Last Chance: Myn and Lara - pt. 9


The ship’s alarm woke Kirney, alerting her that reversion to real-space was imminent. The trip had been uneventful, although there’d been an altercation when the Bith musicians coming from Selonia had protested her side-trip to Jimmias and her use of their crates to ship the raw clothfibre, but she’d quickly made her point about being able to afford taking them as passengers by supplementing the trip with the second cargo.

Other than that, there’d only been one other small incident, when one of the Bith had patted Kolot on the head as he went by. The little co-pilot, his dignity quite offended, had bitten the musician on the hand for his temerity, and his unfortunate victim had needed his hand bathed in antibiotic ointment. The Bith had made some noise about compensation, but after Kirney reminded them she had warned them before they came aboard not to touch her diminutive co-pilot, he withdrew his complaint.

She was quite pleased to find the Star-Wise Drunks turned out to be a decent group of musicians, and their band name made her smile, thinking of the team she’d flown with in the NR, particularly Face and Ton. In memory of her time with the Wraiths, she made herself the band’s firm friend by purchasing a copy of each of their recordings.

When she slid into the narrow confines of the cockpit, the control panel lights were dimmed in deference to Kolot’s superb night vision. Her furry co-pilot grunted a greeting, and made to shift control of the ship over to her, the artificial hand on the end of his prosthetic pilot’s aid hovering over the access knob, when she shook her head.

“No reason you can’t bring us in, Ko’,” she said easily. She grinned at the questioning look in Kolot’s eyes, but he shrugged and moved his hand over to the comm unit instead. Kirney swept her hair up into her habitual ponytail and slid the headset into place, even as the starlines outside the cockpit shortened and diminished back into individual pinpoints of light.

As Kolot brought the ship around into an approach vector, Kirney signalled to Ithor their arrival, and transmitted her shipping codes to the jungle world’s central computer.

“Stolen Future hold your current geo-synch, Mawrl HerdCity will intersect, “ she was informed. They would be in orbit for six hours awaiting the nearest window to dock with the Star-Wise Drunks’ destination herd-city, which gave Kirney a chance to scan for a possible shipment to take back towards Corellia.

Their passengers debarked without a problem, and Stolen Future took delivery of a small shipment of rare seeds to be delivered to the Corellian Plant Enthusiasts, an exclusive club on the outskirts of Coronet City. They were on their way in a matter of a few short hours. With no deadline on when they were to deliver their cargo, Kirney recalled her intention to make a quick side-jaunt for the sake of her co-pilot as she and Tonin plotted their jump course home, and called Kolot over the comm to come and consult with them.

The cramped lounge seemed positively spacious without the band that had been occupying every spare niche for the duration of the trip from Selonia to Ithor. Kolot came toddling in, his paws wrapped around two mugs of caf, his own and Kirney’s. Tonin beeped a jesting complaint that the Ewok had not brought him a refreshment, and then was treated to a long and vociferous sampling of all the cursewords Kolot had learned in captivity. The feisty R2 gave a single, rude blat in response.

Kirney laughed, and Kolot echoed her mirth with a heartfelt grin as he scrambled up onto the bench beside her. He stood on the bench and leaned over the charts that showed a few of their travel options. The grin faded away to nothing when he read the name of one of the systems through which they could pass, if she chose to make that small detour. When she asked if he’d like to visit the forest moon where more of his kind dwelled, Kolot turned glittering black eyes on her and mutely shook his head.

“But Kolot, you’ve never seen Endor-” She stopped mid-sentence, frozen by the ferocity in the small being’s face.

“Kolot say no, Kolot mean no.” He sat down heavily and stared at his mug of caf, his little face the perfect picture of determination. Stunned silent for a while, Kirney and Tonin quietly made the course adjustment to take them more directly back to Corellia, and then Tonin went to insert their course into the ship’s navcomp, leaving Kirney alone with her copilot.

“Ko’?” she asked tentatively, “Is there a reason you don’t want to go to Endor?”

The small furred face turned to her, and she read a galaxy’s sadness in the wide black eyes, before a scowl locked down over the Ewok’s face. “Kolot hate Endor,” he growled.

Her heart went out to the little furred being beside her, hiding his sorrow in anger. She had just wanted to do something nice for him, and could not understand why her gift had been rejected so summarily. “If you’ve never been there, how could you hate it?” she asked quietly.

Kolot shrank in on himself, his eyes on his stubby paws, clasped together like they were all he had to cling to. “Kolot not know. Just, hate Endor.”

“But it was your home, before...”

“NOT home!” Kolot barked back, glaring up at her with a furious light in his eyes. “Stolen Future home! Slane Shipping, Corellia home!” He slipped off the bench and faced her, his small paws clenched into fistes, “Not Endor.” He stalked from the lounge, and Kirney was left feeling terribly sad.

She had rescued Kolot from the bowels of Warlord Zsinj’s Super-class Star Destroyer, Iron Fist, where he’d been caged in a room with twenty or so other intellectually-enhanced aliens: victims of Imperial General Evir Derricote’s experimentation on semi-sapient species. She could not begin to comprehend the horrors her co-pilot had endured, or what such treatments had cost the little Ewok emotionally. Kirney had flown with another survivor of Derricote’s evil, but in the short time she was with the Wraiths, she hadn’t witnessed any sign of Kolot’s ferocity in Piggy saBinring.

Kirney had never intended to upset him so with her suggested diversion, and she found herself shaking her head ruefully, wondering how to make amends for her blunder.

She looked around the small lounge and leaned back on the cushions of the bench. Stolen Future was his home, Kolot had said. She wondered if he knew how true that was, for her as well as him, or if he realised that meant she and Tonin were his family.

Aptly named, the little freighter sped through the endless night of the spaces between stars, heading for the other place that her crew of odd mismatched called home.

~*~


part 10

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