Just running an errand (Arya, Jaas, and Ben)

[Arya Ravenwing]

Arya turned the cap over in her hands, loathe to put it on. "That's your plan? Hide?" Her knuckles whitened, the tech cap crushed in her fist as she seriously considered just throttling her passenger. Half paid wasn't too bad. Half paid and dead by Stormtroopers was worse, though, she reminded herself.

"Yes. A place. Haven't used it since the big guy came on board, though."

[Brask]

"Part of the plan."

If only I'd had more time to explain this would have gone more smoothly.

He turned to face her as he explained, speaking rapidly lest they run out of time.

"You hide while your co-pilot will give the authorities the impression that I killed you. They'll arrest us..."

The ship bucked again. The violence of the movement suggested they had been brought to a halt at the desired distance. Little time remained.

"...and then they'll send techs aboard. They'll check the place over and clear it to be brought aboard. You come out of hiding and disembark with the genuine techs. Then you use the uniform and this to bluff your way to the detention cells."

The this to which he was referring was a code cylinder, which he held out to Arya.

[Jaassuuvi Ageerrodarr]

"That doessn't ssound ljike much of a plan, Pjinkjy." Jaas called out from the doorway of the cockpit, which he was hanging out of from the frame. "Thejy'll neverr beljieve a ljittle thjing ljike jyou could keep me frrom rrjippjing off jyourr head jif jyou kjilled Arjya. We need to make jit convjincjing. Hjit me." He stepped out of the doorway finally, moving right up near the man. He wanted so much to reach out, pick him up and throttle his neck until his face turned blue and his little feet kicked in the air. Jaas resisted, but only just barely. Instead he tapped the corner of his forehead, and bent his neck to give the shorter human reach.

"Do jit."

[Arya Ravenwing]

The ship had another hard vibration run through it, and Arya shook her head, tucking the code cylinder into her pocket. "Have fun." She ran down the passage to the hatch, flinging it open and sliding down the ladder into the cargo bay. Two orange optics shone in the semi darkness of the hold, and she said, "Oh gods, Twopio, I forgot all about you!"

[Twopio]

"What is happening?" Twopio tottered out of the darkness as Mistress Arya pulled a panel off of the bulkhead, revealing a hidey-hole. "Why are we stopped?" He paused, processing what she was wearing as she climbed into the space in the bulkhead.

"We're being boarded by an Imperial patrol. We don't have any contraband, but apparently our passenger is wanted by the Imps so we're screwed." She paused, reaching for the panel awkwardly. "C'mon, help me out here Bluebird."

He picked up the panel and helped her fix it in place, with her concealed behind it. "What do I do, Mistress?"

"Ideally, switch off. They'll probably turn you on, though, so just remember - you've never seen me before in your life. Jaas is telling them I'm dead." There were a couple muffled curses in the wall as she tried getting comfortable. The space was only just big enough for her, so the odds of her finding a good spot were low. Twopio looked around, trying to figure out a good, casual spot to be found by rampaging Imperial techs and their scanners. By the ships ladder? The outer doors? The middle of the floor...?

He wandered down the side of the hold, and past the crates that held their personal supplies of food and sundries. The Wing of the Raven shook violently as it was snagged by an airlock umbilical, and he tumbled into some loose tie-down webbing, tangling himself up quite securely. "I have a bad feeling about this," the droid moaned, struggling to get free, and then giving up. "Good luck, Mistress."

Then he went into hibernation mode, all systems spooling down and going to standby.

[Brask]

Brask had turned at Arya's departure. Now he turned back to eye the well toned arm Jaas was still brandishing at him.

"We really don't have time for this," he sighed.

Then, in a single smooth motion, he drew the disruptor from his pocket, levelled it at the pilot's chair and fired.

[Jaassuuvi Ageerrodarr]

Jaas' striped body stiffened at the sudden discharge of the weapon, his tail rising almost vertical with his spine. Eyeballing the chair's smoking remains he contemplated a lot of things in a small moment.

"Fajirr enough." He said at last and dropped down to the ground, sitting up against the wall as one might do when their ship has been forcibly taken over by a single man with a blaster. He practiced several different faces of distress and anger before settling on one he liked, a sort of brooding contempt that said he could wait years to get his revenge for the death of his Captain.

[Brask]

Brask was somewhat taken aback by this acquiescence. He had fully expected the large, claw-equipped spacer to grab him and do him serious physical harm. The pain would have been worth it for the verisimilitude it would have lent the story he was going to have to spin for the customs officers whose imminent arrival was heralded by a series of crashes aft.

One more deviation from the plan.

With a sigh he turned the disruptor towards the Jaas. He knew what was coming next.

***

Kadrak and his men were trough the hatch in record time, fanning out through the vessel in orderly fashion. He led part of the team around the corner towards the cockpit and came upon a surprising sight.

A short, rather unimpressive man in a suit was standing over a far more imposing figure on the deck. Behind them, in the cockpit proper was the smoking remnant of a chair. In the man's hand was a...

"Drop your weapon immediately!" he barked as his men levelled their blasters at the potential threat.

"Drop your weap..."

The assistant inspector did not get to finish the second round of the command because the man with the weapon turned towards them slightly and, as they were trained to do, the inspection team opened fire sending a series of blue stun rays down the passage and into the cockpit.

***

Perfect.

[Brask]

"Such a shame, Kadrak, to have ended your run like this."

The assistant inspector nodded his agreement. Four years, seven months, two weeks, and six days without a weapons discharge during an inspection. Despite their somewhat fearsome rhetoric and dangerous "clients", Imperial customs officers were not keen on using weapons beyond the occasional warning shots. Inspection team leaders actually competed to demonstrate restraint. A five year run was very respectable.

"I'm still up on my previous record, sir." Had Inspector Hardige paid close attention he might have noticed the edge to his subordinate's tone but he was too busy looking over the reports spread on the desk before him.

"A good haul I think," his tone was almost gleeful, "A very good haul actually."

"Yes, sir," Kadrak agreed, "These 'special orders' are usually less productive."

"Indeed," the inspector held out a datapad, "I'm especially pleased with this one."

Kadrak took the offered 'pad and turned it around to read the report header. "A fairly minor infraction," he opined, "but taken with the list of pending investigations and flits," he thumbed down the lengthy list, "it makes him a good catch for us."

"Yes," Hardige smiled, "Especially if we can crack him on the blaster casings now and jump the queue."

Kadrak smiled back. There was a well defined pecking order within Imperial law enforcment that covered the agencies and the offenses in which they took an interest. In this case, there were numerous offenses within the purview of Imperial Customs and, being of similar level, none had outright precedence. However, the investigations and/or charges of longer standing were, strictly speaking, to be taken first. Neither Hardige nor Kadrak was particularly keen on delivering their prisoner up to another division so they could try to pin him down before passing him to another and another. Looking at the list they could be waiting years before getting credit for a conviction.

"What did you have in mind, sir?"

"Well it occurs to me that Mr Merasska might be getting a little lonely in his cell. And we really don't have the room aboard to keep the accommodation single sex and offer single occupancy. We aren't an hotel after all."

"You think a room mate might encourage him to talk?"

"Yes, I do. If he is sufficiently uncongenial."

[Brask]

The detention area aboard [I]Far Reach[I] was very much like such facilities across the Galaxy. A series of cramped cuboid cells occupied an extensive part of the inner zone of deck five. Each bank of twelve cells stood along a passageway access to which was via its own control point.

The cells themselve were devoid of furnishings save a hard bunk and a head tucked in the corner. Everything was a black plastic coated for reasons of hygiene and through a dearth of imagination in interior design. A single glow panel mounted in the ceiling (actually filling most of it) cast everything in a stark white light. The lights, like everything else, were controlled by the guard at the end of the hall.

The one redeeming feature of these arrangements was privacy. Each cell was intended for a single occupant. There was an overflow "tank" nearby, a large holding area, but this was rarely used. Customs Officers liked to isolate their detainees so that they could not scheme together.

[Jaassuuvi Ageerrodarr]

It would be a lie to say it was all an act as he was dragged out of the ship. The moment those binders clicked into place he began having flashbacks to the last time he was in this situation. The anger and the fear came flooding back. He didn't struggle like last time. No need to turn around and face anyone. Eraanni wasn't standing back there on the ship. He didn't care how they handled the passanger they took on, the one who's fault all this was, and Arya was safely stowed away in a hatch. Instead he looked ahead, allowing the Imperial Officers to pull and push him along. He could resist. Easily. It had taken a squad of marines to drag him away last time. However, he had a part to play and the only chance they had was to do as he was told.

He was dragged through processing, forced at blaster point to identify himself. His name turned up little. Arya and himself had managed to keep themselves from getting caught with anything, and any criminal charges to his name would be locked away in Cizerack space. Hardly accessible even by the long arm of the Empire. Then the pushing and dragging resumed, and he was pulled through the hallways of the prison ward. Through the cell bars he could see the depressed faces of the other prisoners. He tried to not meet their eyes. Instead looked ahead; jaw set, eyes narrowed.

Finally he was pushed into a cell, the door slammed behind him, and the cell's single other occupant looking up. A human. Blond haired. Looked like every other human to Jaas. Unremarkable. Continuing his brooding act, he walked over to the wall and sat down on the floor; his eyes moving between the other occupant and looking out of the cell for a sign of, well, anything.

[Ben Merasska]

Ben just stared at the Cizerack from his position beside the door, where he had been hiding from view. He looked familiar. A bit too familiar.

Ben liked familiar. But when things got too familiar, well, it meant bad things were going to happen.

"I've... I've seen you before, haven't I?"

[Jaassuuvi Ageerrodarr]

Turning his head around, his squinted at the human for a closer look. Yes, there was something familiar about the human, but without stripe patterns he had such a hard time telling them apart. Just an entire face of unremarkable flesh that he would never remember. It was a wonder humans could tell anyone apart from the other. Seriously, they needed to be branded; or maybe facial tattoos that resemble stripes. Someday, maybe when the Cizerack finally rule the galaxy. That would be a bleak future.

"Kessssel?" He ventured, still unsure, but the man did remind him of that plucky, talkative pilot that took them away from that infernal rock.

[Ben Merasska]

Ben's eyes widened.

"Sarin's job? Whole group of people? Uh, lady complaining about a draft?" he sighed. "The galaxy's supposed to be a whole lot bigger than this."

Ben looked at the closed cell door.

"Well. I guess this is the part where I ask what you did to get yourself here," he slid down the wall until he was crouched in the corner. "Unless it comes with an escape plan that I can tag along with though, I can't honestly bring myself to care."

[Jaassuuvi Ageerrodarr]

"Well..." Jaas words stumbled off as he looked out the bars of the cell. There weren't any guards in sight. Probably just a brig warden sitting behind a desk, feet up, reading some form of contraband. And why not? It wasn't like they were expecting a prison break and escape. Not here, aboard a mighty vessel of the Empire. Hell, Jaas wasn't so sure a break was even possible, but he had to hope that their passenger knew what he was doing.

Looking back at the human he made a decision. "We got caught transsporrtjing a human that the Empjirre wanted. He hass a plan to get uss out of herre. Not ssure about the detajilss but keep jyourr ejyess open and jyou mjight get out wjith uss. jIf we get out... jI'm Jaass." A striped and clawed hand was extended toward the pink human, across the width of their small cell.

[Ben Merasska]

"And if we don't get out?"

The smuggler looked at Jaass seriously.

"M'name's Ben. I'll be honest with ya, I'll probably just use you guys to get out of here and to my mechanic. Togruta, girl, probably trying to flirt her way out of her cell. See her on your way in?"

[Brask]

One section over, Kadrak considered his other prisoner over the top of a datapad.

"You seem a very," he reached for a suitable adjective, "charming young lady. How did you come to be mixed up with Mister Merasska?"

[Shuvin Undhi]

Shuvin frowned and looked at Kadrak with a scrutinizing eye.

"How old are you?" she asked. "You don't seem to be that old, but you also look like you've been around a while. But you can't, because if you were, you'd know that there's a lot of ways people get mixed up with other people, right? And that really most of the time it doesn't matter how we get mixed up with people, it's how we go about it afterwards that's really important."

She leaned back in her seat.

"That said, you're not going to make me a slave, are you?"

[Brask]

"Oh I don't expect so, no," the customs man said with a reassuring smile that slid from his face, "though some time in a labour camp is a distinct possibility."

The pad was slid across the bare metal table between them. It showed a list of the seemingly innumerable times the prisoner's companion had crossed Imperial law enforcement's scanners.

"If we can make any one of those stick your friend will be doing time in a camp. If we connect you with the same incident you'll join him unless..."

Kadrak disliked playing the cartoon cop but it was something they all had to do from time to time in Imperial Customs.

"...you make the connection for us that is."

There were those that wondered at the insistence of men like Kadrak and his superiors upon due process. After all the Empire was supreme. Partly it was to keep people on side. Partly it was to keep score properly. Partly it just seemed...right.

"Care to help me out?"

[Arya Ravenwing]

Come out of hiding and exit with the real techs. Use this to bluff your way to the detention cells. Easy for him to say. Arya's leg was starting to go numb in her hiding spot, but the Imperial technicians had come through the hold and it was time for her to move. She hooked her hands into the straps on her side of the removable panel, and cautiously pushed it outward while wriggling to get her feet out first.

She landed harder than she liked, her right leg buckling as pins and needles rocketed up through her nerve endings. Arya mouthed a curse as she nearly dropped the panel, but she managed to hop for a bit and get it back into place. Twopio was still powered down, and tangled up in a bunch of crate tiedowns. She edged past him and made sure the code cylinder was secure in one of the pockets of the tech uniform before climbing up the ladder and out of the hold.

She adjusted her cap a little, smoothing her hair and keeping her eyes on the ground. The last of the technicians were going through the galley, but a couple were exiting the ship, and Arya slipped in behind them, matching her gait to theirs and following them out of the ship.