
The new compensator assembly waited beside the landing strut.
“Eight ninety?” Darren asked.
“Eight forty.”
He looked at her.
“You went back.”
“Yes.”
“You terrify me.”
“Good.”
The cargo bay felt enormous without the twenty containers.
By the end of the contract Darren could have recited most of the case numbers in his sleep.
Now eight units belonged to local receivers and twelve would continue toward Quellor.
The insurer had the Ordel lead; Darren had a paid invoice and a reference.
Tessa started up the ladder toward engineering.
“You leaving tomorrow?”
Darren looked up.
“Where are you going?”
She stopped.
“No.”
“What?”
“You do that.”
“Do what?”
“Ask where I’m going instead of answering where you’re going.”
Darren considered the accusation and discovered no defense worth using.
“I don’t know.”
Tessa nodded, answer received rather than judged.
“Earliest departure is thirteen hundred tomorrow, if the assembly passes its checks. Short freight run toward Brentaal.”
“Need security?”
“No.”
“Cruel.”
“We need someone who can fix a stabilizer.”
“Even crueler.”
She climbed another rung before Darren called after her.
“Tessa.”
She looked down from the ladder.
Darren could have thanked her for Coruscant, the job, the berth and not asking about Earth.
The complete version would have become larger than he wanted the moment to be.
“Employment,” he said.
Her expression softened just enough to make the joke unnecessary.
“Don’t get sentimental.”
Darren smiled at the familiar defense.
“Apparently I have a type.”
Tessa stared down at him.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Good.”
She disappeared into engineering.
Darren went to his bunk with Rivo’s forty-eight-hour estimate on the communicator beside him, the Earth pistol disassembled in his bag and nineteen cartridges still counted.
The satisfactory certification Jara had issued, with Koro as his security reference, was in his contractor file.
His balance stood at three hundred twenty-nine credits.
He reopened the query once before putting the communicator down.
No contact with subject.
For the moment, that was as close as he had chosen to get.