Nar Shadaa

"This is a fucking bad idea."

By my count, it was the twentieth time I'd said it since I got tapped for this mission. Before I'd thrown my chit in with the Rebels, I could've just walked. Now, I was soulbound to ideas good and bad that weren't mine.

Looking at the viewport I sighed. Nar Shadaa even looked like a rusty piece of shit from space. It only got more detail-oriented the closer you got. The planet was even surrounded by a thin corona of space trash and orbital detritus. Years ago, I'd left and sworn I'd never come back. Now...

My comm line was backed up with about a dozen incoming sales pitches for landing space. No planetary traffic grid here, no, instead just a few hundred private-owned starports with their own traffic spotters, their own rules, and their own issues. No wonder there was so much junk in orbit. One had to wonder how many starship collisions happened here.

I bumped each landing pitch with a low-ball offer, trying to see if I could whittle the rip-off landing prices down to something that was very cheap. It was understood that everything on Nar Shadaa was a hustle. Only an idiot took the offer given them.

Disgusted, I nipped from my hip flask as I watched the comms come in, and looked at my very familiar passenger.

"Let me get this straight again. We're after a Rebel slicer that, by all accounts, could be orbital vapor and not even made it to the planet. No communication, no nothing. Just a safe house and a pick-up date?"

I shook my head.

"I know why Dan sent me here, because he's an asshole. I'm sorry he made you have to come too."