Pixelito

"It's your lucky day, bug." Ornik's tone was emotionlessly filtered through his helmet, staring down impassively at the bleeding Rodian on the ground before him. His HUD had just pinged him, letting him know that there was a message waiting for him at his ship: a message from Darian Beviin. Now wasn't that interesting.

The black-clad Mandalorian lifted his boot from the creature's chest and pulled his sword away, sheathing it at his side. The hope that suddenly glimmered in Buggie's eyes was pitifully pathetic, as he whimpered "You let me go, Mando?"

"No." The reply was curt and merciless as Ornik drew his blaster pistol. "I kill you quickly." A single report left a burning hole in the Rodian's face, and Ornik turned and walked away. When Darian called, most verde answered promptly. Either he had 'holy work' to do, or he had a good job lined up. Either way, Ornik was interested.

Pixelito's streets were a knotty, curving mess - at least at this level. Despite that, the Mandalorian found his way back to his employer in a little less than an hour. Time to get paid and head out; Corellia was calling. Ornik stepped into the dive and walked straight to the tiny back room where his employer waited. He had a stack of bills already arranged on the table in front of him, and a self-assured smile oozing from his lips. He pushed the stack forward with two fingers, his weedy frame only seeming weedier between the hulking forms of his Trandoshan bodyguards.

Lizards. Only thing uglier than bugs.

The employer started talking. "As promised, five-kay."
"Empty the box."
"…what?" Shock registered on his face and in his voice.
"You heard me." Ornik's hands were folded behind his back. "All of it."
The weedy man began to stand, trembling with rage and fear as his other hand came up, a heavy blaster wrapped in sweaty fingers. The two lizards started forward.

As deadly as plague, Ornik's arms flashed forward. In one hand was a knife which was quickly and easily loosed to pin the boss' hand to the desk. The other hand held Ornik's other knife, flashing out to let one lizard impale itself in its imbecilic hurry towards death. The second lizard would be the biggest problem.

He came over the desk with claws and teeth bared. Ornik caught the beast's face against his chest plate and wrapped his arms around and behind its shoulders, redirecting its momentum to send it facefirst into the floor. A powerful stomp ended him. Ornik turned and yanked the pinning knife free, slashing the boss' throat. After retrieving his knives and emptying the money box - twenty-kay creds, much better - into his dump pouch, Ornik quietly left and went back to his shuttle, a few minutes' walk away.

The message was short and sweet: a crew with jobs to be done that had a definite use for Mandalorian-grade carnage. With a grim half-smile, he prepped the craft for lift-off.

Well this will be fun.

The podracers zoom past, their engines roaring so loud I can almost feel the sound. You don't hear of many Zabrak podracer pilots, but I bet I could do it if I put my mind to it. I was always pretty good on a speeder back in my smuggling days, and with my Jedi training, yeah, I bet I could do it.

A hand on my shoulder interrupts my thoughts. My contact–a Duros named Mata Se Grahn–motions me to follow her. She leads me back through the crowd and down toward the race stadium's mezzanine level. We stop in the shadow of a duracrete strut.

"Got anything for me?" I say, doing my best to hide my excitement. The crowd milling about the mezzanine ignores us.

"Maybe," she answers in her native language. "Have you held up your end?"

I switch to Durese. "Have I ever let you down?" I find the little data drive in the pocket of my robes and hand it over. "All Houck's shipping routes, just like you asked. Better move fast, strike before he figures out what I took." I still have a nasty blaster burn on my shoulder, courtesy of one of Houck's goons.

The corners of Mata's mouth twitch, which is the closest you'll usually see to a smile out of her. She says in Basic, "I did my best with the fragments you gave me. It's not an encryption anybody's used in centuries. If I had more code to work with–"

"That's not an option. Were you able to break it?"

"No. I'm good, Giannah; I'm not that good. But I know someone who is."

My heartbeat heads for hyperspeed. "Who?"

Mata's mouth twitches. "You're not going to like it."

Damn it. "Voss?"

"That's right."

I kick the duracrete strut, scuffing my boot. "I was hoping I could go the rest of my life without even being on the same planet as that slimeball."

"That'd be hard to do, considering he's working out of Coruscant these days."

"I can't go to Coruscant!" I lean in close and whisper, "The Order is still looking for me, you know?"

She shrugs. "You'll figure it out." And with almost a full smile, she steps away and loses herself in the crowd. There's a collective gasp from the spectators above, followed by a deafening crash. The whole stadium shakes. One of the racers must have gone down. I find my way back up to the stands to watch the rest of the race, working through ideas for how to smuggle myself onto Coruscant.

Ni'na Me's home


She ended up honey mustard fish over rice and with vegetables on top. She put it all in a bowl and used wooden sticks to eat it. She was ravenous with hunger. She made enough for three bowls. She knew she would down all of it. Her frame was slender and fit from all the mechanical equipment she had to lift. She slid onto her couch and turned on her flat screen. The hologame she had in mind to play was already plugged in. So she grabbed the controller and turned on the console from the game controller. She put on a headset to talk with those in game and took a bite of the fresh meal. It was a heaven of sweet, spicy, and a splash of salty from the fish itself. Food never tasted so good today. The credit chip just brought the day to a wonderful close. She could possibly add an extension to her home and make a garage that extended in an L over the back of her house, for more space for her freelance work. The possibilities were endless.

For now she wanted to relax from the day in and day out. She logged into GOH and went online as her Sephi ranger/bard class. She wasn't quite over level thirty yet, about mid way. A night of heavy grinding was in order. She was lucky, she had no boyfriend or family to keep her away from her work on her swoops and racers. She was no thrill seeker, she was happy with a life of a mechanic, and a tinkerer. Her ranger loaded in an unassuming town, so she leaned forward to set her bowl on the table so she'd have both hands free to play. She misplaced the bowl and it teetered over the edge. Ni'na gasped and threw out her hand, and was more surprised at what she was looking at. The bowl was floating in between the space between the couch and the table.

"The hell?" she shook her head, and the bowl fell perfectly onto the carpeted floor. Upright, and not a grain of rice on the floor. Ni'na rubbed her eyes and shook her head. She brushed it off as fatigue. She reached down for the bowl and set it on the table, She periodically looked at it, and even at one point checked for a repulsor disk at the bottom of the bowl if someone was trying to pull a prank. There was nothing she played her game to grind mobs and boost her level. She got lost in her games, and put the anomaly out of her mind.

Ni'na Me's Home

Ni'na entered her house and shut the front door. She growled and threw off her harnesses and belts, and tore off her greasy clothes. She stormed up the steps nude and washed up a second time. She then put on cut off tee shirt, and pants, and tromped down stairs. She looked in the kitchen to see if she still had fish left. She did, and she made another rice bowl. Once she doused it in teriyaki sauce she walked into the den and hopped over the back of the couch and sat down. She picked up her controler, put on her head set, and went back to playing Guild of Heroes. She logged in as "Rivet" and started to trounce around the forest atop her mount.

"Unbelievable, go home? He tells me to go home? Rat bastard, I make one mistake and I'm on suspension?" She huffed as she found a mob of wild bear monks. She macroed her splintered arrow ability with her fire arrows for extra damage, and fired, 123, 150, 250, the damage rolled above her head.

Ni,na Me's Home

Ni'na had downed a soda, and continued to plug away at her grind session. She tried to work in two and a half levels a day if she could. She skinned the pelts of the bear mobs so she could sell them later. At one point she got into a grudge match with a knight named "J00maB00ma" the same one from earlier.

She happily clocked him over and over, cackling maliciously. It wasn't until the door knocked that she lost focus. She growled and logged off.

"For the love of...now what?" She stood up and walked over to the door. She flipped the screen on to see who it was. It was Z'har, Athran was a bastard and gave him her address. She looked down at what she was wearing and grabbed a more modest tee shirt. Sadly it had the face of a cartoon ewok, and the shirt was pink.

She opened the door and sighed, "sorry about your ship...I assume Athran sent you here because I made you homeless?"

She tapped the door frame and clicked her tongue in thought, she would give Athran an earful, but she knew he would give it right back. She stepped off to the side, and gestured for him to come in, "It's not much, but it's home. I already have some dinner made, and a few ales in the fridge. I don't get many visitors, so sorry for the mess. There's a guest bed upstairs, and there's a refresher and bathroom down here."
She felt a bit embarassed, wearing something cutesy when she generally looked tough and rugged at work. Her pattern was unusual for a twi'lek, almost like she had come off a transport from Felucia. Her tone was blue, but the way the pattern of purple wrapped around her one could mistake her for being striped.
"I owe you, I am sorry for my miscalculation, I almost never make mistakes. I should have used my own intuition. I got eager, I like ships, the more broken the better," She chuckled and hopped over the couch and grabbed her controller again.

The words on the screen when she logged back in was "Rivet level 35 Ranger, killed J00maBooma Level 35 Fighter" on the screen.

"My life outside of being a mechanic includes freelance restoration, pod racer work, and video games,"She spoke.

She summoned her long toothed sabercat mount and began riding off. She rubbed her nose and nodded, setting the controller down, "Well yes, there's a huge track here. Professional pod racers, and amateur pod racers use it. I'm rather well known as a mechanic so I get to work on the pods sometimes, once in awhile getting to fix up professional racers pods. It's pretty cool, looks like i'm going to have to do that again soon. I think I'm going to be on suspension. First time in three years. Though I'm not too worried, they need me. I really am sorry about your ship though."

She nodded and was about to respond, but then tilted her head to the side curiously. Her lekku listed to the left with her head. The purple stripes glinted a moment from the light of the flatscreen. The moment seemed to come back to her. He lifted her up and carried her away, at inhuman speed. It was impossible for a normal human. She played the moment over and over again, she never escaped on her own. She was carried, and it all happened so fast she forgot about it. Z'har was fishing for her response on the matter. And it clicked for her quicker than probably he thought,

"I guess I was just so jacked on adrenaline and it all happened so fast, that I didn't realize that..." She scrunched her face, "you're fishing, how did you get us both out of there?"