41:03:17 GrS

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"Want a hand?" Sera poked her head into the starboard hold's doorway where Taz and Lyra were busy sliding the ceraglass crates down the ramp onto a waiting truck they'd rented. She sipped from a big mug of khaff while Enarc's early blue-white light streamed through the open door at the front of the ship.

"Morning, Sera," Taz waved.

"Weren't you out late last night, Rendix?" Lyra queried, holding the repulsorcart's push bar while Taz loaded it with crates.

"Spying on us, Nimor?"

"Hmph. You two were giggling like schoolgirls when you got back. Surprised you didn't wake up the whole terminal."

Sera motioned back and forth between them with her mug and winked. "We didn't, um, interrupt anything last night, did we?"

Lyra's face flushed despite her attempt at nonchalance. She wasn't about to let Sera get the better of her, though. "Where's your dance partner?"

"Asleep," answered Sera with a blissful sigh. She finished her khaff, then activated the repulsor on the nearest cargo crate and pushed it onto the cart.

Taz tilted his head. "You don't need to pitch in, Sera. You're our guest."

"I like to keep busy." She gave him a shrug, followed by a curious look. "Feeling okay, Doc? You look a little under the weather."

"I'm uneasy to be honest. I... have a weird feeling, like something's... off."

"With the cargo drop?" They pushed the laden cart down the Chimera's ramp.

"Maybe. I'm not sure."

"You had the same look back on Lantillies when you were handling that packet of drugs."

Taz's eyes widened as he realized she was right. He slipped into the Force's hazy gray, and sure enough, he could feel the same hungry, seductive energy tugging at the limits of his perception. The feeling was diffuse, and even when he bent his will toward finding it, he could do no better than an impression that it was nearby.

"Son of a dunesnake!" Taz followed his curse with an involuntary shiver.

"You think it has something to do with the cargo transfer?"

Taz chewed his lip and looked frustrated. "Hard to say. These... warnings, feelings, impressions, whatever they are—" He shook his head— "They're vague. Hardly better than a hunch, really."

"We've been saved by your hunches before, Doc." Sera jumped into the truck bed and started unloading the cart. "We'll stay sharp." She patted the PP40 on her hip.

Lyra emerged with the last few crates. She and Taz transferred them into the truck while Sera ducked back into the Skipjack Chimera.

"Just gonna say goodbye to Rei-sha. Be right back."

Reiko was just waking when she entered. "Morning, my love," Sera greeted her from the cabin's doorway.

"Morning," Rei returned with a smile and a stretch. She hummed happily. "Last night was great."

Sera smiled brightly. "Yep. I really enjoyed the dancing. And the rest of the evening."

Rei got out of bed, lithe and naked, and wrapped her arms around Sera's waist. "We could pick up where we left off," she suggested.

"Mmm, yes we could—" Sera slipped her fingers into Reiko's thick hair and drew her into a languid kiss before pulling away with a reluctant sigh— "except that I'm helping Doc and Nimor with the cargo transfer."

"Yuck," Rei made a naughty grin and stuck out her tongue. "My idea sounds better."

"Yes it does." Sera kissed Rei again before relinquishing her warm body. "Hold that thought?" She hoisted her G9 from where it leaned against the wall and slung it across her chest. She checked the power cell and safety, then slid it to her back.

"Trouble?" Rei asked, suddenly anxious.

"Doc had one of his 'warnings'." She wiggled her fingers on either side of her head. "Could be nothing— traffic jam between here and the transfer site. Or it could be something. He wasn't sure, so..."

"So you're being you." Rei gave her a crooked smile while she zipped up her jumpsuit and captured her short hair in a clip. "I need to check in with Yuzu and analyze the ship's performance data, so even though I'd rather force you back into bed and have my way with you, I'm letting you go." The concern on her pretty face contrasted with her bright tone. "I don't need to be worried, do I?"

"Never. Want to know why?" She swept up Rei in a tight embrace.

"Why?" asked the engineer, relishing Sera's strong arms and her cool, passionate eyes.

"Because you're my girl, Rei-sha."

"And you're mine," Reiko whispered, kissing Sera again. "I love you, Sera-sha."

Sera walked to the door. "See you soon, my love."

"Don't shoot too many people!" Reiko advised with a wave and tried not to feel worried.

Sera made a quick stop at the arms locker in the cockpit, then she walked down the freighter's cargo ramp and sealed it up. Taz stood beside the driver's door of the speeder truck and caught the blaster carbine she tossed to him.

Perched on the running board, Lyra peered over the top of the cab. "Starting a new rebellion, Rendix?" She glanced at Taz, narrow-eyed.

"Just being prepared," Sera said casually, sliding onto the scuffed bench behind the driver's seat.

Taz climbed into the cab beside Lyra. He gave her a little smile, put the carbine on the floor between them, and rubbed the back of his neck. "Got one of my Force warnings. It's probably nothing, but..."

Lyra threw a scowl over her shoulder at Sera. "What'd I say about blue milk runs?"

"Blame your Jedi boyfriend," the commando responded with a shrug and a wicked smile.

Taz shot a dry look at Sera and fired up the repulsors, lifting the long truck into the skylanes. He merged with one of the descent queues toward Ring 38, following the path marked on the nav screen. After fifteen minutes of stop-and-go flying, they broke out of the dense morning traffic into one of the smaller trains of commercial airspeeders.

Lyra fiddled with her fingers. "Should've let me drive," she grouched under her breath while she wiggled her pistol in its holster and tried to keep the nervousness out of her voice. She dreaded the idea of actually using it, especially after Lantillies, but she wanted to be sure she could draw it quickly if she needed to. She swallowed hard and made an effort to ignore the flutters in her stomach.

They entered a broad corridor with multiple lanes of aircraft heading in each direction. Arched traffic guides hovered on stationary repulsor vanes, indicating the appropriate flow of vehicles with green and blue blinking lights. The guides marked out a long arc with hundreds of speeders flowing from one to the next. Taz threaded the truck between multi-segmented trams carrying modular cargo boxes stacked three and four high. They swayed with dangerous-looking oscillations and Taz eyed them warily as they sped along.

He lifted their rented speeder above the pattern and turned toward the cleft between two of Kiriolis Dal's toothy extensions, slowing to enter a circular tunnel. Sparsely illuminated with flickering rings every few hundred meters, the underpass eventually ballooned into a wide terminal, pierced by dozens of the megacity's structural support columns.

Lyra guessed the transfer hub was over five thousand meters across, illuminated with a passable imitation of Enarc's bluish daylight. The hub's control center looked like a big puck embedded halfway up the centermost column. Alternating parallelogram-shaped windows in the Imperial style made a bright ribbon around the slowly rotating control center. More tunnels dotted the hub's interior bringing inbound traffic from outside the city. At the opposite side of the hub were big outbound channels served by cargo capsules running on magnetic suspension fields, interspersed with smaller tunnels for speeder traffic, all bound for the city's interior.

The gray reinforced permacrete was stained grungy brown from centuries of accumulated dirt, reactant exhaust, and lubricants. As Taz slipped the truck to the side and circled the cavernous space, Lyra watched workers and droids moving around hundreds of transfer lots.

"There it is," she said, pointing toward a faded white circle fifty meters in diameter that was painted on the hub's floor.

Taz lowered the truck toward the marked area. A flatbed cargo hauler waited there, flanked by two speeder cars and no fewer than eight beings.

"Big welcoming committee," Sera observed. She gave Taz a sober look. "What do you think, Doc?"

Taz punched a button on the control board to start the auto-landing sequence and closed his eyes. After a moment he gave her an almost bored shrug. "As far as I can tell they're just spacers like us. A little rougher-looking, maybe," he added with a snarky grin.

Sera only nodded as the truck settled on the permacrete. "Alright Nimor, let's get your ceraglass transferred and get paid."

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

"Sure," Lyra agreed, not bothering to fence with Sera for once.

A tall man with long brown hair said something to the occupant of one of the speeders, then stepped forward. His leather duster had a dark tawny mantle of trantawolf fur draped across the shoulders. Half of his face was covered by a metal prosthesis with an oval respirator where his nose should have been and a cybernetic photoreceptor that glowed hot blue-white like Enarc's sun. His jacket's sleeve had been cut away, the better to show off a powerful cybernetic arm.

"He looks like an upstanding citizen." Lyra gave her pistol another wiggle in its holster. Menace oozed from the man.

Sera stepped out of the truck, slinging her rifle behind her back in a way that would let her bring it into action fast.

Taz looked alert and granite-faced. He seemed calm, but Lyra could see the tension in his arms and shoulders, and in the set of his jaw. When he got out, he slung his carbine exactly the same way Sera had.

Is that what he was like when he was a soldier? It gave her a sudden chill to see him looking so stony.

Taz must have seen her distressed look. "We're just being careful. Want to stay in the truck?"

She answered with an immediate shake of her head. "No, I'm coming."

Taz gave her a nod. She stepped out of the cab at Sera's shoulder. "What do you think, Rendix?"

"They look like amateurs, mostly."

Lyra needed no prompting to know what she meant by 'mostly'.

"Stay behind my left shoulder. If things get serious, take cover behind the truck." She eyed the big guy in the duster. "If you have to shoot, shoot at him." The former special forces soldier flashed a grin at her. "Don't worry, though. We're not here to start a fight."

"Yeah," Lyra answered. "What about them, though?"

Sera gave Taz a bare nod and he moved toward the other man. A step later, Sera and Lyra followed.

Taz stuck out his hand. "Taz Oktos, Rixon Charter Service. And you are—?"

The man flicked a dismissive look toward Taz's hand. "It's not a social visit." His respirator infected his voice with a mechanical, rattling tone.

"Sure." If the other man intimidated him, Taz wasn't letting on. He took the datapad from his pocket. "Here's the manifest." He hooked his thumb toward the rented speeder. "Your crew can get to work as soon as you sign for it."

The man took the pad and looked it over. He beckoned toward his people who headed for the truck's broad cargo bed.

Taz held up his hand. "Signature first, pal."

A flicker of movement inside the nearest speeder caught Lyra's attention. The passenger compartment window was open, and the woman sitting inside nodded to the cyborg. Her blonde hair was pinned up behind her head, and she looked deceptively bored.

I've seen her someplace, thought Lyra.

The man glared at Taz for a second, then pressed his thumb on the pad.

"All yours," Taz quipped, taking it back from him.

Sera and Lyra followed the crew to the back of the truck. Lyra poked the button to lower the loading ramp. "Get to it," she nodded toward the nearest one, a scruffy-looking specimen with a stringy beard.

The man grunted dismissively and started up the ramp.

"A lot of demand for ceraglass these days?" Taz asked absently, keeping one eye on the 'borg and another on the two beings standing near the car. One was a Tassilite, a female to judge by her trio of bony skull crests. She wore a permanent sneer and cradled a chunky, snub-barreled AA52 repeating carbine in the crook of her bulging arm. The other was a four-armed reptilian with a horned lizard's head and long forked tongue. A quartet of DL-18 pistols rode in twin bandoleers across its chest.

The man with the rattling respirator wasn't paying any attention to Taz. His eyes— organic and cybernetic— were fixed on Sera. "Hey, Red," he called. "I know you, don't I." He wasn't asking a question.

Sera gave him a bland look in response, but Taz could see her stiffen. "Don't think so," was all she said.

"You sure?" he persisted, taking half a step in her direction. "You look like a girl I knew a few years back on Corellia."

Sera shrugged, but her expression lacked the cool confidence she normally exuded. "Big galaxy. You're thinking of somebody else."

The man started to take another step. Taz put a hand against his chest. Through his coat Taz could feel the hard steel beneath. it wasn't just his arm and face that were cybernetic. "Hey, this isn't a social visit, pal, remember? She said she doesn't know you."

The man looked at Taz's hand against his chest. "You'll want to move that hand before I snap it off." There was no mistaking the menace in his voice now.

Unfazed, Taz let his hand linger another couple of seconds while he stepped in front of the man. He dropped his hand onto Aurora Ascendant's thick disk of a pommel.

Use your power. Strike him down!

His fingers gripped the lightsaber hard and he had to work against the unyielding desire to rip it from his belt and cut the mechanized man in two. When he spoke, his tone was like steel grinding on steel. "We're not looking for trouble, pal, but you don't want to know what happens when we find it."

Whether it was Taz's cold voice, the hard look in his eyes that had lost their gentleness, or something else, the man stepped back. What was left of his jaw and lips stretched into a hollow grimace. "Alright, Oktos." He yelled over his shoulder to the two aliens behind him. "Get the rest of that cargo offloaded."

Mastering the ferocity he was feeling, Taz hooked his thumb into his belt, though his fingers kept brushing the lightsaber. The other man backed off a couple of paces and spoke into his comlink, too low for Taz to hear. His underlings made a few trips back and forth between the rented truck and their cargo hauler. For all their rough looks, they worked efficiently. In a couple of minutes, they'd completed the transfer.

Lyra started for the cab. She could see that Sera was, what— rattled? She couldn't remember a time when Rendix hadn't been firmly in charge of her own emotions. He's from Corellia. So is she. And he spooked her. It wasn't hard to connect the dots, but seeing the unflappable Ballista commando looking like that scared Lyra even more.

Taz watched the men push away the last four crates. "Enjoy your ceraglass." His smile was garotte-thin.

The man ignored Taz. He touched the scars on his face and looked like he was remembering something ugly. "Maybe I'll see you around, Red."

"You'll want to make sure you don't," Taz snapped in return. The man either smiled or sneered in response; with his mutilated face, Taz couldn't be sure which it was, and he didn't care. Through the Force he'd picked up enough of the man's dark thoughts and simmering rage to know that he was dangerous, and growing more certain by the second that he knew Sera. That alone was enough reason not to cross paths with him again.

When his lackeys had packed the crates on their cargo speeder, the man got into the lead car and followed the rumbling truck toward one of the outbound tunnels. Taz waited until they'd gone, then climbed into the cab. He let out a long sigh and took the carbine from his shoulder.

He hadn't had to put on his warrior face since Jakku, and he hadn't felt that kind of darkness since Rho-277. It made him feel repugnant and angry. He took some deep breaths, raised the loading ramp, and eased the truck toward an exit.

They rode in strained silence. Lyra could see that Taz wanted to question Rendix but she knew he'd be hesitant. "Well dammit," she uttered when they emerged from the long exit shaft back into the dazzling daylight. "By the moons, is somebody going to tell me what just happened?"

"Don't look at me," Taz answered, uncharacteristically short.

"Fine," she responded and twisted in her seat. "Rendix?"

Sera shrugged, though the vestiges of a haunted look remained.

She tried a softer approach. "What was that about back there?"

"Not sure what you mean." Sera sounded distracted.

Lyra let slip a frustrated sigh. "Yes you are." When neither of them seemed inclined to say anything more, she added, "You know we just delivered that ceraglass to the Zann Consortium, don't you?"

Taz shot her a sharp look. "The Zanns? What makes you think that?"

"Didn't you see the woman in the speeder?"

Taz shook his head tightly. "I was keeping an eye on Mister Ugly."

"Well I got a good look at her, and I'm pretty sure it was Anais Sykes."

"Anais who?"

Lyra rolled her eyes. "Don't either of you watch the news? She's been all over the GHN feeds. She's running some kind of outfit called the Zephyr Combine. They're supposed to be a legitimate venture, but if they are, I'll eat a wampa."

Sera blinked like she was coming out of a dream. "What? What would Zann want with ceraglass, and why would they hire us to move it? They have fleets of transports."

Now it was Lyra's turn to shrug. "You heard that ranger say they've been watching the Consortium lately. Maybe they thought putting the shipment on an independent freighter wouldn't draw attention. Which means—"

"We might have been hauling something dangerous," Taz cut in.

"Or illegal. Or both," Lyra finished, looking sour. "Rutting Zanns!" she swore. She didn't like being used as a mule for some crime syndicate.

"Think that would explain your premonition, Doc?"

"Maybe. Now that the cargo's been transferred, I don't really feel that... darkness." He screwed his mouth up before he glanced over his shoulder at Sera. "That guy was pretty sure he knew you. Sounded like he was from Corellia."

Sera started to say something, but she sat back on the bench seat and locked her fingers together in her lap.

"You can tell me to go chew sand, Sera, but if that cargo was something other than ceraglass and if that cyborg is somewhere in the picture, we need to know."

Sera bit her lip. After a few seconds she said, "I don't know any more than you do about the cargo, Doc."

"And Mr. Ugly?"

"I... knew someone like him once. On Corellia."

"Someone like him?" Lyra didn't quite know why, but she felt like it was important to keep Sera talking.

"There was an enforcer in the Amberdyre Syndicate. He was brutal. He took pleasure in... misusing young kids. C-cutting them." Sera stared at her hands for a minute, looking pale. When she glanced at Lyra, her green eyes were full of old hurt and remembered terror.

Misusing children. Sera had given her a few glimpses into her past. Lyra put the pieces together, and her blood boiled. "Rendix—" she began quietly.

Sera made a sharp shake of her head. "But that man can't be the one we met today."

"Why not?"

She took a few seconds to draw a long breath. "Because the last thing I did before I left that sewer of a city was to drop a building on top of that animal with explosives. So that... freak can't possibly be the man I knew on Corellia. He can't." She ended barely above a whisper.

Lyra shot a surprised look at Taz, but his attention seemed focused on flying them back to Terminal N through some dense traffic. Her voice was soft but insistent. "People survive explosions, Rendix, especially with the help of implants. Just like the kind you got after you survived an explosion."

"That's different," Sera snapped, then crossed her arms and looked out the window.

"Is it?" she gently challenged, but the commando just stared at the passing vehicles.

By the time they returned to the Skipjack Chimera, Sera was looking and acting more like the Rendix that Lyra knew, trading jibes with them. After they exited the truck, Taz swiped his payment chip to get back his deposit. The auto-return circuit engaged and they watched the utility vehicle float away on its heavy-duty repulsors.

Back in the cockpit, Taz put his carbine in the arms locker while Lyra ran a quick review of the freighter's systems.

Standing at Taz's shoulder, Sera said, "Don't say anything to Rei-sha."

He pursed his lips. "Alright."

"But you should talk to her, Rendix," Lyra added, sounding as casual as she could.

"I know," said Sera with a low tone, "and I will, someday." She waited a long beat, then added, "That Sera was scared and... weak. I don't want Rei-sha to know her."

Lyra stared at her hard. "Reiko's stronger than you think she is."

Sera shook her head and blinked away the moisture gathering at the corners of her eyes. "I know."

Taz put a hand on her arm. "You know you can talk to us, right? If you need to, I mean. Anytime."

"Thanks, Doc. You too, Imp," she said in a snarky tone that at least made her seem a little more like herself. She leaned against the bulkhead and plastered on a smile. "So, what's next?"

Taz scratched his cheek. "Well, we could go back to Sansone depot and pick up Allegra's Heart. Or if you can bear to be away from her for a while longer..." he looked meaningfully at Lyra.

Lyra made a show of scowling. "You're not going to give this up, are you, Oktos?" His eyes were soft, like a lost puppy's, prompting a sigh of surrender. "It just so happens I've got a line on a possible charter from Inusagi to New Apsolon."

"Really?" He sounded more excited than he'd been all day.

"Mm-hmm. Some kind of delegation traveling to a conference after the festival of blossoms. There's enough time for a short visit."

Taz wrapped his arms around her and kissed the top of her head. "I'll get started on a nav plot!"

"Cool your jets there, Rocket Boy, I can fly us to Inusagi in my sleep." She shared an amused grin with Sera, who let Taz's enthusiasm wash away her moodiness. "You two okay with that, Rendix? You get a vote too."

Sera cracked a devious smile. "I'm sure Rei-sha will love it, and I can't wait to see what kind of planet produced you, Nimor."