Rivo Nall sent the first report thirty-six hours after Darren hired him, while Darren hung upside down in a rotating emergency-training cylinder.
A harness held him against one wall while the cylinder simulated a loss of reliable gravity and Nemm Ser, a red-skinned Devaronian instructor with one broken horn and four decades of accumulated disappointment, explained why grabbing exposed structure during decompression was an efficient way to lose fingers.
Darren’s communicator vibrated against his chest.
He looked toward it, which in the current orientation meant looking somewhere between down and philosophical abstraction.
Nemm noticed.
“No devices.”
“Could be work.”
“You are currently learning how not to die at work.”
Darren considered the argument.
“Strong.”
“Disable it.”
He obeyed.
The cylinder rotated another ninety degrees.
His stomach declined to participate.
Commercial Vessel Emergency Safety — Basic had been Koro Dess’s recommendation after the cargo contract ended.
Recommendation was the polite word.
Koro had looked at Darren’s new security reference, then at Darren, and said, “You know security. Get certified for the part where the ship tries to kill you.”
Darren had objected to the phrasing and enrolled anyway.
The course covered pressure loss, emergency breathing systems, fire suppression, cargo shifts, pressure doors, hull evacuation and enough zero-gravity movement to demonstrate how many of Darren’s instincts depended on gravity remaining a law rather than a service.
“Release,” Nemm said.
Darren let go of the simulated handhold.
The harness carried him toward the opposite side of the cylinder.
“Feet.”
He rotated too far.
One boot struck the wall at an angle that would have been merely embarrassing under normal gravity.
Nemm pointed at him.
“Dead.”
“That seems dramatic.”
“Broken ankle during pressure loss. You fail to secure yourself. Then dead.”
“Retrospectively less dramatic.”
“Again.”
They reset.
Darren had spent years learning movement in environments where mass and gravity behaved predictably enough to disappear from thought.
Here, gravity could fail, be compensated, be redirected or become someone else’s engineering problem.
His body kept importing old assumptions faster than his mind could correct them.
Nemm did not care that the assumptions had once been useful.
“Release.”
Darren moved again.
One foot caught the designated brace, then the second.
The tether remained clear of the simulated pressure-door track.
Nemm nodded once.
“Acceptable.”
“High praise.”
“No.”
Darren smiled despite the harness.
Apparently professional affection had standardized across sectors.
Rivo’s message waited until lunch.
Darren sat on a narrow public terrace halfway along one of Cato Neimoidia’s bridge cities, with cloud moving thousands of meters below and traffic flowing through the open air beyond the railing.
He still disliked the absence of ground.
Buildings belonged on geology; anyone who disagreed was making a long-term wager against gravity.
He opened the report.
There was no hologram, portrait montage or dramatic dossier, only text.
Darren had apparently paid for findings, not presentation.
SUBJECT: SHMI SKYWALKER
Darren stopped eating.
For one moment the terrace vanished beneath memory: a hut in the desert, Anakin kneeling beside his mother, grief collapsing into violence.
Darren had carried that scene for years because stories preserved death more efficiently than they preserved breakfast, work, irritation or all the days before a tragedy became important enough to film.
He forced his attention back to the report.
The subject was a human female of the expected age, still in Mos Espa, with her current legal status recorded as enslaved.
Darren’s jaw tightened; the information was not surprising, but anger did not require surprise.
Watto remained the registered owner and employer, operating his parts-and-junk business; Rivo had located neither an ownership transfer nor a registered change of residence, and Shmi remained associated with Watto’s household and business.
Rivo reported her alive.
Rivo had added commercial context: Watto’s position appeared weaker than several years earlier, with increased gambling losses and reduced liquid inventory, although the business remained operational and no formal insolvency record existed.
The caveats occupied nearly as much space as the findings.
Mos Espa bookkeeping was incomplete.
Ownership records were not centralized.
Hutt Space legal categories varied by district, syndicate and the practical ability of armed people to enforce definitions.
Then the line that changed the shape of the problem:
SUBJECT IS NOT PUBLICLY LISTED FOR SALE.
Buy her now, Darren thought—not years from now after history had already narrowed.
Find the credits, borrow them if necessary, put enough value in front of Watto that greed did the rest, and Shmi could walk free before the Tusken camp ever existed as a possibility.
He opened his accounts.
There was no loan facility attached to his new identity, no property to offer as security.
Tessa’s ship share was hers, and most of the people who knew his name had been paid to learn it.
He could still ask a price.
He could at least find out what he was trying to raise.
Darren opened a private note and typed:
Objective: Shmi’s freedom.
Then he called Rivo.
The Rodian answered audio-only with a quick, nasal voice that sounded irritated before Darren had earned the irritation.
Pell had described him accurately.
“Vale.”
“Nall.”
“You received report.”
“Yes.”
“Then why call?”
“Human interaction.”
“Costs extra.”
“I like you already.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Pell said the same thing.”
“Pell lies.”
“Constantly.”
Rivo waited half a second.
“Question?”
Darren looked again at the line stating Shmi was not for sale.
“What would it take to buy her?”
Rivo did not answer immediately.
Darren listened to a faint tapping at the other end.
“Not my current job.”
“What would an estimate cost?”
“That is different.”
“Of course it is.”
“Watto has no public sale notice. Direct inquiry tells him somebody wants the asset.”
Darren disliked the word immediately.
Rivo continued as if discomfort had no effect on market behavior.
“That can raise price. Can also make him suspicious.”
“How much?”
“Depends how stupid you sound.”
“I can sound extremely sophisticated.”
“Pell warned me.”
Darren smiled despite himself.
“Approach options?”
“Broker. Debt relief. Find something Watto values more than credits.”
“Which would work?”
“For this owner? That costs research. I have a status check.”
“How much to map debts, suppliers, gambling exposure and major assets?”
“Seventy-five.”
Darren opened the account again.
Pell and the initial search were paid; the course had taken another share.
Seventy-five more would come out of the money keeping him fed and mobile until the next job.
“Not yet.”
“Good.”
“You are supposed to convince me to spend money.”
“I want clients who can pay next month too.”
“I am beginning to suspect Pell has a professional species.”
“She charges more.”
“Obviously.”
Darren looked across the canyon while a freight tug moved between two bridge cities.
“What if I only want notification when her status changes?”
“That is cheaper.”
“How cheap?”
“Five monthly. Twenty-five for six months prepaid.”
“You want the money before I find steady work.”
“Yes.”
“Pell really should have introduced us sooner.”
He set the terms carefully: ownership change, residence change, Watto bankruptcy or major asset liquidation, formal sale listing.
No contact with Shmi.
No direct inquiry to Watto about her.
No attempt to manipulate the sale.
Rivo paused after the last restriction.
“You do not want negotiation?”
“Not yet.”
“Why?”
For a moment Darren saw the Lars homestead.
Cliegg had bought Shmi, freed her, married her.
He remembered that much.
None of it told him what an offer would cost now.
“Because I can’t fund an offer, and I don’t want you raising the price before I can.”
“Then monitoring only.”
“For now,” Darren said.
“Twenty-five?”
“Yes.”
He paid.
“Six months.”
“Six.” Get faster updates on g.com.
“Immediate notification on material change.”
“Yes.”
Darren started to add another condition.
“And if anyone else begins asking about her—”
He stopped.
Rivo waited.
He had been about to buy surveillance of a threat he could not identify.
The report contained no evidence of another search.
Expanding the job to every stranger who asked a question would cost money Darren needed for the person he had actually hired Rivo to find.
“No,” Darren said.
“Ignore that.”
“Changes to scope need a new quote.”
“Fuck you.”
“Pell said you’d say that.”
The call ended.
Darren stayed on the terrace until the lunch crowd began to thin.
The food beside his elbow had gone cold.
He returned to the note.
Objective: Shmi’s freedom.
His memories offered a reassuring sequence: Cliegg, emancipation, marriage, a household with Owen and Beru.
Years later, Luke.
Darren could preserve the whole chain simply by doing nothing—if it happened at all, if Shmi survived long enough, if the ending he remembered was one he could live with.
He pushed the food away.
The household belonged to people he had never met.
What did Shmi want?
He could try to secure her freedom without choosing where she lived afterward or whom she married.
Nothing in that required leaving her with Watto until another man arrived.
He typed two lines:
Do not preserve the conditions of her suffering because they lead to a future I recognize.
Do not choose the rest of her life for her because I know one possible ending.
Below them he entered Rivo’s seventy-five-credit quote.
That was a price he could reach, even if he could not yet make an offer to Watto.
He would reconsider it with his next contract, after setting aside enough to keep working.
The course reminder flashed.
Darren took his unfinished lunch with him.
Nemm Ser failed him on the fire-response examination that afternoon.
The simulated casualty lay three meters beyond the pressure door.
Darren had checked the atmosphere, fitted a mask and tested its seal before entry.
Two steps into the compartment, his air supply stopped.
The mask opened to room air as the exercise froze.
“Dead,” Nemm said.
Darren pulled the mask off.
“I had pressure.”
“Before the suppression cycle isolated this section.”
Nemm replayed the display.
The green seal indicator remained lit as the supply warning turned red.
Darren had connected to a wall line; the compartment isolation had cut it off with everything else.
He looked from the empty mask to the casualty.
Close enough to reach.
Farther away than he could carry safely without air.
“On the systems I trained with, the emergency feed stayed independent.”
“Did you check this one?”
“No.”
He had checked the fit, the flow, the casualty’s position.
He had recognized a breathing set and trusted a system he had never used.
“Reset,” Darren said.
Nemm held out the mask.
“Which supply?”
Darren left the wall-fed set on its hook and took the portable unit.
He checked the bottle, the connection and the flow before sealing the mask.
Nemm watched without helping.
The door opened again.
This time the isolation warning changed while Darren still had air.
He reached the casualty, secured the drag harness and pulled it clear before the exercise ended.
He passed on the second attempt.
The certification itself was insultingly small compared with the effort required to earn it:
COMMERCIAL VESSEL EMERGENCY SAFETY — BASIC
It did not make him a pilot, engineer or shipboard-security specialist; it certified him as basic, and Darren felt absurdly pleased anyway.
Nemm signed the record and slid it across.
“You brought the casualty out. Keep practicing until you can do it in the dark.”
“That may be the nicest thing anyone has said to me this week.”
“It was an instruction. And keep your hands off exposed structure during decompression.”
Darren flexed his fingers.
“Memorable.”
The Devaronian hesitated before adding, “You learn quickly.”
Actual praise lasted less than a second.
“Do not become confident.”
“Too late.”
“I withdraw statement.”
“Recorded.”
Darren left before Nemm could revoke the certificate too.
Tessa was under the Second Chance when Darren returned to the port, which had become common enough to look like a preferred habitat.
The new compensator assembly was installed, but the previous day’s departure slot had come and gone with its load test still failing.
A Neimoidian mechanic stood beside the landing strut holding a diagnostic reader while Tessa explained why the reader was wrong and the mechanic explained why Tessa was wrong.
Darren watched the argument for three minutes before either noticed him.
There was something almost affectionate in the technical hostility.
Tessa slid out from beneath the hull.
“You’re back.”
“Certified.”
“In what?”
“Not dying incorrectly.”
“Useful.”
He showed her the record.
Tessa read it twice.
“You paid for this?”
“Yes.”
“Voluntarily?”
“Koro threatened me with professionalism.”
She handed the communicator back.
“This is actually useful.”
Darren put one hand over his chest.
“Careful.”
“Which board are you registering with?”
“Koro gave me two.”
“Use both. Don’t spend a week waiting for one board to notice you.”
“Assuming anyone wants me.”
“You have a reference. Now you have the certificate.”
“Enthusiasm. From you.”
“Don’t get used to it.”
She started to disappear beneath the ship again.
“What do better contracts pay?” Darren asked.
“Depends.”
He groaned.
From beneath the hull, Tessa said, “Stop asking questions with adult answers.”
That evening, Tessa took Darren into the lower commercial tiers without explaining where they were going.
The polished terraces and monumental facades disappeared as they descended.
Service corridors narrowed.
Workshops opened directly onto freight passages.
Food stalls competed with the smell of coolant and hot metal.
Mechanics leaving shift shared walkways with cargo crews and parts runners.
The city stopped displaying wealth and revealed the labor required to keep it suspended over a canyon.
Tessa entered a workshop large enough for a small shuttle.
A middle-aged human woman with silver hair shaved close on both sides looked up from an engine mount.
“Marr.”
“Yedda.”
The woman’s attention moved to Darren.
“No.”
Darren blinked.
“I haven’t said anything.”
“Tessa brings problems.”
“That is defamatory,” Tessa said.
Yedda pointed at Darren.
“Problem.”
“I appreciate clarity.”
Her name was Yedda Quill.
She repaired independent freighters and, Darren learned within minutes, almost anything else whose owner could afford her and whose manufacturer had not made maintenance deliberately hostile.
Tessa moved through the berth differently than she moved through the Second Chance.
Darren recognized inspection habits—eyes on tools, gantries, storage and power access—but beneath them sat something more personal.
She stopped at the workbench and ran a hand along its edge, then looked up at the small office overlooking the bay.
Darren remembered her on the terrace, insisting it was a repair berth, not a garage.
Here he could see what she meant.
Yedda handed her a drink.
“Still saving?”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“Not your business.”
“Then not enough.”
“Rent went up.”
“Of course it did.”
Their argument carried the ease of repetition.
Darren stayed out of it, wandering instead toward the edge of the berth where a young Nikto mechanic worked beneath a suspended engine while music played from a battered speaker.
Someone laughed in the back room.
Food smelled faintly of spice and oil.
A row of mismatched clamps held a cracked housing together on the next bench.
The Nikto mechanic called for a narrower wrench.
Tessa handed it to him before Yedda could turn.
Neither woman interrupted their argument.
Yedda noticed him looking back at Tessa.
“She tell you?”
“Repair berth.”
Tessa turned.
“Traitor.”
“You tell everybody eventually.”
“I told him.”
Yedda considered that.
“Worse.”
Darren looked at Tessa, who looked away first.
He chose not to exploit the opening.
Yedda did it for him.
“She needs another forty-seven thousand.”
Tessa nearly inhaled her drink.
“YEDDA.”
Darren’s eyebrows rose.
“Say one word,” Tessa warned.
He closed his mouth.
Forty-seven thousand credits made his own financial progress feel adorable.
Yedda continued.
“Maybe less if she stops buying parts for that corpse she calls a ship.”
“The ship earns it,” Tessa said.
“Your berth leaked coolant for six months,” she added.
“Different.”
“Why?”
“Mine.”
Darren laughed.
Tessa glared.
“Enjoying yourself?”
“Immensely.”
The walk back to the port crossed a lower bridge where mist reflected the city lights upward from the canyon.
Tessa remained irritated in the mild, durable way reserved for people who had embarrassed you with facts rather than malice.
Darren let the silence survive longer than usual.
Eventually he said, “Forty-seven thousand.”
“Don’t.”
“I had not reached the joke yet.”
“You were going to make one.”
“Possibly. I was also going to say you’ll get it.”
Tessa looked at him.
The certainty surprised Darren even as he said it.
Forty-seven thousand sounded impossible only when he measured it against his current balance.
Tessa had been measuring it against years of work, ownership percentages, tools, customers and a plan that existed before Darren entered her life.
Impossible had looked different on Nar Shaddaa, when he had twenty credits, no identification, no local weapon and nowhere stable to sleep.
Tessa already had a ship share, skills people paid for and names she could call.
“You’ll get it,” he repeated.
Tessa walked several steps before answering.
“That’s weird.”
“What?”
“You being supportive.”
“Temporary condition.”
“Good.”
Another few steps passed.
Then she said, “Thanks.”
Darren pretended not to hear.
She allowed him the fiction.
Rivo messaged at 02:04.
Darren woke immediately, an old habit that remained useful enough to survive every attempt at a normal sleep schedule.
SUPPLEMENTAL.
Then:
NO IMMEDIATE RISK INDICATORS ON SUBJECT.
A second line followed.
OWNER HAS INCREASED BETTING ACTIVITY IN LAST YEAR.
BUSINESS DEBT RISING, NOT YET CRITICAL.
Darren sat against the bunk wall and read the sentence twice.
Watto’s worsening finances fit the future Darren remembered well enough to make his pulse lift.
Fit was not proof.
This could be the beginning of the sale he remembered.
It could also be one bad year in a Toydarian junk dealer’s life.
Rivo added:
I CAN WATCH FINANCIAL PRESSURE UNDER EXISTING MONITOR.
NO EXTRA UNLESS DEEP RECORDS.
Darren typed:
DO THAT.
Then:
NO INTERVENTION FOR NOW.
He let the words sit on the screen before sending them.
He opened Shmi’s state file.
Current report: alive; enslaved; Mos Espa; associated with Watto.
Immediate danger: none identified by Rivo.
Watto financial pressure: increasing; monitor.
Urgent review: sale, forced relocation, threat to life.
Reassess means and act on the evidence available.
He read the last line again.
Those were triggers for urgency, not conditions Shmi had to meet before he would try to help her.
The debt research remained beside his next-contract reminder.
The six-month payment bought Rivo’s attention.
It did not buy Darren six months to forget her.
He set the communicator where an incoming alert would wake him and lay down.
The Second Chance prepared to leave Cato Neimoidia the next morning without him.
The assembly had finally cleared its load test; Tessa had the acceptance record open beside her departure clearance.
Tessa had a short freight run toward Brentaal and no security opening.
Darren now had a basic emergency certification, a satisfactory reference and enough money to stop treating every unpaid day as immediate disaster.
Barely.
He had also registered with two commercial-security boards for regional work.
They stood beneath the ship while Tessa checked the ramp seal and Darren held the same bag that had once contained almost everything he owned.
For a moment departure pulled Nar Shaddaa and Sira into memory.
The resemblance ended there because Darren was not escaping this time.
“Where are you going?” Tessa asked.
He answered the question instead of returning one.
“Don’t know yet. Three applications.”
“Better.”
“One local, one back toward Corellia, one escort contract toward the Mid Rim.”
“Which?”
“Whichever pays without requiring obvious crime.”
“Standards.”
“Dangerous habit.”
Tessa looked at his bag.
“Still carrying that strange pistol?”
Darren’s attention sharpened before he could stop it.
“Which?”
“The one you never use.”
He relaxed by a fraction.
“Sentimental.”
“You?”
“Occasionally.”
“Didn’t think you had it in you.”
“Neither did I.”
Tessa climbed the first step of the ramp, then stopped.
“Vale.”
“Yeah?”
“If somebody asks about you again, I’ll call.”
“Don’t confront them.”
She gave him a look sharp enough to make the instruction immediately embarrassing.
“I know.”
Darren almost said he had to ask.
“All right.”
“I’ll call.”
She disappeared inside.
The ramp began to close.
Darren stepped back as the engines rose and watched the Second Chance lift into Cato Neimoidia’s layered traffic.
He kept watching a few seconds after the ship became difficult to distinguish from the others.
His communicator vibrated with a contract match from one of the security boards.
PASSENGER PROTECTION — TWO-PERSON SCIENTIFIC DELEGATION
The route ran from Cato Neimoidia toward Corellia on the Coruscant–Corellia trade spur.
The contract window was six days, with commercial transit expected to take roughly three and the remainder reserved for delay, rerouting or handover contingency.
Pay was respectable.
Requirements: commercial emergency certification, weapons permit and prior security reference.
The certificate from Nemm, the weapons permit, Koro’s reference: three lines on a job posting, each tied to work or a mistake that had seemed smaller while he was living through it.
He accepted the preliminary interview.
Behind him, a repair crew began shouting about a hydraulic line.
Darren moved out of their way and opened the interview address.
His other file still held the seventy-five-credit quote and a woman’s name.
He saved the address, slung the bag over his shoulder and went.