The Family Business (Jakku)

It was hot. Not a pleasant 'sit by the pool while you drink beer' hot, but a moisture sucking heat that made your sweat disappear even as your body tried to produce it. Mac wiped his brow with a damp rag and reached for his canteen. The embedded cooling system for the bottle had died a week ago, but even warm water was like ambrosia on this gods forsaken desert planet. He swallowed the metallic tasting liquid, and peered up at the exposed systems behind the landing struts he was accessing beneath his light freighter, Wing of the Raven.

"Good thing there are so many spare parts on this planet," he said, to no one in particular. In fact, his hold was full of pallets of scavenge that he was supposed to be taking off Jakku and taking to the rest of the galaxy, and if he didn't get a move on he'd be losing money. The Chevette77 was old, but still a solid ship, it was just that every once in a while he'd come across a system that hadn't been updated in a few years. Like... twenty years. "Inertial dampers aren't that essential, are they?"





ooc: looking for a partner in cargo hauling, or a passenger or both, PM me if interested

"I'm going to assume you meant that as a joke since the answer is yes," said the voice of Mac's on again and off again partner from behind him. Nicola's and Mac's families knew each other for a long time since they ran in the same circles - the smuggling world was very small in the vast galaxy. Then the Nystroms went to work with WayneTech and the Ravenwings helped on the side. And when they did, Nicola was always happy to saddled up beside the handsome smuggler.

Nicola had been curious what was taking so long with the repair assessment and peered under the ship just a minute ago to see Mac looking a bit perturbed and lost. That was at least the read she had on him while joining him, and he was right. The inertial dampener was shot.

"Do we have what we need with the haul we're bringing in? I mean, we're being paid by weight. Buyer's not gonna miss a few things missing here and there if it gets us outta here soon." Her Aunt Katja was the mechanical expert whereas Nicola had inherited her mother's piloting and slicing skills. She was good for an assist and picked up a few things here and there, but this part of a ship's system went above her head.

"Maybe," Mac said dubiously, looking over at Nic. "Think you can look at the manifest while I pull this out? Or," he grinned rogueishly, "We could just go get a drink, and forget about this haul. We could live here! Just look at the view."

He gestured out at the unending sand. "Unobstructed for miles. I could learn to like living here, I think. Ow!" Nic's datapad bounced off of the side of his head, and Mac rubbed his scalp ruefully while she scooped the 'pad up off the sand. "So, it's looking through the manifest then, okay, okay!"

A soft sigh of irritation passed between her lips as queued up the manifest. "Now since that's settled, what am I looking for?"

There was a lot with the haul but Nicola had created a few hacks to make searches take a few seconds - as long as she knew what they were looking for. She was already shifting around the item lists into categories as she waited for Mac's answer.

"Anything with the name inertial compensator or dampner, drive compensator, acceleration compensator, deceleration compensator, deceleration equalizer," Mac took a breath, "G-force equalizer, inertial dampner compensating equalizing thingy. Try for anything marked for a light freighter, I can make that work with my ship. Probably."

He took a few steps, careful to remain in the shade of his ship, looking toward the settlement that appeared to have been constructed out of the junk that had made Jakku famous. "Kinda have to wonder why people stay here."

"Probably have no choice. Like a lot of beings."

Not everyone was so lucky to make their lives better - whether by their own design or giving a shit hand - some have to live and die where they were born. It was a sad thought because there was so much beauty and mystery to the galaxy! Nicola found the thought depressing that someone wouldn't be able to see the beauty of their own planet, let alone every planet and moon in a system.

Thankfully her pad beeped it completed the search before her thoughts went too astray.

"Well... inertial dampner compensating equalizing thingy didn't bring anything up, but we have a few things in container X38-21 that could work. One accelerator compensator and a G-force equalizer." She looked up at Mac and shrugged. "That should work, right?"