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Description
KotOR 2 - Pre-game Atton

The ship was a nice little ride, he decided, his mood improved slightly from the kolto injections and the few hours of sleep he'd managed to grab in the pilot chair. It was small as light freighters went, but had all the comforts of home, except he found nothing remotely alcoholic on board, despite a thorough search. The kitchen alcove was minimally stocked with the standard protein bars and tasteless cardboard meals, but blessedly, there was that fuel that kept pilots everywhere flying: caffa. He retrieved another cup and wandered back to the hold.

He stared at the container, blowing on the hot caffa and sipping gingerly. Another scan had yielded the same skewed results. Container could be lined with something that generated the funky thermals, he thought as he walked around to the back of it. No manufacturer brand. Not a marking anywhere on it, he found when he'd finished his circuit. The locking mechanism was top shelf, though still pretty standard. Easy to take out. The warning he'd been given echoed in his mind. Severe and lethal repercussions. Did that mean immediate severe and lethal repercussions? Was it rigged with explosives? Could that cause the weird readings? Was it chock full of illegal weapons? Or one humongous one?

“Forget about it, Rand,” he told himself in a stern tone. Finish the job, get paid, move on. He'd done similar jobs, and this one would no doubt lead to better ones with even better paydays. The less he knew about what happened when his job was done, the better. It was a tough philosophy for him to stick to given his nature, but it had served him well since he went freelance, he reminded himself.

* * *

The days passed the way they do on the hyperspace routes, the sameness blurring them together, the only difference marked by the dwindling supply of caffa and the chronometer that was friend and sometimes, torturer. He loved flying when there was actual flying involved, and truthfully, he often found the effect of staring out at the blue nothing of hyperspace meditative where others found it agitating, even maddening. He was fidgety now, though, his mind implacable. He did all manner of things to distract himself: cleaned his blasters, did laundry, repaired his jacket and shirt, played some handball against the hull, worked out, played some Pazaak... lots of Pazaak. The cargo container loomed like a pink bantha.

He'd found some tools and was tinkering, giving the engine various tweaks and tune-ups to pass the time. He'd also been thinking, or obsessing, if he was honest with himself. Odds were, he figured, his employer wouldn't risk losing the cargo he so coveted because of a nosy smuggler. There was just nothing logical about that. He was being paid well for the job, enough to know that the cargo was very valuable to the client. Worse case scenario, if he hacked the lock, he'd trip a tamper sensor and be unable to cover his tracks. Of course that would eventually lead to more trouble, no payday, and probably more killing. He was trying to stop doing that. Quite so much, anyway.

Ten more hours, give or take one or two, he consoled himself. Ten hours and it would be over. He'd pay off a few debts, do a little celebrating and have enough left over to make a decent down payment on a ship of his own. Nothing fancy, just something to get him from here to there and back again. Something that would put him in business for real.

Replacing the metal covering, he tightened the last bolt and wiped his brow, sitting up and tossing the hydrospanner in the tool box. He was about to close the tool box when he noticed it, coiled in the bottom compartment: an optical wire. He pulled it out and unwound it. Handy thing to have when you were poking around a ship's innards. It let you see all manner of hard to access things before you tore the hull apart to get at the problem. He leaned and plugged the wire into the engine room computer console and hit the switch. The light worked. He turned the camera towards him and saw his ugly mug appear on the monitor. His grin was downright devious, he observed, chuckling as inspiration twisted around his mind.

Twenty minutes later, he was scouring the cargo container from the top down for a seam, a hole, anything big enough to thread the wire through, but his search was in vain. Undaunted, he retrieved the fusioncutter from the toolbox and climbed on top of the container. Choosing a spot that would hopefully go unnoticed, he set to work.

It took more searching, but he found an auxiliary cable that allowed him to hook the camera directly into his datapad. Threading the wire through the small hole, he lowered it and hit the light switch, a fuzzy picture appearing on the datapad screen. A quick adjustment brought the picture into focus. He cocked his head to the side, unsure of what he was looking at. He grasped the cable, lowered it further, and turned it ninety degrees.

“What the hell?” His brow furrowed as he zoomed the camera out a bit. It looked like... No. He was seeing things. He shifted the camera again for a different angle. When the picture came into view, he dropped the cable like it was burning his fingers and jerked back from it.

A few seconds of shock later, he pressed his palms into his eye sockets, dragging them to his temples as the undeniable truth barged in and made itself at home in his mind, followed by anger and its red-headed step child, guilt. He groaned, shaking his head, a voice in his mind taunting him with his own words: You just had to peek. “No. No, no, no. Fucking no!”

In a burst of movement, he dropped over the side of the container and stormed to the cockpit, grabbing his blaster from the holster draped across his seat and made a beeline back to the hold, taking aim on the locking mechanism as he cleared the hallway. His hand shook as he hesitated, unwelcome memories and scenarios invading his mind. Suddenly, lethal consequences had a much broader implication. No, the client wouldn't booby-trap this cargo. Too valuable, he thought with a surge of blinding rage. He fired once, twice, the lock exploding in a hail of tiny sparks and shrapnel.

Shoving the heavy door open, he was immediately hit with the smell. It only registered for a moment though, supplanted by the visual that greeted him: bodies, slumped motionless thanks to neural disruptors, covering the floor of the container. He saw humans and twi'leks. Girls. Force, they were just kids! Children. He was transporting slaves, and every instinct inside of him told him exactly what kind of slaves.

He felt bile rise in his throat and stepped away, but didn't get far before his stomach emptied in sheer revulsion, the guilt and the memories of his sister wracking his body. Breathless when the heaving had passed, he realized it was not only cold sweat that dripped off of him, but hot tears. He raised himself up and headed to the refresher, splashing water on his face and rinsing the foul taste from his mouth.

Inhaling and exhaling deeply, he squeezed his eyes shut and lay his forehead against the cool mirror, slowly halting the torrent of emotion, telling himself he needed to come up with a plan. Wherever his mind went with the thought though, it kept coming back to one word: revenge.

Somebody was going to pay.

* * *

“Shhh... Hey, it's alright. It's ok,” he said as soothingly as possible to the terrified girl as she scrambled backward on the bunk, still coming out of the neural disruptor's fog. He'd brought her to the two bunk crew quarters before removing the collar with the fusioncutter.

She stared wide-eyed at him, then brought her arms up, covering her face and loosing a scream that no one her age should have inside of them.

Oh, what the hell was he doing? He closed his eyes, feeling awkward and useless as her shoulders shook with sobs. He was ill-equipped when it came to things like this. Usually when he entered the realm of other people's feelings, it was to manipulate them in some fashion. Emotions were just another tool.

Swallowing hard, he tried again when her crying abated a little. “Look, you're safe with me. I promise,” he said, dipping his head slightly to try and get her to look at him. He saw her eyes reflect the light. “Safe, and going home soon.”

She didn't reply, minutes passing before her arms relaxed a little even as she continued to hide behind them. He took out his Pazaak deck and showed it to her. “I've had most of this deck longer than you've been alive,” he said with a soft smile as he began shuffling the cards. “When I was a kid, instead of action figures or comic books, I collected Pazaak cards.”

A few more quiet moments passed, the only sounds made by the ship and the fluttering of the cards as they flew through his hands with effortless grace. Finally she uncovered her tear-streaked face, mostly, resting her arms on her knees and laying her chin on them as she watched with growing interest.

“You ever play?” he asked, waving the deck. She nodded. He pulled back slightly in mock surprise. “Really? I'm impressed.” He looked down at the cards then cut his eyes over at her. “Care to play a hand or two?” Her eyes went wide again for a second, then she adjusted her sitting position to cross legged, smoothed the sheet flat in front of her and looked up at him expectantly.

It took two games for her to make a sound, but slowly he began to draw her out. It was with no small amount of irony that he employed a few techniques from his tenure at Sith, Inc. Her name was Lyris, and he was off by a year on her age – she was eleven. He broached the subject very carefully, but unfortunately she didn't remember a whole lot about what had happened. It turned out she knew five of the sixteen girls personally and another six by sight. He kicked himself for not telling her sooner when he realized she thought they were all dead.

She and the girls she knew were nabbed from Nar Shaddaa, which didn't surprise him, the refugee sector being pretty easy pickings for slavers. He couldn't help but wonder if he'd been anywhere close by when they'd been grabbed. He also wondered if the Exchange was involved. They seemed the most likely suspects. Things just seemed to get more fucked up by the minute, he reflected as he contemplated the idea of going up against the source of a whole lot of his income.

It didn't make him feel particularly good, but he decided to leave the collars on the other girls for the time being. He explained it to Lyris as best he could, telling her they were safer this way and assuring her there was no way he was gonna let anything bad happen to them. He went with her to the hold, afraid she might lose it again when she saw the others, but she didn't. She had nodded sadly when he explained about the neural disruptor collars, then asked him in a small voice if it was ok if she cleaned them up.  He asked her three times if she was sure about it, but she insisted. She got some towels and soap and had the bravest little face as she started the unpleasant task. Despite his own discomfort, he moved the girls out of the container to the far side of the hold so her job would be easier. He hosed out the container, washing the mess, including the remnants of his earlier retching down the hold drain, glancing at her now and then. She never made a sound of complaint.

By the time he got to the cockpit it was him that was damned near losing it again.

* * *

He sat in the pilot chair staring blankly ahead for a long time, imagining how this was gonna go down, the only movement his right hand cutting, folding and rotating his deck repeatedly. He had coordinates and a satellite picture of a landing pad and hangar in the middle of nowhere and that was about it as far as solid info went. It was a fairly safe bet that the client would bring as few men as possible, hoping to avoid any undue attention. Could be the man lived on Tatooine, which opened up all new possibilities, but nobody lived on Tatooine unless they had to, so he sent that scenario to the back of the deck. Thinking about it did remind him of someone who actually did choose to live there, though. Someone who owed him. Couldn't hurt to collect that debt. He grabbed his datapad and was happy to discover he still had the contact info.

He heard movement behind him and turned his head to see Lyris standing there, one arm folded over her body, hugging the opposite elbow while she gazed in wonder out the window. After finishing her cleaning, she'd taken a shower and fallen fast asleep.

“Hey, kid,” he said, pocketing his deck. “Good timing. We're about to drop out of hyperspace. Wanna be co-pilot?” He figured it might take her mind off of everything, for a few minutes anyway. With the slightest hint of a smile, she nodded. He pointed to the co-pilot chair. “Have a seat.”

She called off the countdown for him, even giggling a little when she got to zero and he hit the jump switch, the manual controls unlocking. Seeing her excited reaction to something he was so used to it didn't phase him anymore, he had to smile a little. But then reality intruded, the way it does. He asked her to go and make a fresh pot of caffa and bring him a cup, closing the door behind her.

He punched in the contact number and waited, hiding his relief when the image of his some time cohort and accomplice Sander appeared, rubbing his darkly tanned face, his long black dreads sticking out at odd angles like he'd been asleep or otherwise engaged in horizontal activity.

“Rand. Where you been keeping yourself?” Sander asked with strained civility.

“Here and there,” he said lightly. “Hey Sander, remember when I got that Hutt off your back? Saved your life?” Tit for tat was like currency to smugglers and other independent contractors, as good as credits and sometimes, better.

Sander blew a hiss of air out, sensing what was coming.

He didn't wait for the reply. “Need your assistance, pal, and I need it now.”

Sander's eyebrows jumped. “Now? As in right now? Force, Rand.” Sander looked over his shoulder, running a hand back across his hair and shaking his head in consternation. “Uh, alright, I guess.”

“Really glad to hear that,” he said. “Ok, here's the rundown...”

As he hurriedly explained the plan and what he needed, Sander's expression got progressively longer and more pissed, but at the end he took a deep breath and nodded.

“Perverted bastards,” Sander said quietly, his gaze downcast. He looked up again after a second. “We'll be waiting,” he assured him.

He nodded, reaching to end the call when he remembered something. “Oh, and if you have one, I need a S34 locking mechanism for a cargo container, or something that'll pass for it.”

“I'll see what's on hand,” Sander replied.

There was a knock at the cockpit door. “See ya soon, Sander,” he said and cut the link, opening the door.

He took the caffa she held out and set it in the cup holder to cool, wishing like hell it was spiked with something alcoholic. She sat down in the co-pilot chair and drew her knees up, wrapping her gangly kid arms around them. Horrible images flashed through his mind of what her and the others' lives would be like if he didn't pull this off. So much potential for disaster. The question of why he was doing this at all rang out in his mind again, and again was answered: for Kat. He was doing this for his sister's memory. His moral compass was a ridiculously flexible thing, but some things weren't negotiable, and this situation was at the top of that very short list. No kids, ever.

Neither of them spoke for a while, him flying and drinking his caffa and her munching a protein bar and looking out with a faraway look in her eyes. When it was time he asked her to strap in for landing.

“Uh, listen, Lyris, there's a couple things I need you to do for me when we land. Really important things that are gonna help me make sure you and the others get home.”

“What's your name?” she asked softly.

He glanced over at her as he prepared for atmo entry. For some reason he was surprised he hadn't told her, but it wasn't information he carelessly doled out; force of habit. “Atton,” he said. “Name's Atton, and my friend who you're gonna meet soon is named Sander. He's got a couple friends of his own, and that makes them our friends. Understand? You can trust them. Anything happens to me, they'll make sure you're safe.”

She looked scared as he continued, and while he chose his words carefully, the bottom line was that she needed to be prepared for the worst case scenario. He hoped that her fear would serve to keep her alert and ultimately, alive.

Description
KotOR 2 - Pre-game Atton

The ship was a nice little ride, he decided, his mood improved slightly from the kolto injections and the few hours of sleep he'd managed to grab in the pilot chair. It was small as light freighters went, but had all the comforts of home, except he found nothing remotely alcoholic on board, despite a thorough search. The kitchen alcove was minimally stocked with the standard protein bars and tasteless cardboard meals, but blessedly, there was that fuel that kept pilots everywhere flying: caffa. He retrieved another cup and wandered back to the hold.

He stared at the container, blowing on the hot caffa and sipping gingerly. Another scan had yielded the same skewed results. Container could be lined with something that generated the funky thermals, he thought as he walked around to the back of it. No manufacturer brand. Not a marking anywhere on it, he found when he'd finished his circuit. The locking mechanism was top shelf, though still pretty standard. Easy to take out. The warning he'd been given echoed in his mind. Severe and lethal repercussions. Did that mean immediate severe and lethal repercussions? Was it rigged with explosives? Could that cause the weird readings? Was it chock full of illegal weapons? Or one humongous one?

“Forget about it, Rand,” he told himself in a stern tone. Finish the job, get paid, move on. He'd done similar jobs, and this one would no doubt lead to better ones with even better paydays. The less he knew about what happened when his job was done, the better. It was a tough philosophy for him to stick to given his nature, but it had served him well since he went freelance, he reminded himself.

* * *

The days passed the way they do on the hyperspace routes, the sameness blurring them together, the only difference marked by the dwindling supply of caffa and the chronometer that was friend and sometimes, torturer. He loved flying when there was actual flying involved, and truthfully, he often found the effect of staring out at the blue nothing of hyperspace meditative where others found it agitating, even maddening. He was fidgety now, though, his mind implacable. He did all manner of things to distract himself: cleaned his blasters, did laundry, repaired his jacket and shirt, played some handball against the hull, worked out, played some Pazaak... lots of Pazaak. The cargo container loomed like a pink bantha.

He'd found some tools and was tinkering, giving the engine various tweaks and tune-ups to pass the time. He'd also been thinking, or obsessing, if he was honest with himself. Odds were, he figured, his employer wouldn't risk losing the cargo he so coveted because of a nosy smuggler. There was just nothing logical about that. He was being paid well for the job, enough to know that the cargo was very valuable to the client. Worse case scenario, if he hacked the lock, he'd trip a tamper sensor and be unable to cover his tracks. Of course that would eventually lead to more trouble, no payday, and probably more killing. He was trying to stop doing that. Quite so much, anyway.

Ten more hours, give or take one or two, he consoled himself. Ten hours and it would be over. He'd pay off a few debts, do a little celebrating and have enough left over to make a decent down payment on a ship of his own. Nothing fancy, just something to get him from here to there and back again. Something that would put him in business for real.

Replacing the metal covering, he tightened the last bolt and wiped his brow, sitting up and tossing the hydrospanner in the tool box. He was about to close the tool box when he noticed it, coiled in the bottom compartment: an optical wire. He pulled it out and unwound it. Handy thing to have when you were poking around a ship's innards. It let you see all manner of hard to access things before you tore the hull apart to get at the problem. He leaned and plugged the wire into the engine room computer console and hit the switch. The light worked. He turned the camera towards him and saw his ugly mug appear on the monitor. His grin was downright devious, he observed, chuckling as inspiration twisted around his mind.

Twenty minutes later, he was scouring the cargo container from the top down for a seam, a hole, anything big enough to thread the wire through, but his search was in vain. Undaunted, he retrieved the fusioncutter from the toolbox and climbed on top of the container. Choosing a spot that would hopefully go unnoticed, he set to work.

It took more searching, but he found an auxiliary cable that allowed him to hook the camera directly into his datapad. Threading the wire through the small hole, he lowered it and hit the light switch, a fuzzy picture appearing on the datapad screen. A quick adjustment brought the picture into focus. He cocked his head to the side, unsure of what he was looking at. He grasped the cable, lowered it further, and turned it ninety degrees.

“What the hell?” His brow furrowed as he zoomed the camera out a bit. It looked like... No. He was seeing things. He shifted the camera again for a different angle. When the picture came into view, he dropped the cable like it was burning his fingers and jerked back from it.

A few seconds of shock later, he pressed his palms into his eye sockets, dragging them to his temples as the undeniable truth barged in and made itself at home in his mind, followed by anger and its red-headed step child, guilt. He groaned, shaking his head, a voice in his mind taunting him with his own words: You just had to peek. “No. No, no, no. Fucking no!”

In a burst of movement, he dropped over the side of the container and stormed to the cockpit, grabbing his blaster from the holster draped across his seat and made a beeline back to the hold, taking aim on the locking mechanism as he cleared the hallway. His hand shook as he hesitated, unwelcome memories and scenarios invading his mind. Suddenly, lethal consequences had a much broader implication. No, the client wouldn't booby-trap this cargo. Too valuable, he thought with a surge of blinding rage. He fired once, twice, the lock exploding in a hail of tiny sparks and shrapnel.

Shoving the heavy door open, he was immediately hit with the smell. It only registered for a moment though, supplanted by the visual that greeted him: bodies, slumped motionless thanks to neural disruptors, covering the floor of the container. He saw humans and twi'leks. Girls. Force, they were just kids! Children. He was transporting slaves, and every instinct inside of him told him exactly what kind of slaves.

He felt bile rise in his throat and stepped away, but didn't get far before his stomach emptied in sheer revulsion, the guilt and the memories of his sister wracking his body. Breathless when the heaving had passed, he realized it was not only cold sweat that dripped off of him, but hot tears. He raised himself up and headed to the refresher, splashing water on his face and rinsing the foul taste from his mouth.

Inhaling and exhaling deeply, he squeezed his eyes shut and lay his forehead against the cool mirror, slowly halting the torrent of emotion, telling himself he needed to come up with a plan. Wherever his mind went with the thought though, it kept coming back to one word: revenge.

Somebody was going to pay.

* * *

“Shhh... Hey, it's alright. It's ok,” he said as soothingly as possible to the terrified girl as she scrambled backward on the bunk, still coming out of the neural disruptor's fog. He'd brought her to the two bunk crew quarters before removing the collar with the fusioncutter.

She stared wide-eyed at him, then brought her arms up, covering her face and loosing a scream that no one her age should have inside of them.

Oh, what the hell was he doing? He closed his eyes, feeling awkward and useless as her shoulders shook with sobs. He was ill-equipped when it came to things like this. Usually when he entered the realm of other people's feelings, it was to manipulate them in some fashion. Emotions were just another tool.

Swallowing hard, he tried again when her crying abated a little. “Look, you're safe with me. I promise,” he said, dipping his head slightly to try and get her to look at him. He saw her eyes reflect the light. “Safe, and going home soon.”

She didn't reply, minutes passing before her arms relaxed a little even as she continued to hide behind them. He took out his Pazaak deck and showed it to her. “I've had most of this deck longer than you've been alive,” he said with a soft smile as he began shuffling the cards. “When I was a kid, instead of action figures or comic books, I collected Pazaak cards.”

A few more quiet moments passed, the only sounds made by the ship and the fluttering of the cards as they flew through his hands with effortless grace. Finally she uncovered her tear-streaked face, mostly, resting her arms on her knees and laying her chin on them as she watched with growing interest.

“You ever play?” he asked, waving the deck. She nodded. He pulled back slightly in mock surprise. “Really? I'm impressed.” He looked down at the cards then cut his eyes over at her. “Care to play a hand or two?” Her eyes went wide again for a second, then she adjusted her sitting position to cross legged, smoothed the sheet flat in front of her and looked up at him expectantly.

It took two games for her to make a sound, but slowly he began to draw her out. It was with no small amount of irony that he employed a few techniques from his tenure at Sith, Inc. Her name was Lyris, and he was off by a year on her age – she was eleven. He broached the subject very carefully, but unfortunately she didn't remember a whole lot about what had happened. It turned out she knew five of the sixteen girls personally and another six by sight. He kicked himself for not telling her sooner when he realized she thought they were all dead.

She and the girls she knew were nabbed from Nar Shaddaa, which didn't surprise him, the refugee sector being pretty easy pickings for slavers. He couldn't help but wonder if he'd been anywhere close by when they'd been grabbed. He also wondered if the Exchange was involved. They seemed the most likely suspects. Things just seemed to get more fucked up by the minute, he reflected as he contemplated the idea of going up against the source of a whole lot of his income.

It didn't make him feel particularly good, but he decided to leave the collars on the other girls for the time being. He explained it to Lyris as best he could, telling her they were safer this way and assuring her there was no way he was gonna let anything bad happen to them. He went with her to the hold, afraid she might lose it again when she saw the others, but she didn't. She had nodded sadly when he explained about the neural disruptor collars, then asked him in a small voice if it was ok if she cleaned them up.  He asked her three times if she was sure about it, but she insisted. She got some towels and soap and had the bravest little face as she started the unpleasant task. Despite his own discomfort, he moved the girls out of the container to the far side of the hold so her job would be easier. He hosed out the container, washing the mess, including the remnants of his earlier retching down the hold drain, glancing at her now and then. She never made a sound of complaint.

By the time he got to the cockpit it was him that was damned near losing it again.

* * *

He sat in the pilot chair staring blankly ahead for a long time, imagining how this was gonna go down, the only movement his right hand cutting, folding and rotating his deck repeatedly. He had coordinates and a satellite picture of a landing pad and hangar in the middle of nowhere and that was about it as far as solid info went. It was a fairly safe bet that the client would bring as few men as possible, hoping to avoid any undue attention. Could be the man lived on Tatooine, which opened up all new possibilities, but nobody lived on Tatooine unless they had to, so he sent that scenario to the back of the deck. Thinking about it did remind him of someone who actually did choose to live there, though. Someone who owed him. Couldn't hurt to collect that debt. He grabbed his datapad and was happy to discover he still had the contact info.

He heard movement behind him and turned his head to see Lyris standing there, one arm folded over her body, hugging the opposite elbow while she gazed in wonder out the window. After finishing her cleaning, she'd taken a shower and fallen fast asleep.

“Hey, kid,” he said, pocketing his deck. “Good timing. We're about to drop out of hyperspace. Wanna be co-pilot?” He figured it might take her mind off of everything, for a few minutes anyway. With the slightest hint of a smile, she nodded. He pointed to the co-pilot chair. “Have a seat.”

She called off the countdown for him, even giggling a little when she got to zero and he hit the jump switch, the manual controls unlocking. Seeing her excited reaction to something he was so used to it didn't phase him anymore, he had to smile a little. But then reality intruded, the way it does. He asked her to go and make a fresh pot of caffa and bring him a cup, closing the door behind her.

He punched in the contact number and waited, hiding his relief when the image of his some time cohort and accomplice Sander appeared, rubbing his darkly tanned face, his long black dreads sticking out at odd angles like he'd been asleep or otherwise engaged in horizontal activity.

“Rand. Where you been keeping yourself?” Sander asked with strained civility.

“Here and there,” he said lightly. “Hey Sander, remember when I got that Hutt off your back? Saved your life?” Tit for tat was like currency to smugglers and other independent contractors, as good as credits and sometimes, better.

Sander blew a hiss of air out, sensing what was coming.

He didn't wait for the reply. “Need your assistance, pal, and I need it now.”

Sander's eyebrows jumped. “Now? As in right now? Force, Rand.” Sander looked over his shoulder, running a hand back across his hair and shaking his head in consternation. “Uh, alright, I guess.”

“Really glad to hear that,” he said. “Ok, here's the rundown...”

As he hurriedly explained the plan and what he needed, Sander's expression got progressively longer and more pissed, but at the end he took a deep breath and nodded.

“Perverted bastards,” Sander said quietly, his gaze downcast. He looked up again after a second. “We'll be waiting,” he assured him.

He nodded, reaching to end the call when he remembered something. “Oh, and if you have one, I need a S34 locking mechanism for a cargo container, or something that'll pass for it.”

“I'll see what's on hand,” Sander replied.

There was a knock at the cockpit door. “See ya soon, Sander,” he said and cut the link, opening the door.

He took the caffa she held out and set it in the cup holder to cool, wishing like hell it was spiked with something alcoholic. She sat down in the co-pilot chair and drew her knees up, wrapping her gangly kid arms around them. Horrible images flashed through his mind of what her and the others' lives would be like if he didn't pull this off. So much potential for disaster. The question of why he was doing this at all rang out in his mind again, and again was answered: for Kat. He was doing this for his sister's memory. His moral compass was a ridiculously flexible thing, but some things weren't negotiable, and this situation was at the top of that very short list. No kids, ever.

Neither of them spoke for a while, him flying and drinking his caffa and her munching a protein bar and looking out with a faraway look in her eyes. When it was time he asked her to strap in for landing.

“Uh, listen, Lyris, there's a couple things I need you to do for me when we land. Really important things that are gonna help me make sure you and the others get home.”

“What's your name?” she asked softly.

He glanced over at her as he prepared for atmo entry. For some reason he was surprised he hadn't told her, but it wasn't information he carelessly doled out; force of habit. “Atton,” he said. “Name's Atton, and my friend who you're gonna meet soon is named Sander. He's got a couple friends of his own, and that makes them our friends. Understand? You can trust them. Anything happens to me, they'll make sure you're safe.”

She looked scared as he continued, and while he chose his words carefully, the bottom line was that she needed to be prepared for the worst case scenario. He hoped that her fear would serve to keep her alert and ultimately, alive.