The Shame Corner was spectacular as always, clean and full of goods and fresh food and services with genuine smiles. It did have a bit more color than usual, with different colored banners hung from the ceilings at intervals, and many of the employees wearing similar patterns somewhere on the persons. They were even allowed some glitter in their makeup, despite a recent and firm ‘no glitter ever again’ rule.
At the front of store were several clerks at checkouts, as well as the oft-familiar sight of an Echani woman in relaxed-fit clothing. She typed away at a datapad with a teacup beside her, silver hair pinned loosely back, her ageless face serene with focus. A manager plaque accented her nametag, which read Avalon, and her slouchy sweater was a soft heathered gray with the word Ally in rainbow scrawl on the front.
The Shame Corner.
How… creative, as a name.
The disgust in his mind only paralleled the disgust he felt for these crude… lifeforms. Was such a word even dignified? Thery were not Skakoans, they were never Skakoans, and at best, they were beings of limited intellect, clubbing beasts beating each other with rocks in a bid for dominance or for mates or for food or whatever carnal appetites drove them. Goggled lenses, part of a simple, utilitarian pressure suit, hide his black hued orbs from visibility, though a bit of blue-green skin still exposed itself. Hands fiddled with a datapad as the ||Collective Technocratic Guild Member|| Scientist and Field Medic examined that of the careless organisms disgorged from transports like birthing cetaceans.
If he could, he would merely disregard them. But for now, test subjects were useful; the advancement of science was a noble pursuit in and out of itself; the allure of prestige and the glamour of personal gain were secondary and tertiary motives, after-all. His work was fastidious in merit, done without flaw or inaccuracy in order to ensure sheer, utter perfection. As the pressure suit’s mobility subsystems engaged, the soft whirr of traction systems propelled him forward. It was not easy to walk in such gravity and pressure - the suit aided him in this manner. Passing by a pair of eloping simpletons, Vamb Kantor wanted to merely toss them a notation on why this lustful inclination was, not in fact, love - or that love didn’t exist at all, merely being chemical reactions to environmental stimuli.
These pathetic creatures wouldn’t know what a textbook was if it smacked them in the face, however, and so thus he relented.
Slowly examining one of the banners, the Skakoan noted his disdain for such ornamentation of bright coloration. Clean, clinical, surgical dapples and dullness were infinitely preferable to that of makeup and glitter. The Skakoan reached upward, slowly, to adjust a diode on his suit, the whirring hiss of a vocoder-device enabling him to speak Basic as translated from his native Skakoverbal. He preferred not to speak Basic by himself; the language was… primitive, in all respects, and unrefined for a being of higher station such as himself. The manager plaque of Avalon, however?
That piqued his interest, and soon enough, the Skakoan slowly made his way over to the Echani. He didn’t even dare to guess her age - it wasn’t as if the martially-inclined creature would be able to comprehend mathematics beyond the digits and appendages on their extremities. Still, the adjustment of a diode allowed his voice to painfully register as a brief Bzzzzzt of static. At last, he finally replied; a condescending haughtiness pervading an undertone much like his smugness. Insufferable, perhaps? But to him, he knew his worth, and he knew his importance - or else why would he be here.
[BASIC]: “Greetings, Bzzzt, I am Vamb Kantor, Scientist and Physician. I have come to provide, Pzzzzzt, medical services and clinical trials for a new research program I am, Kfzzzzzt, running. Where would I apply such positioning, Pzzzzzt, of related documentation and trial-associated materials, Bzzzzzt, to the proper relagated channels for public, Vzzzzzzt, consumption and analysis?”
The Skakoan, of course, examined her reaction with mask-concealed greed. He enjoyed the prospect of simply overcoming the creature, like all non-Skakoans, in matters of intellect. Crude as it may be, there was a base and appetizing pleasure in lording one’s knowledge over insects. Why would he, as a Skakoan, not enjoy his own natural advantage compared to these others, these inferiors? But for now, the Skakoan merely waited patiently as he occasionally adjusted a diode here and a knob on his pressure suit there. It was best to ensure such stark reality penetrated into the mind of this Echani simian here, after all…
Silver brows rose at the suited alien’s proclamation, though her expression remained otherwise placid even in the face of his suit’s translator screeching and spitting out garbage noise. She finished jotting down a note and turned from her pad, lifting one hand to press her fingers and thumb against her throat in a particular fashion as she coughed a few times before speaking.
In Skakoverbal
“We will need to approve anything you wish to post, first and foremost, and I would require some additional screening for anything medically or clinically related. For safety, you understand.”
Her tone was forcibly high and chirping, clicking with short, hard stops against her teeth, reminiscent of Binary, as the Skakoan language was.
A Sephi woman with disheveled copper hair and exhausted blue eyes barged her way in through the front door. Impressions of sleeping on something dot the right side of her face.
“I don’t kriffing care— Listen here you overplucked tip-yip, if I return back to Kiast and that demon parading in mortal skin is still in my office I will make you eat the floor.”
Her tone was severe and sharp, but also very calm. Like the silent calm before a storm.
Vatali delegates had been bothering her for the last week. Though estranged largely from the Jedi order, her tentative friendship with the Jedi high councilor had put a target on her back. Tensions were rising in the empire, like the tide pulling out before a tsunami.
It was hell. She had barely gotten sleep… and she needed her beauty rest. She was going to get wrinkles.
Nildea hung up her holo with emphasis without listening for her assistant’s reply. The Sephi orator stalked over to the roller grill, looking over the copious amounts of greasy foods ready to be inhaled.
What would she ruin her diet with today?
The docking arms disengaged with a dull metallic thunk.
CT-4147 — Forty-One — stepped from the shuttle’s boarding ramp onto the brightly lit platform of Station 0H40-S0, more colloquially known as The Shame Corner. The echo of his armored boots rang out, clean and clinical, against the polished composite flooring. The sound was swallowed quickly by the ambient noise of the station: music from a nearby stall, the drone of countless overlapping conversations, a low chime as someone scanned into a public terminal.
Overhead, the glass tunnels shimmered with reflected starlight and the brief, violent flickers of ships breaking into or out of hyperspace. Outside the transparisteel walls, a black dwarf star loomed — massive, dead, dense — an ancient husk anchoring this improbable sanctuary. It was no longer luminous, but still powerful. Still drawing things in.
Forty-One kept moving.
The station was not what one might expect of a place called “Shame Corner.” It was not grimy, rusted, or dim. Quite the opposite. It was alive with color and warmth, thoughtfully arranged. A bright mural wrapped around one far wall — a stylized hyperspace lane curling into a sunburst. Signs were hand-painted in parts, the glowstrips along the walkways cast in gentle gold instead of stark white, and planters filled with synthetic greenery dotted the corners like soft punctuation. Everything here was intentional. There was pride in the mess.
And he didn’t belong.
He moved through the crowd like a blade through mist — silent, direct, untouchable. His tall frame was unmistakable: clad in the sleek, reinforced lines of Royal Guard TactiX armor, the gleaming gray plates unmarred by dirt or insignia. His helmet’s black visor concealed his expression, though none was needed. His presence parted the flow of people in subtle shifts — some instinctively stepped aside, others slowed just a fraction. No one looked directly at him for long.
He didn’t expect them to.
The MFTAS in his helmet chirped quietly as it filtered and categorized every movement within his peripheral zone — temperature shifts, species types, heart rate patterns. He barely needed it. Muscle memory and conditioning did most of the work.
The mission was routine. Errand-level, as far as assignments went. But Qor didn’t trust just anyone to handle his requests. Even small tasks have their weight, he’d said.
Medical supplies: standard antiseptics, self-sealing gauze rolls, cryo packs, a vial of muscle stimulant no longer available on official markets. Popcorn: Zaltronian Thunder, high-flavor, low logic — often caused low-level combustion when microwaved too long. Qor liked that. Said it kept the droids “on their claws.”
Forty-One gathered each item with the precision of a bomb tech. One after another, scanned, bagged, confirmed. No deviation. Each movement deliberate, minimal.
The station’s charm was not lost on him — he simply had no use for it.
With the satchel secured, he turned toward the dining quadrant. He had no hunger, not in the traditional sense, but his body demanded sustenance. He ran calculations — caloric burn from orbital descent, current metabolic rate, expected travel time back to the rendezvous point. Fuel was required. Timing was optimal.
The Golden Griddle sat tucked in one corner of the hub, its signage glowing warmly in yellow and bronze, stylized like a twin-sun sunrise. The scent of cooked protein, fried starch, and spiced sugars drifted outward in layers, immediately detectable even through the filtration layer of his helmet.
He entered.
The interior was classic diner meets spaceport flair — bright tiles, steel booths, murals of breakfast foods reimagined as heroic figures. A glistening rack of faux trophies stood near the entrance, each commemorating absurd achievements: Most Syrup Consumed in a Day, Longest Solo Booth Occupation, All-Time Champion of the ‘Sizzlin’ Sizz Steak Stack.‘
None of it was relevant.
The line moved quickly. He stood still, processing exit routes, ceiling vents, and fire suppression nodes while he waited. When his turn came, he stepped forward with mechanical grace, his armored frame casting a stark silhouette against the chrome counter.
The server looked up — a petite Shistavanen with golden fur, short muzzle, and expressive blue eyes. Her mane was a little uneven, ruffled like she’d dried it quickly. Her ears were massive, disproportionately large even for her kind, twitching lightly with ambient sounds. She offered a practiced customer-service smile, but it faltered slightly as she met his visor.
They had not met before.
Forty-One spoke, voice modulated and flat through the helmet’s vocoder:
“Protein slab. No garnish. Side of heat crisps. Citrus energy drink.”
The Shistavanen blinked once, then nodded, tapping the order into the terminal. No attempt at conversation. No questions. She did not try to upsell.
Good.
He slid 41 credits across the payment pad. Exact change. Tipping was optional. Not advised.
A soft chime confirmed the transaction, and she gestured him toward the seating area with a flick of her clawed hand. He gave no sign of acknowledgment as he turned.
He moved to the booths along the back wall, where the lighting was soft and the noise slightly dampened. One mural overhead depicted a stylized supernova mid-burst, painted in colors more vivid than the real thing. The position gave clear view of both the front door and the kitchen corridor. Angles mattered.
He slid into the booth. The armor creaked faintly, adjusting to the seating. He unsealed the helmet with a quiet hiss and set it carefully beside him on the seat, tucked beneath the table between his boots.
His face was severe — squared jaw, thin lips, shaven scalp, pale ash-red skin taut over hardened features. No facial hair, no softness. His expression neutral. Blank. Geometric black tattoos framed his cheekbones and traced down his neck in cold symmetry: imperial issue, not art. Identification, not pride.
His horns had been filed down — some jagged, some cauterized. Evidence of punishments rendered without ceremony. Of individuality erased again and again.
Golden-orange eyes scanned the room, glowing faintly beneath the shadows. A flicker of movement caught his attention — a child climbing a booth, a droid mopping something sticky off the floor, a Rodian pointing too loudly at a pastry display.
No threats. No significance.
He folded his hands on the table. Waiting.
From behind the counter, the Shistavanen was assembling his tray. Her name tag read Naomi, written in blue marker with a tiny doodle of a sunburst above it. She worked efficiently, checking the thermal readout on the protein slab, double-wrapping the heat crisps in thermal foil. Her ears swiveled toward the back kitchen occasionally, listening for something.
He didn’t know her. Didn’t need to. She was fast. That was enough.
And so he waited.
Not impatiently. Not anxiously.
Just… waiting. As he had been trained to do.
This wasn’t supposed to happen this way. What had even happened? It was all a blur, now – adrenaline and ectasy had made a terrible mess of his memories. Flashes of sight, sound, and touch played through his consciousness like a malfunctioning holoprojector. The frantic, eager energy of a young man who yearned for the touch of another. A taste of freedom for a bird that had found the will to free itself from its wooden cage, laced with the delicious wrongness of transgressing all that he’d been taught. But these were just fragments. Where were the threads connecting them into a complete picture? How had he even made it here?
Think, Cato. Think.
No, breathe. Calm down. Remember what your mother taught you. Two in through the nose and one out the mouth. He tried, but the sound and sensation of his breath passing through his tightening lips reminded him of the last breath of that poor, poor man. When even the advice of his mother, rest her soul, failed him, what other refuges did he have?
The room started to spin as he hurried around a corner leading to the nearest refresher and barged through the door, nearly knocking someone over in the process. They shouted something, but he couldn’t make out what they’d said, even when they were so close that the volume made his ear ache.
Two hands gripped he smooth surface of the long, rectangular sink to help steady himself. Were those cracks spreading across its marble surface because of him? Surely not ….
His heart slammed against his chest like a reactor going critical; he was sure he’d collapse at any moment, and maybe that would have been better? He’d give anything for a respite from the panic that seized his chest in a vice and left him feeling like the walls would collapse on him at any moment.
Cato eyes briefly drifted up to his reflection and, upon seeing movement beneath his mahogany-colored skin, he froze. As two holes opened within the lighter patches of skin adorning his face in stripes, ripping the tissue beneath to make way for two slender tendrils to emerge and paint the countertop beneath him with drops of bright sanguine, Cato screamed for someone, anyone, to help him, but no words escaped his lips.
He was alone.
She should’ve ignored it.
It wasn’t her business. It wasn’t important. It wasn’t worth her time. Her time was for reaping, like she’d said to that Lasat oh so recently. For carving and burning a blood debt owed. Anything not that or the rest of this bottle were irrelevant.
But this place was starting to stick to her, like the glitter had Savran’s feathers. Like the words that wave of fear and rage had knocked free in her mind, knocking out a tooth that she swallowed instead of spat, and now the sharp enamel was puncturing her intestines at every winding turn, shredding her, septic and hemorrhaging. Like the words that fell from her own lips while her knife buried itself over and over into the soft tissue of an unimportant man who had dared to speak a word of disrespect to–
“My father was perfect, you hear?”
“Sweetpea…”
“Just like this, yes. All better, shan’t we? Loo-lee-lie-lay…”
Both hands then, when he’d had them, showing hers gentle and cold how to wrap a bandage. They’d used his tail for practice. There had never been dollies. They burned the ones he made her secretly. She’d never had something like the plushies cherished by spoilt children in the Galaxy, not until she’d come here.
Where there were hugs from lemon drop arms that held you and smelled like cookies. Where a stranger might buy you a smoothie and ask after your breaking bones. Where there were bards on disc players offered to be shared. Where people had friends. Bloated on softness and sick with kind words or cheer. Poison, all of it.
Oh, but he had been kind. He would have helped.
And she still couldn’t bloody ignore it when someone cried.
- “What in all the bloody hells did you take, mate? Because it sure looks like it’s karked you right up.”
The lilting voice came from within the refresher, one of the doors easing quietly open as a hooded figure stepped out. Their clothes were in poor shape, and a stained blue tailring hoodie dwarfed them and partially obscured their face. Their hands were empty, but a near-empty bottle coiled from the multicolored, fur-tipped tail peeking out as they approached the man at the mirror slowly, rounding wide with silent steps to show little threat.
<@1056685516441006091>
The doors opened in front of them and the brightness of it all washed over eyes scarred long enough ago that few recalled their original color. Blinking back the strain a couple times, he stepped forward with the others. The scent of sweetly spiced nuts and savory roasted meats wafted over them like the light. The mixture, after a half hour on the shuttle, inspired a complex array of hunger and nausea. After all, his ship was a bit too large to dock with the station. All the same, he’d rather not fully broadcast his presence anyway.
“I’m telling you, you’re going to just love their caf.” Leena’s voice swept from her to him, the Twi'lek’s words just barely above the hum of refrigeration units, kids raucously chasing each other through the candy aisle, and an infernal jingle playing on the loudspeaker.
He blinked again, his head tilting slightly at her as his mind found hers. We have caf on the ‘Spear.
“But we’re not on the 'Spear.” She laughed, pulling her left lekku forward over her shoulder as she walked. “And I swear it is better. So does Hexy.” She jabbed a thumb back to her other side, the dark robed apprentice moving with purpose and silence before realizing that they were being addressed.
“Yes.” Hekate’s voice was fragmented, a chorus of three voices. “Best caf in…well, that I’ve had. Good soup, too. Oh, and the snaaaaacks…”
His eyebrow went up slightly as they moved further into the rest stop. After the Coruscant work and all the people there, he was more than ready to recover for a while, away from the masses, away from comms, somewhere quiet. Somewhere…dimmer. He squinted, debating if the chemlight above them was out of phase or if it was just flickering at a frequency that only he noticed.
The caf machine hissed like it hated its job.
Socorra stood at the counter, one hand wrapped around a steaming cup, the other braced on her hip. The lights were too bright. The jingle was a crime. And the mix of sweet nuts and roasted meat made her hungry in spite of herself.
Turhaya didn’t care about any of this.
Turi tore past the bulk snack bins again, chasing - or being chased by - a random kid with a light-up toy. The dark waves on his head bounced with every step, Tooka in tow, squealing laughter echoing off the plastiform shelves. Someone yelled, “Slow down!” from the candy aisle. Turi did not.
She sipped her caf.
Then the doors opened.
The mentalist felt the trio before she saw them, both through presence and through timeline. Their entry played out a dozen different ways in her mind. Most of them were amusing.
Socorra didn’t move, just stood there in her loose jacket and worn boots, eye unreadable, caf in hand, watching as the Lion walked into a place that smelled like overcooked sugar and cheap fried meat.
Turi skidded to a stop near their path, blinked up at them, then ran off again shouting, “I’m faster now!”
She took another sip.
Of course he was.
Naomi approached with expert balance of the tray on one hand, smiling again, with more care to holding it this time, as she arrived at the soldier’s booth. She set the tray down.
“Here you go, Sir. Anything else I can get you? We got a good kickin’ sauce if you want to try something on the side.”
Forty-One looked up, golden-orange eyes catching the overhead lights, expression unreadable beneath the tattoos and scar-slicked crown. His voice came quiet but firm — not dismissive, just final.
“Negative. I don’t require flavor.”
He paused, gaze flicking to the protein slab, then back to Naomi.
“This is what we were given in the facility. Nutrient-balanced. Efficient. It’s enough.”
A breath, shallow and measured.
“Delivery was clean. That matters.”
Then he looked away, posture never shifting. The tray sat untouched, steam still rising. He would eat when the moment allowed — not before.
The Shistavanen woman hesitated, ears pricking forward, concern crinkling her muzzle. Her gaze flicked over his scars.
“…facility,” she muttered, and then, still in a friendly tone, “Hey, you’re okay, whatever you want to eat, right? You don’t have to explore. But just so you know, we’re very open here…there’s a comm code hidden on the inside of all our free pens and straws. If you ever know anyone needing help…yeah?”
Cato nearly leapt from his skin when he heard someone’s voice echo out from the nearby stall, prompting him to whirl around just in time to see the polychromatic person approaching him.
“Stay back!” he shouted, though the tremble in his voice made it sound more like a plea. “I … I don’t want to hurt you, too,”
His eyes shot wide when he realized those karking tentacles slithering out of his face again, prompting him to shoot his hand up in an attempt to hide them.
Beneath the hood, one brow ticked up, watching with rapt, cool curiosity. Someone else began to enter the refreshers, and the slight figure flicked a hand in that direction without taking their gaze off the panicking man.
“Closed for maintenance~,” they called, “put the sign up.” and the Rodian froze.
“Maintenance…sign’s up…” He echoed vaguely, grabbing a little yellow rope and hooking it over the entrance as he wandered away, trousers slowly darkening with damp.
The hooded one took another step closer, a total lack of fear in their posture. If anything, they seemed almost predatory as they circled around the man, like a tooka playing with a mouse.
“Having a bit of tenticular dysfunction there, mate?” they asked, chortling to themselves. “Now now, dear, I’ve seen plenty of Anzati probosces before. Don’t be shy. What’s got you in a tizzy?”
Cato’s eyes widened when he saw the rodian repeat the hooded figure’s command, although in a labored, if somnolent voice before wandering off. “How did you?…” he muttered muttered beneath his breath, momentarily lost in his bewilderment at the display power that had been used so casually, almost like shooing away a fly. He’d nearly missed the person inching closer, stalking him like a prowling beast.
“Anzati? What’s the frakk is an Anzati? I’m a Selenian. That’s all I’ve ever been. This is a trick…,” the fire-headed man paused for a moment, a grim expression creeping onto his striped countenance when realization set in. His eyes became wild with fear, like prey backed into a corner; with nowhere else to go, he had only one option left. A small dagger, etched with words in the Selenian tongue, appeared from his belt holster with a flash, its deadly point aimed at the stranger to keep them at bay.
“You’re one of them, aren’t you?! Like the ones who trapped us in the long sleep, locked us away, controlled our minds. Tiexsema’s ilk,” he rambled on, clutching the dagger’s hilt tightly to stop himself from trembling. Only when he noticed the stranger come closer despite his threat did he rebuke her again, louder this time. “Get away!”
The words echoed with a power of their own.
The three simple syllables struck like a shot, and the figure stalking him stilled with it, unnatural and abrupt, their head cracking to the side, one shoulder popping in its socket, spine snapping forward. It was as if they’d been thrown from a speeder, frozen in stop-motion.
As if some outside momentum was carrying their body one way while they were going another.
Their face split as their hood dropped back, showing an adolescent, pale countenance, speckled with sunrise colored scales and eyes bleeding black into their whites. Their “mouth” opened in a gaping snarl, hissing spitting from their clenched, too-many teeth.
“Insolent wretch,” they sneered, even as they took one step back, halting, then another, and another. The imbecilic command was effective, but vague. The redhead clearly had no idea what he was doing, a fumbling fool, or was too high to even remember his own species. A dagger of their own appeared in their hand, pointing back, black glass and rippling. “Put that knife in your mouth and keep it there. I don’t bloody well know a thing you’re saying but you try that again, you’ll cut your own tongue out.”
[MT:8 v Resolve:11]
Forty-One’s gaze sharpened — not hostile, but suddenly distant, as if he were looking past Naomi, through her, back across parsecs and memory. The word facility had slipped. Precision compromised.
His fingers curled once against the edge of the tray.
“That was… a breach in protocol.”
His voice was quieter now, unfiltered by helmet, yet still devoid of warmth — more like a report than a confession.
The silence stretched, thick as vacuum.
“The code in the straw,” he said at last, tone flat, unreadable. “I understand the signal.”
He didn’t clarify whether he meant it as a warning, a comfort, or a threat.
“But I’m not the target audience.”
His golden-orange eyes flicked to hers just once — a brief, unsettling brightness beneath the scars and the ghost of filed-down horns — before returning to the tray.
“Still. Message received.”
Then he resumed his stillness, like a statue awaiting activation, the ghost of his past sealed tight once more.
Kismet is mere coincidence to those who would die with their magic still in them.
He turned slowly, eyes dark as his mood sweeping across petty annoyances and the beautiful messy hells that was other people. Still unconvinced that there was a good reason to be here, doubly so after the week he had endured, he paused, drawing his focus back, tasting the air. Letting go sometimes had its benefits. Benefits he would absolutely have seen if he weren’t so… well, himself. There was a reason he let himself be talked off the ‘Spear, after all. There were no surprises for him, just an ever-growing understanding of why.
Yes, it was base. Tailored to the needs of those masses who found themselves here, hungry, tired, equally as annoyed as he. Slowly, Muz nodded, his mind finally absorbing it all. It wasn’t all that different from the street foods he had known and loved. Simple foods, prepared so well to amplify exactly what you needed and downplaying their cheap nature. He had gone out of his way in some places to try local variants in some exotic places. After all, it wasn’t like it could kill him.
He let out a chuckle, Leena turning to him and letting a broad smile bloom across her face. “See, old man, I knew you’d come around.” She shifted her weight and took a syncopated step as she danced around a darting child. “And you haven’t even tried the…” Her eyes stopped as his steps continued but hers did not.
“Socorra.”
Understanding bloomed behind dark eyes. His thoughts tracing possibilities like lightning seeking the ground until it found the truth of why, the path illuminated by whatever word a person had for the animating power of the all.
Muz smiled.
“Karabast!” Hekate snorted, the lights in her eyes dimming for a second as she thought. “Does this mean we’re not getting any caf?”
Cato visibly cringed when the features of the stranger’s countenance stretched, twisted, and broke beyond what was normal or agreeable for the humanoid form. He quickly averted his gaze, unwilling to look at her for another second lest the stinging reflux bubbling up from the depths of his esophagus spill out onto the polished tile floor.
But the second Cato took his eyes off her, he felt something deeply wrong take root in his mind – something foreign and merciless in its attempt to rip away at the delicate layers of his mind to lay its own foundation. His free hand shot to his head and squeezed, digging into his scalp in an instinctual yet no less futile attempt to uproot this foreign will that had taken hold of it.
“Get … out!”
And she did, forcibly launched from his mind like a squatter who had overstayed their welcome.
“Devil,” he said, though not in Basic, but in his native language of Selenian. “Wretched devil.”
The unknown devil hissed at him again, tail lashing in agitation hard enough to fling the bottle it has been holding across the room, smashing with a crack, broken glass so much softer and sweeter a keen than her broken bones. Her face settled back to form as she watched him clutch at his face, the probosci he claimed he didn’t have curling and poking at his wrist, blindly seeking nutriment.
“Bloody kark you,” she snapped, and it was a girlish voice then, younger, if grinding with pain. “You wanna have your little boo-hoo all to yourself instead of countin’ your stars on a fellow freak’s generosity, you go ahead. You’re bloody lucky I like this place too much to leave a flayed corpse in the privy. Just don’t go askin’ for the soup at the diner. It won’t be the kind your Anzati bits want to face-frak so bad.”
The dagger in her hand disappeared with a wyrd twist, like the haze of heat above a fire, a warping in the air. She turned her back with a scoff, pulling her hoodie back up.
There was that damned word again. Anzati. Why was she so sure that he was that? More importantly, what was this nagging tug he felt in the depths of his consciousness, urging him to pursue her? He’d felt it before, that subtle call to go one way rather than the other, to avoid a group of older men whose eyes had lingered on him far too long.
Before he fully registered it, he was stumbling after her, hand outstretched. “Wait …,” he pleaded, voice trembling, “You know things about what’s happening? Help, please.
-# "I just want to be able to go home.”
Forty-One pushed his tray away, appetite dulled by a static churn of unformed thoughts. He stood, gathered the remains of his meal with one hand, and left the Golden Griddle without a glance back. The corridor outside was alive with noise and motion — none of it registering beyond surface level. He moved through it on muscle memory, stopping only once at a supply kiosk. A bag of popcorn. A few foil-wrapped snacks Qor preferred. He didn’t think about why. His hands just needed something to hold.
Then, the restrooms.
The door hissed open.
He stepped inside.
Something shifted — not visibly, not in motion, but in pressure. The room was thick. Still. Not empty.
Forty-One paused just long enough to register it. He didn’t look around. He didn’t need to.
A presence flinched. Not sound, but something in the air tugged like tension in a cable.
He continued in, footsteps slow and even. His gaze settled on one of them — the only one looking back. Sweat clung to the boy’s face. His eyes were wide, rimmed with something close to fear.
Forty-One held the stare.
Then: “You’re bleeding into my air,” he said, voice even, cold. “So you’re going to start talking.”
No answer came.
His eyes swept once — enough to catalogue posture, breathing, the wreckage of the moment.
“Whatever this is…” He gestured with a flick of the hand, vague, disinterested. “I don’t care why. I care what.”
A beat.
“What spooked you? Who sent you? And how much trouble just followed you through that door?”
Still no response.
He shifted his weight forward, voice lowering. “You’ve got ten seconds. Then I stop being polite.”
<@1056685516441006091> <@244244163002892288>
“Help, please.”
That damned word. That damned, damned word. She hated that word.
Please.
“I just want to go home.”
A voice so small and broken.
Home? Home?
Home was dead and burned. But not his. Now was it? Selenian, something, he’d said. Coincidence? A plot? Was this some trickery, had they found her, had–
Please.
Damnation and rot and bloody all hell–
-# “Our family are healers, sweetpea. If we can help…if we can love…peace…”
She didn’t remember everything he’d said anymore. Didn’t have the words in the right order. The memory was broken too. But.
The stranger turned back around, looking at the man’s outstretched hand until it dropped. Only then did she take a step closer again, sighing.
“Look, mate, I–”
The door.
Footfalls
She was spinning between one rap of a boot and another, knives appearing in both hands, their black glass glittering in the bright, cheery overhead lights. A heartbeat, a hair’s breadth, the break of a line– nay, the drawing of it–
The choice was damnation. And yet–
She put her back to the panicking man, badgering him backwards with her body without actually touching him, trying to urge a retreat by pressing into his space. Instead she faced the newcomer with a smile like a sneer, her blades tucked behind her in a reverse grip, the pose almost non-threatening and innocent as she rocked back and forth on her heels.
“Making demands isn’t very polite in the first place,” she sing-songed, her figure cracking and shifting, growing taller. Cato would see the tail draw up and vanish beneath the edge of her hoodie as the legs lengthened. With a toss of her head, the hood fell back, and a wyrd Zabrak almost a copy of the newcomer stared back, only with a few key differences; black, empty eyes, a sloughing face, what seemed like blood running from around abused horns and out melting ears. “You’re not welcome here, whoever the hell you are. You’re unwanted. You’re irrelevant. Leave him alone.”
Forty-One’s hand hovered near his blaster. The trembling one was seconds away from getting flattened — a mess of panic and bad secrets.
Then the words hit.
“Leave him alone.”
No Force crackle. No blast of power. Just command.
It slammed through his mind like a coded override. Something bit deep in his brainstem and locked his limbs. His breath stalled. The world tilted half a degree left — wrong, like a crooked weapon sight.
He blinked once.
His blaster hand dropped. Not by choice.
His shoulders shifted, heat crawling up the back of his neck. The target — the real one, the soft one — was gone. Not physically. Just… off-limits. The air wouldn’t let him look. Wouldn’t let him move forward.
That wasn’t his call.
And that burned.
His jaw locked. His body still wired for violence, for dominance. But the trigger had been pulled out of his hands.
Forty-One turned his head, slow and mechanical, to the one who’d issued the command.
She stood there all confidence and attitude, blades drawn but loose. Not attacking. Not afraid.
He memorized every line of her stance.
“You should be careful,” he said softly — not a threat, but the kind of promise that aged well. “Next time, you’ll need more than a voice.”
He took one step back. Then another.
And just like that, he turned and walked out.
Not fast. Not ashamed. Just done — for now.
But he didn’t forget how it felt. Being told what to do. Being made to leave.
Next time?
He’d come back with the decision made before the door opened.
On the way out, he stopped at the general store. Picked up one of those too-sweet synthetic energy drinks and a foil pack of popcorn crunch. He cracked the seal, took a long sip, and let the sugar hit settle behind his eyes like static.
He wasn’t angry.
He was planning.
<@244244163002892288> <@1056685516441006091>
Only when the second stranger left – seemingly under the same spell that the hooded figure had cast on the rodian employee and had attempted to cast on him – did Cato remember to breathe. A sharp inhale pulled precious air back into his lungs.
“Mausli’s breath,” he exclaimed between labored breaths, “Who … who was that? And what did he want with me?”
<@244244163002892288>
“Bloody hell if I know, but he can’t have you,” remarked the figure, once they’d reconnected their tongue to the back of their throat. Mindful of how much their new charge was already freaking the hell out, they added, “I’m going to fix my face, don’t look a second unless you’re strong of stomach.”
Thus began the detour: she approached one of the mirrors over the sinks, closing up tiny blood vessels she’d left open, retracting skin folds and realigning teeth, all without actually changing the outward features. It wasn’t perfect, but the face then she beheld in the mirror was at least close to the man that just accosted them. Wiping off the blood with a bit of water, she turned back around, pointing at her face and snapping her fingers for attention.
“Oi, Nepenthes, focus. Breathe. You’ve never seen that bilgescab before? Never? Look at this face.”
He shook his head. “No, nothing about this is familiar. Nothing at all,” he replied with an emphatic shake of his head, curly coppery locks shaking with his effort. “And how are you doing that? Changing your face? Are you a nekualli? A shapeshifting spirit?”
His breaths were frantic at first, but he eventually managed to slow them down, taking long, trembling inhales through his nose. His gaze fell to the floor. “I don’t know why any of this is happening to me….”
“Give the knave a prize,” they returned with sardonic cheer, their smile shifting. Literally. It was frustrating to keep hearing he didnt know kark all, but so it was. She made note of the face of a new enemy and then let it melt away. “Most don’t catch on to the shapeshifting so quickly. Not a spirit, though, just an experimental abomination. Perhaps like you. Or perhaps you’re just entering your age of majority. Pubescence. How old are you? Here.”
They had stored their daggers somewhere and now offered him the flask from their hip.
Forty-One exited The Shame Corner with clinical precision, the automatic doors parting in silence behind him.
The station’s pristine corridors glowed with soft ambient blues and golds, polished floors reflecting the directional lights with corporate enthusiasm. Somewhere overhead, a gentle chime played — the kind designed to keep spacers calm and spending. It didn’t reach him.
He adjusted the strap of the branded tote bag they’d insisted on giving him. In it: – A boxed set of antique surgical tools, each piece secured in polished foam. – A chilled canister of preserved Trall root, still misting from the cooling unit. – A sealed ampoule of Qalun syrup, dark and slow-moving inside its crystalline case.
All for Qor. Collected without comment, though the sales assistant had tried to upsell a matching med-holster set. He hadn’t responded.
The Shame Corner — all neon smiles and curated scents — faded behind him as he crossed into the docking wing. Gravity held firm, artificial and exact. Around him, other travelers meandered: a pair of off-duty pilots laughing too loud, a Mirialan trader carrying stacked crates of fruit preserved in gold foil. None paid him any mind.
He preferred it that way.
His ship awaited — silent, cold, and locked down tight. Just like him. Forty-One walked on without looking back, the items secure, his next orders only a breath away.
<@244244163002892288>
The grizzled old man stepped down from the transport, his cold blue eyes scanned the storefront with a raised eyebrow.
“Fudge? Jerky?” He said softly to himself in a voice roughened by damaged vocal cords more than age. “Frellin’ wonderful.”
He was a large man, both in sheer presence and in physical size. A retired man as some knew, a dead man as some had believed. Someone everyone hoped would stay under whatever rock he had been under.
But, times had changed. A contract had been offered and, with nothing really better to do, he had accepted a job for…something. Ridiculous pay, health benefits, room and board. He just had to get there.
Where the blazes was the Nilgaard Sector anyway? Maybe they had updated maps on hand here.
“I just turned eighteen a few months ago,” he responded, “What do you mean an "experiment?…”
Cato took the flask and looked it over suspiciously, then unscrewed the cap to smell it. It set fire to his nostrils, prompting him to recoil for a moment. “Gods, what is this, starship fuel?” He sighed. One thing his mother taught him was to not deny a gift freely given, lest you offend whoever offered it. With his fingers pinching his nose, the young Selenian took a small swig of the alcohol, and promptly began coughing when liquid fire spread through his chest.
“That can’t be legal.”
“Alright, for the last time, no talking.”
Carmen stopped Bebe, his hulking custom B2 battle droid as she began to step off the shuttle they had been bumming a ride on. Carmen had spent most of his time in the Brotherhood avoiding the eye of those who would hand out responsibility, but now that that whole plan was moot, he had been taking every opportunity to bounce around the galaxy, see what he had been missing. It had certainly been interesting, even if it involved a frustrating amount of fighting. He had learned much, grown richer, and had become… aquainted with many kinds of people.
“Shame Corner,” he muttered to himself, as much as his droid, “I’ve heard that just about anything can be found here. I don’t imagine that’s more than an exaggeration, but we should still be set if it’s a fully loaded waystop, at the very least.”
Bebe raised a hand to reply, but stopped short of actually speaking at a glare from her creator.
“Good, you’re learning. Alright, come along. Hopefully this won’t be a wasted trip.”
Carmen waved forward Bebe to follow and stepped inside the sliding front doors.
Cackling, bell-peal laughter erupted from the changeling before him, mirth that had started to curl their malformed lip at the face he’d made, and then outright giggles when he pinched his nose. They clapped their hands over their mouth, trying to stifle it, smother it. Hard, stoney fingernails even bit red lines into their cheeks, and one hand pressed to their throat, a real attempt to choke it off, but there was no grace, no salvation; tears were rolling from their eyes they were laughing so hard, and they lost their balance and fell back on their rear while the Selenian coughed and wheezed.
“L-l-l– hahahah– l-legal! Legal! Oh, sweetbriar and mallow, heheh!”
It was a half-concious thing, the change. The face she was wearing wasn’t one of hers, a new mark on her list who had frightened her charge. She was sloughing it off like someone would flick their hands in disgust after touching something unknown and wet. But the way her face reformed, that was a traitorous thing, shaped and sculpted by the laughter. She hadn’t laughed like this since she left the Crows–
She caught it almost too late, but managed at least to pivot. It helped to have a model in front of her. As she finally caught her breath, lungs grasping violently for air that burned, the young woman that looked to Cato smiling and wiping her eyes in amusement was a new person too near to a truth. Short white hair with pastel highlights fell in soft waves to her chin, a mirror of his haircut, and gold eyes peered at him from a sweet face of indeterminate age and gender, somewhere between delicately pretty and squarely handsome. The skin was still pale lichen too, but now striped like a Selenian’s, graceful, knife-fine lines ending in sharp points, fanned like leaves. Of notable curiosity was their shade: not at all close to her skin tone, but purple, gold, and red, more like tattoos. No tail peeked from anywhere, though small bumps near the front of her bangs could’ve been hidden horns.
-
She grinned madly as she climbed back to her feet and gave the young man a vigorous slap on the back, easily plucking her flask back out of his grip and taking a swallow. She didn’t so much as twitch an eyelid.
“Legal is the least of your problems right now, petal, I promise you that. Worry not; you’ll adjust soon enough. Now come along. We can’t stay where that cur knows we were. Better to be out in the open with pliable and sympathetic witnesses. We’ll fix you a snack and be on our merry way.”
She snagged his hand quick as a snake strike, tugging him for the door.
Davin Lusca watched as people disembarked from the shuttle. He remained where he was, waiting for the last one to leave before making his move. He was still hidden from view as far as most eyes could tell, as he had been since he boarded the shuttle on Bespin, and for various parts of the journey from Cantonica to Coruscant before that. It had been a long trip, but luckily it had afforded him the opportunity for some rest once he realized he wasn’t being followed. Even so, it didn’t hurt to be careful, hence pulling the Force around him as a precaution, and a habit as well.
He stepped off the shuttle and crossed the docking area, sticking to the shadows out of habit. Finally, he dropped the cloak and made his way to the entrance, heading inside. He’d long heard of the Shame Corner among people in the know, but he had yet to visit. The promise of a safe space was quite the allure, and it would hopefully give him a chance to relax after his last job. Maybe even get a drink. That would hit the spot.
It was going to take some reacclimating to get used to a non ice covered planet again.
That was the idle thought crossing the mind of the Pantoran who had paused in the docking lot to stare up at the sphere encompassing the space station, keeping the frigid vastness of space from collapsing down onto them. Sharp, blue eyes drifted down to the bold sign announcing the establishment. The Shame Corner. Curious name, yet not a locale he thought they would have stopped at. Such was Galactic travel, right?
Kis'lui Eevux sighed and ran a hand through his wavy, faded orange locks to correct them from the tossing the drafts of passing ships had given them. He straightened the crisp white dress shirt he wore beneath his tan, open front and high neck jacket before heading on inside. The hiss of the hydraulic doors was immediately followed by a blast of cool air, disheveling the quick tidying he had just done. Kis'lui paused, noted with pursed lips above his golden inked chin, and accepted his fate.
There was a mission given to him, or more like he had taken it upon himself. To find and return with some greasy food and caffeine for a hungover patron. The Pantoran man glanced around the storefront while he strolled. A moment later he spotted a grilled food section and strolled over to peruse its wares.
“Any recommendations?” Kis'lui asked, flashing a small smile to the Sephi woman also examining the goods.
“It depends on how much you hate yourself.” She replied quickly with a flat tone.
Despite her grumpiness and lack of alcohol, it was true. While not dangerous for you, or not cooked well enough, each greasy item had it’s own downfalls from intestinal distress to just feeling icky. She once ate something here wrapped in a corn husk that had been on the roller grill, and couldn’t get the feeling of grease off her fingers for at least a week.
“The things rolled in corn tortillas are good for hangovers but the hotdogs you can load with just about anything from over there.” Without looking away from the grill, as if mesmerized, she pointed to the selection of condiments to the left of the grill. Crystal blue eyes squinted as if they were tracking prey… or like a grumpy kitten about to pounce on a toy.
“Stay away from the Tamal. They’re Mandalorian and spicier than you think. They’ll also leave you feeling like you need a bath for ages.”
“Uhh … okay? My stomach has been rumbling … but what do you mean we’ll be on our way, afterward?” Cato asked while following along, barely avoiding tripping on his own feet as his eccentric stranger dragged him along.
“I know, I’ve been listening to it since you got in hear,” she said, and then, “say, do you know any flora from your home world?”
His second question was summarily ignored as they went back out among the store proper. She paused them just outside the door, holding his hand diagonally behind her back in a crushing grip that forced him close, effectively shielding him with her body. Her eyes scanned left, right, up and all around, before tension relaxed from her like an unstrung bow and she proceeded to lead them around. She snatched someone’s shopping basket when they turned towards a display, dumped out the knickknacks, and was on her merry way, plotting a hyper jump towards the various stocked aisles rather than the hot food lines or diner.
Finally: “You’re obviously on the run. Whoever that was out for you, for whatever reason, whether he is relevant or not, there’s still that little confessional of yours: ‘I don’t want to hurt you too.’”
It was Cato’s own voice that echoed back at him briefly before it was ‘hers’ again.
“You have no bloody idea what’s happening to you, you’ve committed some violence you must call a crime given you bother with legalities, and you spouted something about being trapped. Thus the conclusion: I am keeping you safe now, so you’ll just have to come with me.”
As she spoke, she’d been busying them along, snatching various items off the shelves, some quickly, some pausing to peruse the labels for ingredients before either putting them back or taking them. It was an eclectic mix in their basket, and it wasn’t even all food. There was rubbing alcohol in there, an electrolyte mix, a tub of vacuum-sealed waxing lard, a carton of salt…
The server that approached him started cheerily enough, giving a practiced, “Welcome in, what can I–” before he cut off upon noticing his next guest was crying. “Oh, kark. Hey, are you okay?”
The man was presumably a Near-Human of some kind, with eyes so bright electric blue they glowed like a Chiss’, and a deliberately wild shock of tousled, half-slicked back golden hair. His name tag read Ray, and he had been writing on a pad of flimsi with a pencil. He grimaced at the sight of the droid.
“Sorry, that’s probably an ignorant question.” An electric gaze flicked over the man, checking idly for obvious injuries beyond the scorch. “I see your friend didn’t make it in one piece. But are you hurt? We have medics here.”
Nox didn’t look up right away.
He sat hunched over the table, one gauntleted hand resting beside the twisted remains of BD-NE - a shattered dome, a single scorched leg, fragments that had once whirred and chirped beside him through every hellhole in the galaxy.
When he finally spoke, his voice was low and frayed, like it hurt just to form the words.
“No medpack’s gonna fix this.”
He drew a shaky breath, eyes rimmed red, jaw locked tight. A tear slipped down his cheek - he didn’t wipe it away.
“I’m not hurt,” he added, barely above a whisper. “Not like that.”
His gaze lifted then - tired, hollow - and met Ray’s, the soft blue glow behind them dulled by sorrow. “He was more than a droid. We’ve been through… everything. Every mission. Every screw-up. He knew how I take my caf. He patched my armor. He—” Nox’s throat caught. He looked away.
“I wasn’t fast enough,” he said after a moment, fingers curling gently around what was left of BD’s dome. “He warned me. I ignored it. Thought I could beat the lockout.”
Silence pressed between them for a beat, thick and heavy.
“I just needed… somewhere that wasn’t a corridor. Somewhere that smelled like food and didn’t echo.”
His voice cracked as he asked, quietly:
“Can I stay here a minute?”
Davin glanced around as he made his way inside the station proper. He’d been to rest stops before, but none came close to what he was seeing. So much merchandise, so many food and snack options. It was almost overwhelming. But then he spotted the signs helping to direct people to different places. He noted where the diner was in case he wanted to grab something there later, then the bar’s location, setting off in that direction, but not before seeing something else of interest.
Sleeping pods? That could come in handy. It’d be good to get some real rest, somewhere that wasn’t a shuttle seat or floor.
He moved through the crowds of people milling about, winding his way further inside. Trained movements guided him along the way with minimal effort, making sure not to bump into anyone. He idly wondered how easy it would be to just reach out and lift something from some stranger’s pocket. But he pushed that thought down. It was better not to cause any trouble, even if he was sure that he could get away with it.
Then, finally, he arrived The sign read Seven Sins Bar. An interesting choice of name. Was it just random, or was there some deeper meaning to it? Then again, it didn’t matter. He stepped inside and found a seat at the bar that afforded him at least a partial view of the entrance, just in case. You could never be too careful.
Her eye rose, and a mischievous smirk crossed her ruby lips.
“Lion,” she greeted out loud, but Muz was spoken telepathically.
The smirk almost turned into a shit-eating grin. With it came all the amusement of having heard such a twist of his first name. Of course, it obviously meant she had met his long-lost sister.
It did not go unnoticed that Ashen had spoken her name aloud. Though he knew that Socorra was merely a pseudonym. It was definitely a thing.
In her mother tongue of Olys Corellisi: “Ol'val. Uhl venho alcontuci Valle, Olys dul’skal.” Hello. The wind brings you, old friend.
The Old Corellian language was poetic in its phrases, likely something the Kyataran would enjoy. Unfortunately, it was lost to the Black Sands of time to all but Socorran natives, scholars, and few other interested parties.
Like Leena. If she had studied its dialects, Bharhulai was strongly present. A famous anthropologist believed that the Bharhulai may have descended from a crashed Corellian colony ship and regressed to their current savage state, creating a survival-regressive-isolationist tribe.
It was a miracle that someone with such high intelligence had both been born among them and able to leave the planet.
It had been some time since the Lion and the Dark Phoenix had conversed, but with the branches and bends of the timelines it felt like it was only yesterday. His presence hadn’t changed much, though it rarely did. Still iron and anchored, but it was different here on the station. Among the mess of spacers, grease, and neon candy bins, Ashen was something old and quiet brought into something new and loud. And somehow, it actually kind of worked.
She smiled at his smile.
Socorra’s fingers twitched just before Turi’s little hand found them. He looked up at Lord Ashen with no hesitation, turquoise eyes wide and curious, becoming wider at viewing his black eyes. He was used to his cousin’s white eye, and his mother’s missing one.
He clung to her leg, slightly hiding behind it, and threatening to pop his thumb into his mouth. But still he stared, sensing her confidence and trust in the very strange man.
“T’is one mine,” she said, resting a hand lightly on his head and ruffling his dark hair. “Turhaya.“ Bright Star. More beautiful words in her language.
Turi puffed up a little bit with pride.
Her pale eye blinked past Muz now, to the women at his flanks. She arched a dark brow at the dimming eyes and the snort.
“Sah, t’ere’s caf,” she said, lifting her own cup. “If machine no take offense.”
Then to Leena, finally acknowledging her:
"You were right.”
Another sip. Her tone stayed dry.
“I seen worse odds.”
Cato nodded sheepishly. “Yes, I do. It’s a tropical planet, so we have a ton of different plant species. Why?”
When she snatched someone’s basket and emptied its contents in a small storage bin nearby, he opened his mouth to protest, yet he decided against it when she repeated his words back to him … in his own voice. “Can you not do that? It gives me the creeps.”
As much as he hated to admit it, she was right, though. He’d gotten himself in big trouble, and he knew he could couldn’t go back home right now, maybe ever. The pain of that realization was going to make his heart crack in two if he thought on it too much. Distractions. He needed distractions. His savior was plenty eccentric enough to give him those in spades. “What is all this stuff? I thought we were getting a*food*.”
“This person needs a name,” they explained to his initial question about Selen, gesturing at her face, then down their body. “In our family, we are named for flowers, plants, trees, etcetera. Preferably something with appropriate meaning, but lacking such information, any species of yours will do.”
Evidently satisfied as she examined her haul, whispered counting under her breath, she turned them on towards the food food and towards the diner. Only its promise was snatched away as she made a hard left into merchandise and bake ware, and pulled a blender of all things off the shelf. It was allegedly shaped like a tailring curled around a treasure pile base inside its box. She lead them then to another corner of the store altogether, where some comfortable seats and electronic posts offered outlets for charging devices.
The unnamed one pointed for her companion to sit, then started unboxing the blender then and there.
“We’ll get you food food too,” she said eventually, as things started getting unwrapped and dumped in. “This is more…Collecting around three pounds of cholesterol, phospholipids, salts, proteins, carbohydrates, water, such and so on…the garbage compactor equivalent of a Near-Human brain. It’s not what you need, but you seem opposed to what you need, so we’ll at least try a stop-gap. Going to be vile. But hopefully you don’t taste with those probosci. I’m not actually sure on that aspect. It’ll be curious to learn.”
As Davin moved into the bar, he beheld an interior that was a mix of lackidasical, antiquated dinner club and modern neon, well-lived and well-loved, all its dents and scratches polished. Along with several other patrons, there was the bartender, a Gamorreen woman with thick slabs of muscle and thicker curves, her form round and plump, belying a strength underneath. Her skin was pinkish orange, a sweet salmon hue, and short tusks pushed from either side of her wide lips. A ruffle of orange hair was messy around her face, capped in pigtail buns, and her porcine ears were heavy with helix piercings in their tapered ends. Orange eyes met the new arrival’s and a thick brow cocked in question.
“What can I get you?”
Davin’s brain, already processing other thoughts, ground to a halt for a moment. That’s right, he wanted a drink. He reminded himself again that, by all accounts, this was a safe spot that had a set of rules they adhered to firmly. And also that if anyone had followed him before, he likely lost them before on one of his transport changes. He was always careful about making an exit after a job and when traveling in general, he should be fine. This was just one more stop before he finally made it back home. Or at least back to his ship that would take him home.
“Just a whiskey, please. Neat,” he said as he looked at the bartender, offering a polite smile.
The tender offered him a tusked smile, short but friendly, and grunted with an affirmative. She rotated around to fetch glass and liquor, then poured his cup and slid it over.
“You let me know if you need anything else, or just want to chat.” Her ears wriggled, flicking with a jangle. The bar wasn’t empty, but it wasn’t overly busy either.
“Thanks.” He took a sip then looked at the glass for a moment before setting it down on the bar top again. “I’ve never been to this station before, but I’ve heard a lot of good things. I’ve always been curious though, what’s the story here?”
Nox let out a ragged breath. “A hug might break me,” he said quietly. “But… thanks.”
His gaze dropped to the broken dome. He brushed a thumb across it, careful, like it might still feel.
“I don’t know what’s left. The memory core’s deep. If it survived, maybe there’s something—just a flicker.”
He looked back at Ray, eyes tired but clear.
“If someone here can check, I’d be grateful. More than grateful.”
A pause.
“He wasn’t just a droid. He was my best friend.”
“But I have a name,” he said, “It’s Cato. And what do you mean a near-human brain?!”
He threw his hands up in a mildly panicking denial of whatever it was she’d just said. “I need you to just … slow down. What are you going on about? What’s this talk of phospho-whatevers and brains?”
The girl-thing finally paused, saffron eyes suddenly snapping to his face with a black and depthless intensity.
“Cato,” they intoned, slowly, tasting the consonants, tonguing the vowels. Like possession. Like something that belonged. “Freely offered, but not given. Cato. A pleasure to meet you.”
She waved a hand then, both gesturing him nearer and hushing him, focusing back on her work with a huff.
“Come now, come here, sit down and breathe. Sit, petal. I’ll…slow down, a taddle bit.”
Somewhere, there was a customer demanding to return an opened item that was two weeks outside its warranty date.
“Gotcha,” Ray replied, easing back at the denial of a hug. He nodded encouragingly at the request to check for the droid’s recovery, and offered a tight, sympathetic smile. “I bet he was. Is. I’ll be right back, okay? See who we can find to help your friend. And I’ll get some caf and extra napkins over…”
Waving down his fellow server, Ray left quick directions as he untied his apron and left it was Naomi at the hostess stand. He took off at a quick clip for the staff rooms, already thinking about who was scheduled today and frowning as he mentally sorted options, thinking of the people he could comm to come in. The man slowed when he caught sight of a few people hanging out and chatting in the walkways as some kids ran past him, both because one of those people was Muz Ashen but also, more importantly to him in that moment, because one was a familiar duo.
“Leena!” Ray called, jogging up. “Hekate. Hey. Welcome in, and all, good to see you again, but could I actually bug you for a minute? You might be just the folks I need.”
<@284848346672136192>
“Welcome to the cult,” chuckled the bartender with a rumbling grunt and hiccup. “You mean, what’s the idea, or what’s the story? History and such.”
Leena grinned at the notion. Not just at her being right, but at the premise of caf, at the giggling child. All too many of them that called the Brotherhood some manner of home had images to uphold, and giggling children were hardly a part of that dreariness. She nodded in response to the woman, her own tongue twisting in the Old Corellian, hopefully with less accent than she had hoped. “[May she always find water.]” At least, she had hoped that she remembered the blessing correctly.
“Oh good.” Hekate chirped, her tripled voice clipping abruptly at the end. “Wait, why? Was the caf machine acting up?” Their photoreceptors LEDs switched, giving the impression that their eye was twisting upward in an approximation of confusion. The programming and build that Leena had spent so very many hours working on seemed to have paid off. Leena shrugged off the question, her mind twisting in memory, in her work. In the fine wires and solder points she had done for Hekate’s ‘eyes’. And the old saying seemed to bear fruit in that work.
Eyes were the gateway to the Soul.
Or maybe that wasn’t it. Maybe there was something nebulous about it, something uncontrolled, something she hadn’t accounted for in her endless replaying of what she had done over the years for the droid. Droids. Or if it was just the eyes.
Leena paused, wondering if he had heard her thoughts. If she had. Her own eyes darted from Hekate’s photoreceptors to the Lion’s, scarred featureless and black by something he didn’t talk about. She knew he could see, he had shared enough of his visions with her directly to be sure of that.
The sheer number of people with eyes that would be considered unique in the rest of the universe seemed to be so commonplace so as not to be noteworthy in Brotherhood space. Missing eyes, scarred black, replaced with technology or alchemy, genetically modified, or just something tied to bloodlines, it didn’t matter. More people seemed to have something going on there than not. Then again, this was the Brotherhood she was considering. Powerful, strange, and broken, all. Perhaps there was more to them than just windows.
Hekate’s elbow nudged her to respond to the man with the electric personality. The one she had barely registered as having approached. Leena shook her head acutely, her left lekku sliding back off her shoulder again before she gingerly replaced it. “Ray…” She turned to look at Muz, then back at him. “What can I help with?”
Muz watched as the man led her off, Hekate turning to bow before tromping off to follow the pair. It was good that she was making …friends. He paused in thought himself, then turned to Socorra again, a knowing glance and an overstimulated twitch of his eyebrow.
Caf then.
<@244244163002892288> <@204034522033946625>
“Well, we just had a customer come in with a pretty badly damaged droid…he’s devastated, says they’re his best friend. I know you’re pretty good with them yourself, so I was hoping maybe you could take a look? See if there’s any hope to offer? All my Binary-brained friends are at home right now,” Ray explained as he lead the couple back towards the diner. He was mindful not to get too close to Hekate, staying on Leena’s other side, but smiled at her and mimed a faux heart shape with his hands.
Leena nodded, half smiling back as she regained her focus with each step. “I’d be glad to take a look. Even have my tools with me, so they’re lucky…”
Well, ish. Leena felt her mind wander a moment. A simple sort of repair would be certainly fine. And she could rebuild just about anything, but at what point did the other thing happen? What suffering would that cause? To any of them? There had to be a responsibility there, and she was rather foggy on the details of exactly how and when that would happen. Maybe it wasn’t that bad. She could sort it here, with spanner and spit, without resorting to the things that she hid from these people and their politics.
Leena shuddered, subtle enough that only Hekate seemed to notice. She turned her head a degree and nodded encouragingly. Leena snorted, equal parts relief and humor sliding out from under her dread. Of course it would be fine. And if it wasn’t?
Well, there were ways around that.
Davin thought for a moment. He was always a bit of a curious person, so he couldn’t help but wonder about such things. “A bit of both, I guess. I’m curious about how it all came to be, but the concept of pay what you want is also pretty surprising.”
The walk to the diner was brisk with Ray’s urgency, and he nodded to Naomi as he went by the host stand. He lead Leena and Hekate right back to Nox’s table and his ruined droid friend.
“Hey, good news, I found a regular here who happens to be a genius with droids, and another friend too.”
He gestured between them all. Thankfully, there was already a steaming carafe of caf on the table, left as he’d instructed.
“I’ll get some more cups for you guys.”
<@204034522033946625>
“Well,” grumbled the Gamorreen, rubbing at one ear idly, “when m'sister and her sisters started this place, they wanted it to be a sanctuary. S'mrewhere safe. And it just got bigger and bigger. But part of safe is being able to have things. To be able to have food, have water, take a warm shower and feel clean, have good clothes. Basics a'course, but also other things. Fun and silly things. Candy and snacks. Without any barriers about what you can afford, you know? The Galaxy is a biiiiig, dark, cold place. Better have a little light in it. So if you can pay something, and want to, go ahead. But if you can’t – you still get to enjoy it here.”
She chortled then, pointing at the whiskey.
“Except for drinks. Drinks are a charge mostly cause otherwise we’d never keep up in stock. Plus it helps upkeep.”
He nodded along as he listened to the story. It was a noble idea. Ambitious, even. He liked it.
He smiled as he raised his glass and took another sip. “Yeah, that all makes sense to me. Wish there were more places like this around the galaxy, but it’s a start at least. I always try to pay my way whenever I can, but it’s still nice to have the option here for anyone that can’t for whatever reason, or can pay for part of what they’re getting. I can definitely see the appeal of coming here on repeated trips.”
Cato nodded cautiously before sitting across from her. “You speak strangely …,” he said, “and you never told me your name.”
He watched her mix the contents into a bowl, scrunching his face as all the parts bled together into a gray, utterly unappealing sludge. “You don’t expect me to eat that, do you?”
The girl-thing scoffed. “I speak like I speak, in proper metre, unlike most louts. And I am trying to get you to give me a name– hence needing a Selen plant. Gender doesn’t matter. I can be whichever you prefer. This face doesn’t have one yet, and it needs one. I cannot give you my true name. It belongs to another. And frankly, I can’t risk giving you the true me either. Not yet. Not again. So pick a damn flower you know and call me that, Cato.”
She jabbed her absconded stirring spoon towards his face, like casting a spell.
“And yes, you’re going to eat it. I’ll take some to suffer in solidarity if you like, but you’re suffering hunger pains food can’t fix, and this is an experiment to see what options we have available besides finding people for you to eat. And yes, I will explain more of that. But it’s a whole species anatomy lesson. So give me a name, start eating, and I’ll try to teach you something. Savvy?”
Ducking a bit as he walked the ramp of the shuttle, the tall Lasat stretched from the trip. His sharp green eyes caught the stares of more than a few people as he stood at the bottom of the ramp, waiting for the rest of his team.
“Come on you lazy lot,” he growled in a deep matter of fact tone. “Mistress Tahiri gave us strict orders.”
“Vam, you big lug, she gave us orders to enjoy ourselves, I wouldn’t exactly call that strict,” sighed the Ewok who trotted down the ramp. Sniffing the air, he licked his lips. “Ooooo she wasn’t joking when she said this place smelled good.”
“Mmmmm, you’re right Edi.” A tall Cathar joined the pair, taking a deep breath. “Mistress Tahiri did say there was a place called the ‘Golden Griddle’ with great food, and another called the ‘Seven Sins Bar’ where there are very good drinks.”
“I could definitely go for a good drink.” A quiet, yet melodic voice cut through the deeper toned voices. A lithe Nagai walked gracefully down the ramp, checking his over shoulder bag for a few things, before turning his gray graze to the station and the people within. “Hmm she said it would be a bustling place. Krosk is not going to like this.”
“I could give two Bantha farts about what he likes and doesn’t like,” Vam growled as he came back to the ramp. His voice boomed as he called to the last member of their party, “Krosk! Let’s go! Get your wire crossed brain out here. Don’t make me send Raz and Tigrus to fetch you.”
The other three looked between each other and just shook their heads. They chuckled as a Weequay male finally poked his head out of the shuttle. He had his specialized pair of technicians goggles on, which made his eyes look five times bigger than what they were.
“Captain, I’ll only be five more minutes. The calibrations are sensitive and I ca-”
“Krosk, don’t give me that frack. We all know that within two to ten minutes, you’ll change the calibrations just like that.” Vam interrupted, rolling his eyes and motioning towards the doors of The Shame Corner. “We have a rare opportunity to actually have some free time and I’m not going to waste it trying to drag your ass off the shuttle. Now either you come with us now, and we all have some fun. Or you stay in the shuttle and work, while we have fun.”
“And if the latter happens, I will sedate you everytime you even start to complain that you missed out on the fun.” Raz emphasized the soothing melodic tone of his voice, by tapping his shoulder bag with his left hand, a small smirk the only emotion he showed on his long face.
Krosk took off his googles, displeased squinting at his comrades, then with an exaggerated sigh disappeared back around the entryway. Vam set his jaw, waiting a few moments, before turning and lumbering his way towards the entrance. The other’s silently looked between the shuttle and their Lasat leader, all shrugging in unison, then followed Vam.
As the mismatched gang of four stepped inside the entrance, they heard heavy boots padding after them. Edi and Tigrus glanced at each other, both smirking as they realized why Vam and Raz had talked privately right before they docked.
“Glad you decided to join us, Krosk,” Vam glanced over his shoulder at the Weequay, who was adjusting his own shoulder bag. “You know Mistress will ask all of us what we liked about this place.”
“I know. I know,” he mumbled under his breath, before his stomach loudly rumbled. He stopped dead in his tracks as the rest of the group turned to look at him.
“What?! I’m hungry, let’s go!” Krosk’s rough grey skin turned a shade of… well… some sort of greyish pinkish color, as he folded his arms in front of him like a child.
Vam grinned from ear to ear, bursting into a jovial laugh.
“I guess it’s the Golden Griddle first.” In one long stride, he was suddenly beside Krosk and had wrapped his hulking arm around the Weequay’s shoulders. Pulling him along, the group headed straight for the Golden Griddle to grab some grub.
Nox lifted his head as Ray returned with company, eyes landing on the newcomers.
“Thanks,” he said, voice worn but sincere. “Didn’t expect backup.”
He nodded to Leena and Hekate, then gestured to the scorched pile of BD-NE’s remains. “I know my way around a core and a circuit board. Normally I’d handle this myself.”
His jaw tensed. He exhaled slowly through his nose.
“But right now? I don’t trust my hands not to shake.”
He gently turned what was left of the droid to face them. “If the memory core’s intact, I can walk you through the architecture. Or if you’d rather get hands-on, I’ll back off.”
He hesitated, then added quietly, “He wasn’t just gear. He was family.”
“I understand.” He was one of the good ones. All too often, people did treat droids as a disposable bit of kit, not caring for them long-term. Utilitarian and cold was never her style. She knew what it was to be reduced to property.
“I’m Leena, and this isn’t as bad as it looks.” She managed a comforting smile, the kind that only grazed the edges of her eyes. “This is Hekate, and she’s exactly as bad as she looks.”
Hekate’s photoreceptors spun in place, the lighting swirling in annoyance as she let out a low rumble. A moment later, her tripled voice came out with a handful of credit chits. “I imagine we’ll be needing some of your amazing caf, Ray.”
Leena slipped her arm out of her pack’s shoulder strap as she slid into the booth across from Nox. The toolkit squawked as it dragged against the seat, her hand flipping the flap open to reveal a row of spanners and a diagnostic kit. A couple of probes flipped into her hand, the diagnostic probes with them. She slipped them onto the table, then pulled the attached datapad from its pocket and flipped it so that the grieving one could see.
It was bad, but not ‘end of service’ bad. Not for her, anyway. She’d salvaged far worse. They’d need parts, but what she didn’t have in her pack, she had a pretty good selection in the workshop on the Spear. This would take effort. Maybe even the workshop. She paused, her eyes focusing to the distance, watching the dark eyed Lion as he talked to the woman out of time. Good, he didn’t seem to be in a rush to leave yet.
A fast swab with denatured spirits to clean the contact wires, a quick resolder, a few quick twists, and the probes were put in place. Gingerly, she lifted the parts, unfolding an insulated mat beneath as Nox and Hekate leaned in to help. Fast fingers actuated the datapad, and a trickle of power energized the core, the personality matrix. She tapped through options, splitting the screen on the datapad so that diagnostics would run in a separate window. A few moments later, the abbreviated boot cycle finished, and lines of code started rapidly dancing across the screen. She realized she’d been holding her breath, so let it out as quietly as she could, the faults and damage picture becoming clear.
Her eyes glanced up, recognizing the look of abject despair on his face. Her mind raced, trying to think up something that would soothe him, keep his hands from shaking before the hot mug of caf would comfort. She could crank up the voltage, and run the subroutine through the splitscreen, giving that access to the microphone and speaker. It wouldn’t have much to actually look at, visual-wise, but…
“So…” Leena chewed her lip for a moment, realizing she hadn’t gotten a name, for him or the patient. “This is going to take a little while. Did you want to talk to him?”
“Alright, then, keep your secrets,” he muttered to himself before looking away, pondering her request, “There is a Dianthus genus that’s very common on Selen. Would that work?”
He flinched away from the spoon when she thrust it toward his face. “You’re quite the prickly person, aren’t you?” he said to her, puffing out his cheeks a little in a mocking pout.
“I definitely don’t want to eat anyone, so… I hope trying this slop will help.”
“So do I,” they replied, wiggling their white brows. “It’d be so much easier if we could just supplement for you. And yes, Dianthus will work. I don’t suppose its stems are prickly?”
Despite the sharp retort, her button nose wrinkled, and a small smirk pulled at lips to show fangs. The myriad of colored stripes on her skin matched the spotted-striped pattern of Cato’s in design, though their shape was more vine-like, almost floral.
Finished stirring, she poured some of the Concoction into an absconded novelty tankard, and pushed the rest of the blender towards him. A mock toast was raised.
“One for courage, two for taste, three to keep those suckers in your face.”
And with that she gave an absolutely disgusted cringe for a half second before she started chugging sludge.
Cato shut his eyes tight and and pressed the bowl firmly to his lips. He paused for a moment – should he really be doing this? Surely, there was some other, less disgusting way to get this done? A hand pressing on the back of the bowl said otherwise, causing him to forcibly gulp down the strange colored liquid.
After a few seconds of chugging, he put the bowl down, staring at the floor with a grim expression. “That … was … pretty good but it could use some salt.”
Dianthus, on the other hand, gagged mid-gulp, clearly choking down the whole thing. Perhaps it was the thickness in sludge texture or taste, but her eyes bulged out slightly as she coughed with her mouth sealed shut, an expert at not spitting out foul substances– if just barely. They beat at they chest as they struggled to finally swallow, tears in their gold eyes, and squint-glared at Cato’s success.
“More salt. S-ure. Next time, more bloody salt.” Gacking, she wiped her tongue on her stain-riddled sleeve without care for the hygiene, then took a gulp from that flask of hers and swished it around. “Sweet Moonlight Mother, karabast. Alright. Alright. I despise you, but I respect that. Let’s see how you feel in a tick of the tock, savvy? Meanwhile…”
She lifted a hand, waving in a presentory fashion, and in her palm suddenly was a small hologram, but in color, and emitting from seemingly nowhere. It looked mostly like a pallid man, with a rather flat and bulbous nose and black eyes, two slits on either side of his face. Out from those came suddenly long tendrils – probisci – that waved about.
“This is an Anzat. They’re a species, just like your Selenian, or that Echani at the front, or any Twi'lek, and so on suchly. You following, mate?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m following,” he replied, keeping his eyes glued on the hologram. While waiting for Dianthus to continue, he picked up the bowl and started to idly sip the remaining contents.
“Tiddleydo. Now, while they look typical enough of the Near-Human gradient on a phenotypical level, their physiology is notably peculiar. We can get into all the anatomy if you fancy it, but the prudent part for you is that as they mature they develop the ability to, in essence, drink life. What does that mean, scientifically? Absolute shite. It’s entirely unclear; more research is needed, but it isn’t as though most eukaryotes are electing to have themselves disassembled and dissected. I have witnessed more research,” a sudden and spiteful venom entered her voice, acidic enough to curl eat through the laminate and duracrete they sat on, “than most, but all we samples were chimerical mongrels.”
She flicked her fingers, twirling both hands hypnotically, and the images multiplied and changed. They were anatomical diagrams, focused on the head area, with different cross sections shown: plain, muscular, skeletal, from different planes of view.
- “Anzat have proboscis or haustellum, consisting typically of two tubes that concave inwardly and form a central tube up which nutrients are sucked. They have muscles for movement and extension, and suction occurs due to the contraction and expansion of a sac in the head, here.” She pointed again to a spot on one diagram. “Think of a straw, savvy? Millions of species of animal and insects do this, invertebrates and vertebrae. Only Anzati don’t drink nectar. They drink people. Brains. Souls. Life force. Power. The Force. Whatever.
Is it actually in the brain? We don’t know. But that’s where they usually stick the buggers, up in somebody’s cranium, and they consume from there. Do they liquify the brain matter and suck up the cerebrospinal fluid? Would they be fine with just the Cresh-Senth-Fenth if their probosci were evolved to puncture the spinal vertebrae? Who knows! I personally think it’s quite possible, hence our experiment here with your snack. Could be though it’s something entirely metaphysical, like dreams or the unknowable agony of knowing you have just lost a chance you will never have again. Maybe it’s unique to the Force. Maybe you’re a useless waste of calories if your midichlorians are below four millions per microliter.”
She shrugged.
“Point is, Anzati feed this way, and it’s a biological drive that seems to effect mood, reward centers, general health outcomes…you might be driven to slurp up someone’s insides like an addict to glitterstem. You might not. You might need it or waste away. You might be fine with normal old eating enough food. Do you know how much Anzat you are? If not we should find a sequence to run your gene sequence. It’ll help.”
Finally a beat, and she looked expectantly at him again.
“Still following, or you gonna throw up on me?”
<@1056685516441006091>
The tender smiled gamely back before her lips settled back around the jut of her large tusks. “It’s pretty great. And good for your generosity.” Dark eyes briefly flicked to the tip jar, then back, nodding to Davin as a few patrons came rambling on in. “Let me know if you need anything else, yeah?” <@232396983854301187> <@375384499770359819>
Meanwhile, at the diner, Naomi saw the group of five(?) coming and showed them a smiling muzzle. “Howdy, folks. We altogether? You want a booth or a table? Even got large size.”
Cato looked as if his own brain had been extracted, dropped into a turboblender, and put back in. Shaking his head to clear the haze that was beginning to form over his eyes, he stared at her. “Uh … sure, yeah. I think i got it. Tentacles, brain soup, biology jargon,” he replied, “hopefully I don’t need to do this to, you know, live.”
He looked down for a moment, pressing his lips tightly against one another before he spoke again. “I’d rather just die, if that were the case.”
A quick, abrupt hitch of breath and a gentle distention of air were all the warning Cato got before something cold, smooth and sharp pressed to his chin and lifted it. One of those earlier daggers, its blade wavey and dark black, glinting. Dianthus leaned forward over the blender, right up to his face, pressing with the knife ever so slightly against his jugular.
“Would you really?” she whispered, a breath between them. “Or would you rather live for every bloody breath you get?”
Just as he had before, Cato’s eyes widened when the blade suddenly appeared, and he became deathly still when its vicious point pressed against the soft skin of his throat. Though, as she posed her question, the fear present in those big eyes of his faded, supplanted by something darker. Something pitiful.
“If that was what it would take to keep me from harming another living soul …,” he muttered, the feebleness of his voice belied by a current of icy conviction drifting from the selenian’s mind out into the Force for Dianthus to detect.
A deep disappointment furrowed the experiment’s brows and shuttered the keen gleam in her eyes. Her shoulders caved with a sigh, and she moved to pull back when that icy hint drifted by, a cold snap. Knuckles tightened on the hilt of her weapon, and her eyes narrowed.
“You’re too kind, Cato. It’s a good thing I’ve got you now.” But who or what else thinks to stake a claim, hmm?
The next knife wasn’t glass or steel; it was a sliver of the mind, sticking pretty between parietal sutures and prying up the bone to bury into gray matter. She wasn’t harsh, not wanting to cause her new hers pain, but neither was her step soft, a reckless challenge to whatever else lurked.
Edi, who had managed to stay ahead of everyone else, looked up at the Shistavanen hostess, putting on his biggest smile, his sharp eyes managing to spot her name tag as she greeted them.
“Greetings, Miss Naomi. Yep, we’re all together. Table would be fine, large size is appreciated.”
Tigrus stopped in his tracks when he saw the golden, petite, bright blue eyed Shistavanen woman in front of him, and instantly straightened up, before giving her a bow. “Madam, it is a pleasure to meet you.”
The other men all looked at him with raised eyebrows, and astonished expressions, before looking at each other. Before anyone could say anything else, Vam cleared his throat, stepping forward and smiling warmly, bowing his head as well.
“Hello, ma'am. What Edi said, would be correct. Do you have any recommendations on food?” He smoothly took the attention, while making an unseen gesture with his hand to the Medic and Tech standing behind him now, they in turn also gave a slight bow. Although, they both still seemed quite bewildered by their comrades sudden case of manners.
Davin grinned and slid some credits across the bar and deposited some more into the tip jar. “That I will. Thanks,” he replied before taking another sip of his whiskey.
With some time on his hands now, and being able to think more clearly, his mind turned over the details of his last job as he set the glass down, watching the contents swirl slightly and settle down. It had come through one of his usual contacts, as was typical. He often took direct referrals, but preferred an impartial middleman, adding a layer of security just in case. This was one of the times he was grateful for it. The job was supposed to be simple: get in, grab the item, get out. He’d done countless like it before.
But everything went south from the start. The security outside the building was the same as reported, but inside was at least double what he had expected. More details that were wrong cropped up and one thing led to another. He was beginning to think that he had been set up. But he didn’t know if that was true, or who might have been behind it.
That was a matter for another time, and he would be sure to get to the bottom of it. For now, he’d enjoy a drink and the fact that he would be able to get some rest. Both things were made possible only because he felt certain that he hadn’t been spotted or followed. And the multiple destinations and shuttle changes didn’t hurt either.
He drained the contents from his glass and smiled at the bartender. “Actually, a refill would be great. When you’ve got a moment, of course.”
Naomi’s expression flattened into something distinctly unimpressed before a pasted smile was summoned back, and her enormous ears similarly flicked back in an uncontrollable display of annoyance.
“Sure thing, right this way,” she said, eyeing them all bowing, and seeming to conclude it was just another thing for another day in service life. She turned and lead them into the diner proper, more towards the back where the tables and booths increased in size and breadth. Not just in occupancy, either, but physically; they could likely hold Wookiees, Herglic, and Hutts in increasing order of magnitude.
She waved them to a large but not Large booth that could comfortably sit all of them, handing out menus.
“What we thinking to start?”
<@375384499770359819>
The bartender turned back over towards Davin at the call, having finished up with other customers while he thought and sipped his drink. She lumbered his way and poured another few fingers of whiskey, though hers were much thicker than his, so it was a relatively heavy pour.
“Doing alright, now? You look thoughtful.”
The mental intrusion yielded little more than a medley of scattered thoughts – what that delicious fried smell was, if Dianthus’ shape-shifting hurt as much as it seemed to, where he would go now when Selen didn’t, at least at the moment, feel welcoming to him any longer.
“Why does that sound like you’re ready to spring a trap on me?”
Dissatisfied, Dianthus pulled back, sighing and resisting the urge to stab him or burrow into her hoodie and not come back out. And drink.
Always, dri–
“It’s the fudge cream cookies, I think. What’s fried. I’m not certain, they fry everything and I’m only about halfway through the menu now.” She sat back on her haunches, then flopped onto her bum. Her scuffed boots nudged his feet and stayed there, a point of contact. “It hurts worse. And you are going to come with me. It’s not a trap. It’s a choice. And Cato. Listen carefully now. This is our bargain.”
Dianthus extended one hand.
“You be welcome with me, and I will protect you.”
“Thanks,” he said, before nodding. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just some puzzle at work that I’ll need to figure out. It’ll come to me in time, it usually does. Some wires seem to have gotten crossed somewhere along the line, so I’m trying to piece together where it could have happened and why, what other problems it might create. But it could be that I’m overthinking things, for all I know.”
She shrugged meaty shoulders. “You can talk it out if you wanna. Bartenders hear everything.”
“Hey! Don’t read my mind like that!” he said with a pout, crossing his arms. “And fried food is delicious, so I don’t blame them for that.”
He frowned when she confirmed that her transformations were painful, more so even than they looked. But when she mentioned a bargain, he turned to face her again. The proposal was a simple one. One twisted at a blade deep within him that he hadn’t realized was there. Or perhaps one he’d forgotten? His lips tightened.
“Friends?” he said while extending his hand slowly and clasping her own.
Dianthus stared at him a moment, looking at him as if he were she couldn’t understand, her lips mouthing the word in an echo, tasting the shape.
Friends?
Finally, she squeezed back, slowly shaking, up and down, three times precisely.
“Friends,” she agreed, and then pouted back. “Do I really have to not read your mind? It’s terribly convenient.”
He took a sip and grinned. “I appreciate the offer, truly. Unfortunately, I think this is just one of those problems that I’ll have to work through on my own. As luck would have it, I also have some…business associates that I can reach out to if needed, have them dig into things. I’ll get to the bottom of it, though, one way or another.“
“And what if you hear something private? No. You speak like a normal person,” he said, shaking his head.
“Said like someone privileged to have a working mouth, larynx, and lungs all his life,” sniffed the chameleon-Selenian. “Very well. I shan’t read your mind.”
Suddenly climbing to her feet, she pulled him up by their still-clasped hands and held on, seemingly content to leave the trash where it was. “Let’s go get something less foul for food, then, and then, find ourselves a ride…come to think, how did you even get to the station?”
Nox sat stiff in the booth, visorless, eyes red. His hands hovered over the mess of limbs and wires on the table like he was afraid to touch them - afraid they’d turn to ash if he did.
The soft chirp of the diagnostics brought no comfort. Just noise. Too clean. Too distant from the horrible stillness that had been BD-NE in his arms.
He swallowed hard and tried to speak. Nothing came out at first. His throat was dry. Raw. When he finally managed words, they were hoarse and cracked:
“…His name is BD-NE.”
He blinked hard, jaw trembling, and looked at Leena with wide, shellshocked eyes.
“I built him. From spare parts. First real thing I ever crafted on my own. Back home, the bullies used to joke about slicers not having real friends. So I said I’d make one. Took me a year just to get his balance servos right. Another three months for the voice module.”
He wiped his face with a trembling hand, smearing oil and tears across his cheek.
“He wasn’t just a tool. He learned stuff. Made these little beeps when I got close to finishing a job. Got into my datapad and started correcting my slicing code. He liked sweet sounds - refused to process alarms in anything above F-sharp.”
Nox let out a half-laugh, more a hiccup of grief than amusement. His shoulders curled forward, shielding the pieces on the table as if anyone might try to take them.
“He used to plug into my gauntlet and play old recordings when I couldn’t sleep. Even made me one - of my siblings, talking. From a holocall I’d saved. I didn’t even know he’d found it.”
He paused, hands clenched into fists now. He dared a glance at the datapad - the flickering lines of personality code sparking, incomplete but there.
“I’m not ready to say goodbye. I can’t. I don’t care if he doesn’t remember me right away, or if I have to rebuild him from the core up. Just…”
His voice broke again.
“Please… Let me hear him.”
Leena blinked her eyes away from Nox, locking her eyes on the wreckage in front of her. Hands flew, neurons fired, schematics rotating in her head as she pieced the architecture together despite the missing pieces. She didn’t know this man, but she knew this pain, and she wasn’t going to stare it in the face. Muz had taught her about the Tapestry, the weaving of fates that connected everyone, everything. Threads of the Force that held it all together. All that we know, all that we ever were, were just lines in the dark.
Lines that she could rebuild if she needed to.
Lines in the dark. So many had been repaired by her hands, by her will, and they did not have that luxury. Each twist she had made of fate’s thread seemed to create more suffering in the end. More witnesses to the cruelty of convenience, they would struggle with the knowledge of what they were. She paused, angling the datapad so that she could watch his reflection as she pressed the key. As the voice processor warbled tinny through tiny speakers. Lines flew under his eyes, the bootup sequence familiar in an unfamiliar venue. Logic processors tried to find the archived settings, the voice presets, but they weren’t present in the datapad vox processor. It chirped twice, accessing a deeper memory core, the soundwave crackling in static-filled binary before shifting into warbling common.
“Security challenge required: where did we earn our first chit?”
Leena waited, the faint smoke from the solder burning her eyes as she watched the reflection for his reaction. She blinked it away, the connection between the deeper cores and motivator units seeming to crumble under carbon scoring. Whatever trouble they had seen, it had been intense. She bit back a curse, glancing back at him through the reflection.
Tears broke the dam of his eyelids. In the mirror darkly that she watched him through, she couldn’t tell if it was relief, sorrow, fear, or all of the above. But behind all of those, one thing rang clarion and true.
This one knew love.
Consequences be damned. There wasn’t enough love in the universe, and maybe this would be her penance, a way to make up for all she had done, all she had made, to bring up her average.
Eyes darted around, looking for the telltale symbols, the icons of the clans, the societies, to see who was nearby, to see who would notice. It was habit more than anything, trying to keep herself away from the intrigues and plots that so often befell the brotherhood. Her eyes came to a stop, the familiar man being the answer. Anyone looking would look at him now. Not her.
She let her mask slip and felt the flavor of color rinse her skin.
Nox stared at the datapad. At the soft glow of lines scrolling across its face - a language that once felt like home, now speaking in fragments and static.
“Security challenge required: where did we earn our first chit?”
He didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. Didn’t blink.
The question shattered something inside of him. Not with noise - but with clarity. A perfect memory rushed in - uninvited, unstoppable.
______________________________
They’d been broke.
Fresh off their first system hop together, Nox half-starved and wide-eyed, BD-NE still with an unpainted shell and missing a left stabilizer. They’d landed on a backwater refueling moon and scraped together a half-baked slicer job: break into a vending console, reroute the credit flow, and extract the excess as “maintenance fees.”
It should’ve failed. Nox misjudged the firmware cycle. Got locked out mid-code.
But BD - he rotated 180, plugged himself into the fallback port, and spoofed a firmware update signal. Clean. Precise. Cocky. The screen blinked green.
“CHIT DISPENSED.”
A single, shining cred chit clattered out and rolled to a stop. Nox had stared at it, then down at his tiny droid, and whispered with breathless joy:
“You little genius…”
He’d picked BD up and spun him in a wide circle. They didn’t eat well that night, but they ate. Together. Laughing in the shadows of that cold, humming dock.
______________________________
Nox’s lips trembled.
“D-Dockside service panel. Sector Eighteen. Fuel moon near Ord Radama…” he whispered, his voice cracking. “We bought… instant noodles and fizzy caf. It tasted like engine coolant and joy.”
His words stuttered as he wiped his face on his sleeve. It did nothing. The tears just kept coming.
“I didn’t even know it’d count as a job,” he whispered. “But he did. He was so… proud. Like it meant something.”
He looked down at the droid’s cracked shell - the voice gone quiet again, the challenge met, but the system stuck in the limbo of boot.
Then- BEEP. A rising sequence of three tones.
BD-NE’s POST warning. Systems locked. Personality matrix suspended.
He knew that sound. Nox flinched as if hit.
His hand darted out - without thinking - and grabbed Leena’s. Tight. Desperate. Like a child bracing for the wave.
“I-I’ve seen this,” he said through a trembling jaw. “On network terminals back home. Corrupt init strings. The memory sector holds, but it can’t write to the logic board. It’s-”
He choked, eyes squeezing shut. The grief slammed into him like a wrecked speeder. Sharp. Hot. Total.
“It’s just… caught. Caught between waking and gone.” For a moment, he couldn’t move.
And then - Leena’s hand in his steadied him. The calm in her posture, the quiet grace in her expression, gave him something to hold onto.
“You’re sure…” he asked, barely above a whisper. “If I disconnect him now… he’ll be safe?”
Leena nodded once.
That was all he needed.
Delicately, Nox reached out and disconnected the datapad. His movements were reverent, almost ritualistic. He gathered BD’s pieces into his arms - cradling the little droid with the care one might show a wounded child.
No more words.
He stepped out of the booth, boots soft on the tile floor of the Golden Griddle. No armor clatter. No bravado. Just a young man carrying half of his soul in broken parts.
The Shame Corner service station wasn’t built for comfort, but he found it - a “Crew Reset Bay” tucked beside the sanitation units, meant for long-haul pilots on burnout. Inside was dark, with a narrow bench, a single lightstrip above, and soundproofing thick enough to swallow the hum of the station.
He sat down. Curled up. Pressed BD-NE’s frame to his chest, the soft rattle of disconnected servos echoing in the stillness.
And then, in that tiny, flickering pocket of the galaxy - Nox closed his eyes.
And slept…
The group fell in line behind her almost like soldiers. They quickly slid into the booth, the Ewok in the middle, with the others sat on either side, the Cathar somewhat more rigid than the others as he took one end spot. The Lasat taking the other end spot.
“Well, we heard you have some great fried foods,” Edi glanced over the menu.
“Could I get the BBLT sandwich, and a lemonade, please.” Raz was intrigued by the Bantha bacon, Revwien lettuce, and Tomato sandwich, from the moment he glanced at that side of the menu.
“If I could ask, I’d take whatever you recommend on the best fried fish,” Tigrus smiled, before looking like he had been poked, and stuttered. “Unless, of course, there is a better different dish you would recommend instead. I’m willing to try the thing here.”
Krosk pinched the bridge of his nose, groaning a little, “I’ll have the BBLT as well. But could I get the soup of day instead of fries?”
Vam requested fried veggies and fish, along with a mug of coffee.