Hyperspace, Headed to Ord Mantell
Mirage lifts her head and instinctively reaches up to her face. Her fingers running over the soft cloth covering her missing eye. She sits up and rubs her temples, trying to stave off the pounding headache.
I need a drink. She thinks.
Throwing her legs over the side of the bed and pulling her clothes on, she grabs her lightsaber and hangs it from her belt.
"Hey Mirage," Boba says, sitting in the corner of her room.
"Hells! Boba, how long have you been sitting there?" Mirage huffs.
"I've been watching over you for the last two days. You haven't woken, so Raul had me stay. Don't worry, I turned my head when you changed just now," Boba says flatly.
Sighing, Mirage turns to Boba as he stands up, "Get me a drink, will you, Boba?" Mirage sits back down, holding the sides of her head.
Boba tenses, "Uhh, I can't do that. Raul forbade it."
"Did he? Huh, last I checked, I'm the boss around here," she simmers.
"Can I ask you a question, Mirage?" Boba asks as he heads towards her door.
"Two questions, you mean?"
"Who is Marya Dune?" Boba stops at the doorway, not looking at her, back turned.
Mirage stills.
Boba continues, "It's just, the label on your door fell off and behind the Mirage label was Marya Dune. Is that who used to own this ship?"
Mirage thinks for a second and replies, "Yes. She used to own this ship. But not anymore."
"Did you kill her?"
"I did."
Mirage walks out of the captain's quarters and turns right. She follows the hallway to a stairway that leads directly to the cockpit. The cockpit area is an in-between deck of the habitation and operations decks. It's accessible by a half flight of stairs from either deck. Entering the bridge, there are four seats and a ladder leading down to the chin turret. Two are empty near the doorway, the pilot and co-pilot seats are occupied. A red ponytail hangs over the co-pilot seatback.
Mirage strides up to the pilot's chair, limping. She swivels the chair around to face Raul. Aurra turns to watch from the co-pilot's seat.
"Mirage, it's great to—" Raul starts to say.
She grabs him by the shirt collar and punches him across his nose, shooting blood onto the consoles.
"Mirage!" Raul flails against her grip.
She strikes him again, "You think you can tell me what to do?—" She hits him a third time, "—I'm the Captain of this ship, Raul. I decide when and where. I decide if I get to drink. Got it?"
Raul slurs, "Got—it—"
Mirage punches him one last time in the stomach and puts the Force into it. Raul slumps in the pilot's chair, then lifts himself over the armrest to vomit.
"He dumped all the alcohol on board Captain Mirage," Aurra snickers, "There's none left."
Mirage snarls. Raul wretches. Her shoulder and side ache. Boba takes a step back out of the bridge, hand on his blaster.
"Calm down Boba," Mirage breathes through her nose, not looking at him, "I'm not going to hurt anyone."
"Tell that to Raul," Boba tilts his head in Raul's direction.
Raul wipes his mouth and stands up. His arm covering his stomach, he shoves past Mirage and Boba steps aside.
"It's for the best Mirage," Raul stops at the stairway on his way up to habitation, "If you take another drink, I'm leaving, for good."
"You don't mean that," Mirage tries to call his bluff.
"Try me," he challenges.
She stares at his back as he climbs the stairs.
"That was eventful. What's the plan Cap?" Aurra tosses her hair back over the chair, adjusting course.
"We go to Ord Mantell. Get a hangar for repairs. Then I'm headed to the guild," Mirage slumps into the pilot's chair.
"Clean this mess up Boba," Aurra orders.
Boba sighs and goes to grab the supplies.
"Bring me a water too while you're at it," Mirage calls back.
He waves a hand behind him in confirmation.
Aurra and Mirage fly in silence for a few hours. The streaks of white and black arc past the viewport in a dazzling display to anyone unfamiliar with hyperspace. To these two, it was just another day, bored in the cockpit.
"Are we getting a cut from your Veelo contract?" Aurra questions casually.
"Of course not. I picked that up and completed it before hiring you as crew," Mirage replies incredulously.
"Well, you never would have been able to collect had Boba and I jumped on your fight with Bossk," she offers.
"Had you jumped on that fight sooner, we would all be dead and Raul would be flying this home with Graves. Speaking of Graves, where is he?" Mirage questions.
"Probably in the hangar bay with Scope. They've been working on the Convor recently," Aurra tells her.
Mirage rotates her chair around and stands up, walking towards the door, "Keep us on course. I'm going to talk to him."
Aurra glances at Mirage lazily.
Mirage limps slightly less as she heads towards the deck lift. She steps on and hits the button for 'Top Deck'. Currently, the deck is being used as a landing bay for the Convor. It used to be an upper cargo deck and before that, it was a hangar for her Jedi starfighter, which was sold off. She walks through the supply room of the top deck towards the center of the ship and opens the sliding door. Graves is holding a diagnostic scanner while Scope is currently running repairs on the interior of the hangar bay.
Airshield status: Broken. Requires replacement parts. Chance of inventory on Ord Mantell: High." Scope beeps at Mirage.
Mirage nods, "Graves, what have you found?"
Graves turns and smiles at her, "Good to see you Captain. The Convor is an odd ship. It's a modified courier. Additional firepower and shielding along with these stealth deflectors running the length of the ship. Most of its components are extremely high maintenance and expensive to replace should they break. This is going to be beyond our capabilities as engineers, Mirage."
She rubs her temples as she circles the Convor, "I intend to hire additional crew at Ord Mantell but it sounds like I can't skimp on the engineer."
She runs her hand along the deflectors he pointed out.
Graves questions, "How much did you make from this Sylar Saris contract, exactly?"
"Enough to fix our ships, hire some crew, and get supplies. We can stretch it out for a few months if we run local delivery contracts as a crew and collect some late payments owed to the Hutts," she thinks out loud.
"What's your plan for the ships?"
"I'll need to fix the airshield on the Interlude like Scope said. We'll get another turret installed on our portside and have a carbonite rack installed in the storeroom," she points a thumb behind her to the room she just exited, "Since the Convor has a carbonite chamber and a few slots for live bounties, we might as well capitalize on that."
"You want to do live bounties? That means you won't be able to use your saber, or else they could pass that info along," Graves reminds her.
"I know. Aurra is going to mentor me a bit on the finer aspects of bounty hunting," Mirage wipes her brow of a bead of sweat.
She walks up to Scope and takes her lightsaber off her belt. Scope opens up the launcher while making sparks, fixing up a loose panel and she drops it in.
She walks back towards the Convor and lowers the rear ramp to board it.
"So what are your thoughts on the Convor? Worth keeping?" She asks Graves.
He pulls up the diagnostic tool and shows Mirages a few zones on the ship, speaking while zooming in on a few areas, "See this? This component of the core isn't used anymore because the cost of production was so high. It works extremely well when maintained, but replacement will be hard to source, not to mention the cost. And here, the shield projector is stored behind some of these large plates, which are then blocked by wiring. If the shield system were ever damaged directly, pulling that part out would require rewiring that portion of the ship afterwards. A long job. And here, these rotational wings and engines are something I've not seen before. The design is actually genius to accommodate the best of atmospheric wing design and space maneuvering. The downsides are that they have so many moving parts, I can barely wrap my head around it. The designers at Slayn and Korpil really did their best work on this, but I can see why it's not produced anymore. Mirage, if we keep this ship AND hire more crew, we are going to have to double our Sylar Saris bounties. Either twice as dangerous or twice as often."
Mirage massages her healing wounds and thinks back on the swamplands she just came from. This would have been much easier if Bossk hadn't come crashing down on our success. I did fine with Saris and with Aurra at my side, we can take harder contracts a bit more easily. She thinks.
"That'll be fine. It's about time we went more professional anyway," Mirage starts toward the crew lift.
Graves has his lips in a tight line, saying nothing and everything at the same time.
"Keep it up Graves, I want that ship running perfect when we land at Ord Mantell. I'll need it while the Interlude gets repaired."
She presses the button on the lift for 'Operations Deck' and descends below.
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