41:03:09 GrS

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Parahna Loss Prevention's auction sprawled across a third of Ansible Free Station's massive central bay. Arrayed on the duracrete in row upon row were spaceships, landspeeders, skycars, even a few watercraft. All had been repossessed or surrendered by their owners when they couldn't make their scheduled payments. Others came from bankruptcies, criminal or civil forfeiture. A small few were being sold voluntarily, but those were the exceptions.

Taz and Rei had previewed some of the ships the previous evening, but their late arrival had prevented in-person inspections. Sitting in a dingy saloon, they reviewed the descriptions that PLP had provided. Over a supper of greasy nerfburgers and solanroot chips they'd narrowed down the list of likely candidates, then cross-referenced the most promising of the group and plotted them on the map of the auction floor.

Now they joined the throng of potential buyers that included a dizzying array of species. Beyond a preponderance of Humans, there were the jowled Klatooinians—Taz assumed the pair were agents for some Hutt clan or other—Duros, of course, Rodians, Quarrens, demon-faced Deveronians, Togruta, thick-furred Bothans, sleek Dorneans, even a Wookie or two were among the scores of auction-goers. He spied more than a few droids too, no doubt working on behalf of an organic owner.

Hundreds of people were already converging on the assembled merchandise. Walking around the yawning platform, they stopped in front of a ship. Reiko tapped her pad. "GX-One."

The bulbous-nosed ship had been converted to a cargo hauler by stripping out the stock holo theater and zero-g relaxation chamber. Its owner had painted it in fluorescent pink, orange, and green. They spent twenty minutes examining the inside, then walked around the ship.

"Maybe the owner saw in a different part of the spectrum?" Taz mused.

"Or someone had an unusual sense of style," Reiko offered, tilting her head this way and that.

"You can see this thing coming from a parsec away."

"It's in good shape, though, and the starting bid is only nine thousand."

Taz cocked a smile. "I'd have money left over for a paint job."

Rei laughed. "These Lantillian ships have reputations as maintenance hogs, and..." She poked her head into the hull where one of the landing struts extended. "Thought so. The actuators jam when they get dirty. This one's full of gunk. It'll need a full teardown, maybe a rebuild. Plus—" she consulted more specs in the listing— "no weapons, and its shields are pretty light."

"Still, at that price I could upgrade the shields and add weapons." Taz pursed his lips while he thought it over. "Okay, it's in the running. Next up?"

Reiko consulted her datapad, then pointed a few ships over. "Some kind of CEC transport. The listing says it's experimental."

Taz looked down the length of the hull which was painted a uniform medium gray. "Hmm. Can't quite place the model."

Rei tapped the pad. "YX Fifteen-Thirty. It probably never went into production."

"You think so?"

The woman nodded. "They'd have dropped the 'X' and put it into one of the existing product lines— YT or YU series, maybe."

Prospective buyers came and went through its starboard boarding ramp, checking the freighter's interior. Superficially it looked like a YT model, but with its cockpit on the centerline instead of the side-mounted style that made the YT's so instantly recognizable. In place of the cargo mandibles, two holds flanked the truncated cone of a cockpit, their cargo ramps extended. The ship was wedge-shaped at the front, square at the back, with two vectored ion drives embedded in the hull, and another pair of engines mounted above.

Taz pursed his lips. "It's chunky, and... different."

"She's a Chimera."

"A what?"

"A chimera. A mythical beast with body parts from different animals." Reiko showed him the ship's specifications. "It's like somebody threw a bunch of components together on a whim." She pointed around the ship. "The cockpit looks like it's based on a YT Seventeen-hundred, the docking ring and cockpit jettison system are from a Two-thousand, she's got a Twenty-four-hundred's power core, plus internal systems and shields from a YV-series."

Taz scratched his cheek. "Will all those work together?"

Rei paired a shrug with a dubious look. "You'd have to write custom master control software and probably tweak all of the subsystem controllers. If they only made this one I'll bet they never got all the kinks worked out."

They went up the nearest cargo ramp and looked around. The interior was clean, if bland. After a ten-minute tour they edged their way past other buyers heading in. Taz frowned. "Good interior layout, two hundred tons of cargo and two big holds..."

Rei shook her head. "That's a theoretical maximum. I'd bet a week's pay she'd bog down with anything more than half that. And all those disparate systems... It'd be a challenge to make them play nice with each other."

"A puckerfruit, then; more trouble than it's worth. What's next?"

"A Nova Courier." Reiko wound her way through the crowd to the thirty-meter oval vessel. The portside nacelle held the cockpit and docking ring while its starboard twin mounted a sensor and communications array. There were laser turrets top and bottom and three engine nozzles at the rear. Two big viewports at the front ensured a panoramic vista for passengers.

"Don't think I've ever seen one of these," Taz announced. They avoided a long-snouted Sarkan who was busy picking up the scattered contents of a spilled shoulder bag, then went inside. "Only sixty tons of encumbrance," frowned Taz after a few minutes of looking.

"That's not terrible," commented the engineer. "It has three tubes with twelve torpedoes each," she added helpfully.

"A lot of punch but it'd cost half a year's freight charges to buy three dozen torpedoes."

"Decent shields and hyperdrive. Gallofree Yards tried to compete with CEC using these but that never went anywhere," she smirked.

"Wonder how it'd fare against Allegra?" Taz thought out loud.

"Our girl would chew it up and spit it out," Reiko announced with casual confidence.

Taz chuckled. "That aside, it doesn't look too bad."

"Mmm," Rei intoned. "Gallofree went bankrupt almost a decade ago so don't expect any factory support."

Taz laughed while he rubbed his chin, looking thoughtful. They walked toward the other end of the hall past a bunch of speeders from Incom and SoroSuub, a scorched and battered YT-1300 that looked like it had been spit out of a supernova right into an asteroid storm, a long YV-260, and an even longer Loronar E-9 scout ship with a big disk-shaped main hull that looked like a rip-off of the Corellian designs. After that came a trio of nearly identical YT-2000s, all painted two-tone green, and a Lancer-class pursuit ship wearing a silver and mauve color scheme.

Reiko read from the description in the auction guide as they passed. "The Two-thousands are from a bank repo. Guess whoever owned them couldn't make their payments."

"Should we check them out?"

"They're being sold as a lot. Opening bid is a hundred sixty-five thousand credits."

Taz let out a whistle and looked over her shoulder at her datapad. "What about the E-Nine?"

"It's a long-range scout ship." Rei scrolled through the details. "It's big, lots of space for cargo and crew. I read somewhere that they can go up to two years without resupply."

"Good armor, shields, and weapons. Nice sensor suite, too." His face fell when he saw the price.

"One-forty. That's pretty steep," commented Rei, echoing his thoughts. "Let's take a look, just for fun!"

They strode down the ventral ramp nearly a half-hour later past a compact, expensive-looking speeder clad in a glossy paint job that was listed among the included items for the lot.

Reiko looked down the length of the hull. "She'd probably make a nice yacht."

"For someone with a lot more money than me!" Taz chuckled.

"How about the Lancer?"

"Want to give her a look, Rei-aktuu?"

She consulted her wrist link. "Let's. There's still an hour before the bidding starts."

They trod up the ramp and headed to the flight deck. "Great visibility with all this transparisteel," said Taz, swiveling his head. He squeezed past the rear co-pilot station and sat in the front seat. "Controls are all within easy reach but this feels more like a starfighter cockpit."

"It's cramped," Reiko agreed. "Tandem seating, too. You'd be staring at the back of Lyra's head all the time instead of those pretty eyes of hers."

Taz couldn't help the smile that hijacked his face. He levered himself out of the pilot's chair, grunting to hide a sigh that he told himself was most definitely not longing. They went aft, exploring the two small passenger cabins and a third for the crew. There was a compact lounge space with a ladder up to the dorsal gun well. "You'd think the living spaces would be larger. Given the size of the ship, I mean."

The cargo hold looked big enough for fifty or sixty tons. A smattering of standard 1-meter containers littered the floor. "The listing says it's a couple of tons of pedal motivators for R-5 astromechs."

"Is that worth anything?"

"Maybe to the right people," Reiko said. "The fives weren't all that popular. Temperamental personalities and prone to breakdowns."

"Maybe that's why they needed all the parts."

Reiko smiled. "The ship's fast and hardy but living space is cramped and the Lancers can be fuel hogs if you run the sublight drives at maximum. Still, they're modular, easy to upgrade, and they can go without regular maintenance."

Taz looked up at the round primary hull when they exited the ship. "The E-Nine and the Lancer; does everybody copy CEC?"

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Reiko gave him a shrug. "They got to it first and everybody else recognized the genius of it. CEC must make a fortune on licensing the hull design to other firms."

"Good for them, I guess." He stepped back and gave it another look. "Could be in the running. Any more to look at?"

"Last one, down this row." She wore a big smile as they approached the ship. "A YT Twenty-four-hundred, one of my favorites!" Reiko stretched as high as she could and ran her hand lovingly along the bracing arm that connected the main hull to the cockpit. "She's spacious, packs a serious punch, and has power to spare." Her brown eyes glittered.

Taz smiled at the engineer's enthusiasm. He nodded toward some carbon scoring along the hull. "Looks like she might have seen some action."

They went inside, along with nearly everyone else in the hall, it seemed; the ship was packed with interested buyers. "Guess it's not just your favorite," Taz observed dryly. He tried to push his way into the cockpit past the other gawkers and ran right into a hulking white-furred Coynite.

"Watch where you're going, puny Human," growled the big being, flexing arms that were nearly as broad as Taz's torso.

Behind him a slight, spectacled man in a floor-length shimmering white robe looked down his long nose at Taz. He frowned distastefully. "We're finished here, Torpo."

"Got it, boss," rumbled the Coynite. One arm swept out and pinned Taz against the wall. The other buyers scuttled hastily, flattening themselves against the curved walls of the passage. The older man walked casually away. The bulky being gave Taz a nasty glare and another throaty growl, then followed.

Reiko looked pale and gave the pair a wide berth. When they passed, she said urgently, "Are you okay, Taz?"

"Hired muscle," he grumbled while he rubbed his bruised ribs. They finished shuffling through their start-and-stop tour of the ship. It showed signs of wear but whoever owned it had taken care of the ship both inside and out. Even better, the asking price was reasonable, with an opening bid of fourteen thousand five-hundred credits.

"Seems too good to be true," Taz commented as a voice announced the ten-minute warning before the auction's start. "Let's go find some seats."

A big compound holoprojector at the opposite side of the open floor sported an array of lenses that could display twenty images simultaneously. Scores of security droids and human guards wearing TaggeCo uniforms extended a cordon around the vessels and began gently encouraging the buyers to head for the seats across the bay. Service droids bearing trays of refreshments wandered up and down the rows. Taz and Reiko found a couple of seats near the end of a row about halfway back. Taz ordered iced khaffs from the hovering server droid and swiped his ident tag. The bright lights in the bay dimmed as the projector started. He handed a frosty plastic cup to Rei and took the datapad from her, looking excited as the auction began.

A tall, bright blue bipedal droid with a head that looked like it was wearing a broad-brimmed hat, stood beside the projector and raised a hand. A gleaming restraining bolt was attached above the "brim" on its head and a long rainbow-colored nolavok tail feather stuck out of it. Its purple photoreceptors blinked as it made a perfunctory bow. "Greetings, gentlebeings," came a feminine voice, "and welcome to Parahna Loss Prevention's mid-month liquidation auction at Ansible Free Station. I am your humble Mistress of Ceremonies, EmCee Eleven Thirty-four. Today's auction is sponsored by the Tagge Corporation." The familiar jingle played over the sound system as she changed to a sing-song voice. "'Let Tagge, take care, of you!'"

The projector hummed to life, each lens projecting an image of one of the vehicles for sale. The trio of YT-2000's glowed in one image, a little larger than the others. Numbers appeared above each ship, showing the starting bids. "Bidding begins in twenty seconds and will proceed for one minute. All bids are private. You may place bids on as many lots as you wish. Use your pads to enter your maximum bid for each lot, the bid increment, and the lot priority." The droid waited while a timer counted down to zero in one of the projections. "You may begin."

Taz had already determined that he'd bid on the GX-1, YT-2400, and the Lancer. The Nova Courier had some good points but the starting price of 22,000 was too close to his limit.

"Twenty-five seconds left," Rei said.

Taz's finger hovered over the Submit button, but on a whim he punched up the experimental model, typed in some quick numbers, and submitted the bid just as a chime signaled the end of the one-minute bidding period. He let out a tense laugh.

"Thank you for your bids, gentlebeings," Continued MC-1134. A narrow metal column rose from the floor with a big round button that pulsed with light. She let her hand hover over the button for a moment. In the projections a new set of numbers appeared under each ship's image: 0 000 000.00. The bay's brilliant overhead lights faded, leaving the auction's patrons in shadows broken by soft blue and violet illumination. Pinlights in the floor highlighted the projector stage and MC-1134. To Reiko the entire spectacle seemed more like a theatrical presentation than an auction. She gave Taz a nervous, wide-eyed smile.

"Now, let us see who has won!" MC-1134 brought her hand down on the button. The numbers in the projections blurred and spun like a casino game. The sound system played electronic tones in a pattern and timbre that built over the course of seconds, mirroring the crowd's anticipation, until a final chord rang out across the hall.

The numbers froze, displaying the final bids for each lot. Below them appeared codes matching the ident tags of the winning buyers. Around the bay, the winner's ident tags lit up and beeped while tinny voices issued forth, exclaiming congratulations in each winning bidder's language. Exultant cries of victory mixed with disappointed groans.

Taz stared at his dark, silent ident tag. "Son of a bixr. Didn't win any of them."

Reiko looked crestfallen. "I'm sorry, Taz."

"Yeah, thanks Rei," he said, sounding glum. "I knew the odds were slim but I really would have liked that Twenty-four-hundred." The ship rotated in its projection. The final bid was a few credits short of seventy-one thousand.

"It went for more than double the book price for a used one," Reiko noted, trying to sound encouraging. MC-1134 was giving instructions for payment and registration of the ships. No one seemed to be listening.

"Not surprising with all the attention it was getting." The winners were already making their way back to the holding area to take possession of their new vessels while the rest of the attendees began dispersing. Taz shoved the ident tag in his pocket with a disappointed grumble and finished off his iced khaff. They headed toward a row of auto-taxis sitting twenty meters away. "Well, we've got a few days to kill on this station. What do you suppose we should do with ourselves, Miss Hudson?"

"Not sure, sir," Reiko replied. "Drown our sorrows with cheap alcohol?"

Taz waved his credit chip. "Since I didn't buy a ship, I'm flush. I say we go top shelf!"

Rei laughed. The door of the taxi slid aside and she stepped in. Taz was about to follow when he looked startled. He took the ident tag out of his pocket. It was blinking and buzzing urgently. At the same time MC-1134's voice echoed throughout the auction bay. "Will the owner of ident tag HTN dash One Three One Nine stroke Nine R Seven please return to the rostrum." The droid's message repeated.

Taz held up the ident tag, looking nonplussed. It read HTN-1319/9R7. "It's mine."

"So it seems," Rei exclaimed, getting out of the taxi. They wound their way against the crowd of bidders who were all making for the exits. Taz spied MC-1134 standing beside the man in the long white robe whose bodyguard had assaulted him earlier. Six TaggeCo security guards surrounded the two, stun prods in hand. The Coynite's arms were bound behind its robust body in thick shiny binders and a massive security droid hovered over him. The man was engaged in a heated argument with another Tagge employee, this one a tall, thin Munn wearing an bespoke suit of deep aubergine silk and a cybernetic implant that covered most of his elongated cranium.

"—an outrage!" the robed Human protested. "I demand to speak with your superior!"

Taz watched the angry exchange with a wary gaze and held up the blinking ident tag as he approached the droid.

"Ah, Mr. Oktos, thank you for returning so promptly," said the droid. She extended her arm. "Shall we have a seat? May I offer you a libation, perhaps?"

"I'd really rather you just told me what's going on," Taz said with a thin smile.

"Of course sir. Please come this way." The droid ushered them away from the heated exchange. The Munn was bent over the long-nosed man, castigating him with sharp, but carefully measured words. Taz couldn't quite make out what was being said. They moved a respectful distance away. "Please pardon the... disturbance."

"Sure," Taz said, letting just a hint of impatience slip into his voice. "Why did you call us back?"

"Well sir, it seems one of our winning bidders has attempted to pay with credits that cannot be authenticated."

"He tried to pass counterfeit credits?" Reiko asked, hiding an astonished chuckle behind her hand.

The droid bowed its head. "Just so, I'm afraid. You are the next highest bidder on the lot in question."

"I am?" he said, his mouth agape.

"Indeed, sir. According to the rules of the auction, you may purchase the lot, provided you're willing to pay the amount of the winning bid."

"I'd love to but I don't have enough to buy the YT Twenty-Four hundred."

"Oh, that's not the ship, sir."

Taz lifted his brows. "No? He seemed really interested in that one."

"The lot in question is number Eight Iota Fifteen."

Reiko tapped her pad and showed it to him. "The experimental CEC model?" she said to the droid.

"So it is. The winning bid is twenty-seven thousand three hundred forty-four credits." MC-1134 tilted her head and blinked her amethyst electronic eyes. "Would you like to purchase it at that price, Mister Oktos?"

Taz looked at Reiko. "What do you think?"

The engineer chewed her lip. She tapped at the pad and scrolled through the technical specs on the ship again. After a few seconds of reading she looked up. "It'll probably take some serious work to get its systems running smoothly, but—" Reiko's small mouth curled into a grin— "you know how much I enjoy a challenge."

Taz smiled back at her and turned to the droid. "It sounds great but I only have twenty-five thousand credits."

"That's unfortunate, sir. The rules of the auction are quite explicit. Winning bids are final. If you haven't the funds to pay the final amount, we'll—"

"Wait!" he exclaimed, reaching into his pocket. He remembered the credit chip Lyra had given him. "How much is on this?"

MC-1134 took the chip and swiped it across the reader on her palm. "The balance is two hundred eighty-seven thousand, six hundred fifty-two credits, sir."

"What?!" Taz exclaimed and stared at Reiko, who let out a surprised yelp. "Lyra said it was just a few thousand credits." He turned back to the droid, nonplussed. "Are you sure?"

"Quite sure, sir. The credits on this chip are guaranteed by a trust at the Bank of Aargau. It's a most prestigious financial institution. Would you like to cover the balance of the bid with these funds, sir?" asked the droid.

"Uh, yes, yes I would," Taz stammered and shared an incredulous look with Reiko.

"Very good, sir." MC-1134 waved her metal hand and flagged down a man wearing a TaggeCo uniform and a harried expression. The plaque over his right breast pocket read: Bureau of Ships and Services. They held a brief conversation before the droid handed Taz's credit chip to the man.

He looked at Taz expectantly for a few seconds. Then he let out an impatient sigh. "I need your ident tag to transfer the funds."

"Oh," Taz said, handing over the tag.

The clerk scanned it with his datapad and returned it. "There's a vessel registration fee of one hundred fifteen credits and the seller's commission." He waved Lyra's credit chip. "Paying with this?"

Taz nodded mutely. Where did Lyra get all of that money? And why does she have a trust at one of the galaxy's premier banks?

"You the owner?"

"Um, co-owner," he answered.

The other man flicked a look at Reiko. "With her?" His tone was impatient and just a little dismissive.

"No," Taz said in a clipped tone of his own. Reiko gave the man a narrow glare but she held her tongue.

The clerk drew an irritated breath and tapped through more screens. "The other owner's ident code?"

"Ident code?"

"Imperial. Ident. Code," said the man, drawing out each word.

Taz clenched his fist but resisted the urge to throttle the man. "I don't know what her ident code is."

"Okay," he half-drawled, half-sighed, looking at Taz like he was an ignorant Fringer. He flipped through more pages with exaggerated finger swipes above the screen. Finally, he shoved the pad toward Taz. "Fill this out."

The screen had nearly twenty data fields. Taz mumbled as he filled them out. "Name... Planet of birth... Date and place of birth..." He frowned at that last, and the many other prompts for information about Lyra that Taz couldn't answer. It occurred to him just how much he didn't know about her or her past. She'd never really said much about it and he'd held his curiosity in abeyance. It was hard enough getting her to open up to him; he didn't want to push too hard about her life before they'd met.

He scratched his cheek. "I, um, don't know most of this." To the clerk's look of obvious annoyance, Taz quickly added, "Just put it in my name. I can change it later, right?"

"For an additional fee."

"Whatever, fine." Taz flipped his hand. He'd had about enough of the irritating BoSS clerk.

The man took back the pad, flipped through a few more screens making notations as he went. "The title transfer's been submitted." He handed back the credit chip.

"Congratulations, Mr. Oktos," said MC-1134 in her most solicitous voice. "You are the proud owner of the registered light freighter Skipjack."

"Skipjack, huh?" He thought for a few seconds. "Mmm, that doesn't really work for me."

"For a nominal processing fee of sixty credits you may register a new name with the Bureau of Ships and Services."

"Mr. Personality here?"

The droid must have had some protocol or behavioral analysis subroutines, to judge by her diplomatic tone. "If you'd prefer, the forms can be accessed from the BoSS datapad aboard your ship."

"Yeah, I think I'll do that," he responded, giving the man another derisive glare.

"Fine by me," the BoSS clerk scowled. He tucked his datapad under his arm and headed for the next winning bidder.

"Great guy," Reiko quipped, unusually droll.

"I'll bet he's the life of the party."

"With that our business is concluded," MC-1134 inserted in a bright tone. "Enjoy your new vessel, Mr. Oktos, and remember—" The jingle emanated from the droid's vocoder. "'Let Tagge, take care, of you!'" The MC droid bowed and left. Taz noticed the short man with the long nose was nowhere to be seen, nor was his Coynite associate or the Munn he'd been arguing with.

"Wow," Rei exclaimed, "can you believe it?"

Taz tilted his head. "It's... unexpected to be sure. It wasn't my first choice or even my second but go let's see what kind of ship Lyra and I just bought."