Last Chance: Myn and Lara - pt. 2


His tentative smile, his determined mouth curving upward for those few tiny moments... that glint of intelligence in his blue eyes, and he opened his mouth to say her name...but which name would he use? She found herself terribly anxious that he would know her, know who she was, and use the right name. The anxiety built up within her, a tide of worry that crested ... and suddenly she was awake, and the green numbers of the wall chrono showed it to be just after dawn local time.

She breathed into the stillness of her stateroom, clutching after the dream, but it was already fragmenting into foglike remnants, glimpses and flashes of emotion, but nothing more. She rose and ordered the lights up, finishing her usual morning ablutions with a long silent perusal of her face in the small stateroom’s mirror.

A delicate face, strong cheekbones and thin but shapely lips met her gaze. The coppery sheen of her wet hair brought out the green of her hazel eyes, and she smoothed back the quizzical line of her left brow with a wry grimace. “Morning, Kirney,” she greeted her reflection.

There was a whir and a whistle from the door annunciator, and she grinned despite herself. “Come on in, Tonin, it’s not like a lock could keep you out!” She let the towel rest on her shoulders, soaking up the drips from her short red hair, as the dry air of the ship would likely dry it faster than the limp terrycloth. “What’s up?”

The little round-topped droid beeped a series of comments at her as he plugged himself into the dataport of her cramped rooms, which the small crew of the Corellian Light Freighter jokingly referred to as the ‘Captain’s Suite’. The screen lit up with a rapid display of the several shipments awaiting delivery to various systems and dpots within their range, and Kirney Slane, captain of this very motley crew, sat to place bids on the shipments to which their diverse talents and capabilities seemed best suited.

Selonia-Arklin: six hundred kilos tubers; one hundred kilos passimar grains; fifty eight kilos modified seed distributor hardware; two passengers. Ship today, Receive Thirdday.

“Agricultural exchange from the homeworld to the sister-world...” Kirney noted absently as she scrolled through the list. Corellia was a populous system, and even with the growing stricture of the newly-empowered Diktat, there was still enough work for the hundreds of small and mid-level freighters to make a good living. Agri-exchanges tended to pay scale, but at least they weren’t usually subject to piracy or tariff difficulties.

Selonia-Ithor: three passengers; nineteen kilos musical instruments; twenty-five empty crates Kirney wrote that one off right away, their requested arrival time was at the edge of her little ship’s velocital range, and she hated running half-full: those empty crates took up a lot of room. Ship today, receive Secondday.

Centrepoint-Jimmias: one thousand kilos raw fibre. Ship today, receive Secondday. This caught her eye, and it took her a minute to figure out why. The dimensions of those empty crates would be just about right to pack and ship a thousand kilos of clothfibre from Centrepoint... maybe she should rethink those Selonian musicians.

“Tonin, can you give me a map showing the route to Ithor via Jimmias, or another nearby system?”

The R2 unit whistled an affirmative at her, drawing up several alternatives. If she got the shipments, she could use the crates to carry the fibre to Jimmias, reload the crates and deliver them to Garqi, with only a sixhour delay for offloading and reloading. Furthermore, another system of interest was only a double jump away, and Kirney smiled to herself. A plan in mind, she quickly placed her bids and stipulations, and was pleasantly surprised by their immediate acceptance.

“I guess those musicians really need to get to Ithor!” she chuckled as she zipped up her shipsuit and headed for the cockpit, pausing to knock on the door of what had been a utility closet until Kirney had refitted it. “You awake, Kolot? We have some flying to do if we’re going to make our deadlines.”

There was a gravelly grumble, belying the size of the originator. The door slid up to reveal the short, thickset form of Kolot, a bio-engineered Ewok she had rescued from the labs of the WarLord Zsinj, a strange case of truth copying a recurrent practical joke from her old squadron. “Kolot ready to fly,” he stated, and then gave a quick bark as Tonin bumped into him, obviously having expected him to follow Kirney. The Ewok balled up a fist and banged the droid on the dome, growling over the astromech’s immediate apology.

The two were of a size, and Kirney grinned behind her hand as she caught the curve of Kolot’s black lips at the droid’s sincerity. The two were a mismatched pair if ever she had seen one, but they seemed genuinely fond of each other. She was looking forward to springing their jaunt on her co-pilot when they had finished off-loading at the jungle world of Ithor.

As they headed for Selonia to take delivery of the first part of their shipment, Kirney had only one concern. This was their second flight out of Corellia proper, all the others had been short hops, and she was not off Corellia for more than a day at the outside. This run would have them out of the system for four full days. Not that there’s much hope he’ll contact me now, she realised. It had been quite a while since she had sent Myn Donos that message and she knew it was a very distant chance he might want to respond.

She called for her ship’s clearance, and the freighter headed across to Selonia, leaving Corellia’s blue curve behind them. The afterimage of the planet’s cerulean atmosphere haunted her sight, like the half-recalled forms of a too-real dream.

~*~


part 3

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