The first light of day was shyly rising on the horizon when Elis and Brin made their way to the Midsummer Comet.

   “Aim and fire. Aim. And fire. Nothing to it,” Elis repeated in a feeble attempt to reassure himself, examining once again the small blaster Vee had given him. How hard could it be, truly? If he could master the use of a microscope and a lab burner surely a blaster with a safety and the one trigger would be within his capabilities. In any case, he’d be staying on the ship. What’s the worst that could happen?

   Ahead of him, Brin was carrying the bag of explosives also provided by Vee, or detonite charges as she had referred to them. Elis knew there weren’t enough to blow up the entire ship, which was a good thing as he had no intention of taking part in murder, but they would definitely succeed in deterring the Scarlet Eclipse from venturing back to this part of the galaxy.

   Kai was waiting for them on the ramp of the ship as though enjoying the fresh morning air. She stood up as they approached, giving them a small wave as a greeting and leading the way inside.

   “A small gift from our employer,” Elis told Kai on their way to the kitchen, handing her a small container. “She thought we might need an ‘extra energy boost’ as she put it. Apparently the thought of potentially dying isn’t enough motivation for some.”

   Kai opened the container to find a neat stack of baked goods. The three of them grabbed a piece and they settled down around the table for a short re-run of the operation as planned. Elis had to admit that the seemingly bland cookie was quite delicious, light and crumbly with a sweet and slightly sour filing of dates and cranberries that made for a splendid combination. He was rather amazed that he was able to eat one at all given his current state of angst.

   After the run-through, Brin took out the detonite charges from his bag, in all likelihood to complete a final check. It appeared that Vee had contributed some additional firepower: a few items Elis didn’t recognise and a handful of grenades. Brin picked one up and handed it to Elis.

   “A plasma grenade,” Brin clarified. “Might come in handy.”

   “Fantastic,” Elis replied, reluctantly accepting. “If I get bored I’ll just blow a hole in this ship, lest it feel left out.” The comment won him a stern look from Kai.

   “Easier to aim than a blaster,” Brin said with a shrug as he attached the remaining two plasma grenades to his belt, avoiding Elis’ scowl.

   There was nothing left to do but to wait for the arrival of the Scarlet Eclipse. Vee’s team was on alert and would signal when the ship came into orbit. Elis hadn’t anticipated how excruciatingly anxiety-ridden the waiting would be. He began to wonder one more time why they were doing this, why he needed to run and hide throughout the galaxy in the first place. It was no use questioning it now, he told himself repeatedly, but his brain wouldn’t leave it alone, especially when it had literally nothing else to do but to ponder. Elis was surprisingly relieved when they got the call, putting an end to his spiral of thoughts, at least for the time being.

   “She’s in, you’re good to go,” Vee announced over Brin’s coms device. “Remember, you have about half an hour’s head start. Don’t dilly daddle.”

   “Roger that,” Brin answered, giving Kai and Elis an affirmative nod. “Let’s go.”

 

   The Midsummer Comet was soon off the ground, making its way through space towards the Scarlet Eclipse’s main cruiser, the Revelatory as she had learned it was called. Kai had received the intel she needed from Aine that morning, including the docking code and the cargo’s location, as well as the cargo room’s access code and the ship’s layout. Kai had spent what time she had analysing the ship to familiarise herself with the possible routs she could take to get to the room, and although it had a straight-forward design, the cruiser wasn’t small. An access code meant that she would be looking for a locked door, narrowing down her options. Still, if the location she had gotten for the shipment was wrong, she wasn’t sure she would have time to search the rest of the ship to find it, even if she only focused on the locked doors.

   Kai navigated the Comet with ease, making sure to fly far below and to the side of the cruiser’s command deck to stay out of view. As they got closer, Kai turned on her ship’s sensor jammer and mentally crossed her fingers. If it was at all faulty, there was a good chance she’d be hearing from the Scarlet Eclipse before long. The Comet made its agonisingly slow final approach towards one of the docking rings and connected.

   “Alright, let’s see that decryption module in action,” Brin said rather tensely.

   “I’ve just activated it. I should receive the code in just a second,” Kai said with as much assurance as she could muster. This would all get very complicated if they set off a security alarm. Kai looked at her datapad and found the code Aine had sent her earlier that day.

   The three accomplices held their breath as Kai entered the docking code on the control panel. After a short moment that seemed like an eternity, a green light turned on. Everyone gave a deep sigh of relief.

   “That’s step one done,” Brin confirmed, nodding at Kai. “I’m up.”

   Brin left the cockpit to complete his part of the job, leaving Kai and Elis to their thoughts. Kai hadn’t fully figured out how she was going to get past Elis without revealing that she had an alternative objective, but she didn’t have a whole lot of time on her hands. The one thing she knew about Elis was that he was terrified, generally, she assumed, but currently about this mission. She just needed to wait for Elis to be anxious enough not to suspect her when she left, which would surely happen soon. She sat back in her captain’s chair, staring into space, hoping that these preliminaries wouldn’t take too long. After what felt like as much time as she could bear, she went for it.

   “I don’t like this,” Kai said flatly.

   “Don’t like what, exactly? The list is long, you’re going to have to be more specific,” Elis replied rather bitterly.

   “Not knowing what’s going on,” Kai specified. “I’m going to check things out.”

   “You’re leaving the ship?” Elis asked in clear disbelief. “What if Brin comes back and you’re not here? Or worse, if everything goes wrong and we need to leave, urgently?”

   “I’m entrusting the Comet to you,” Kai said to Elis as she exited the cockpit, ignoring his wide eyes and look of panic. “Don’t do anything. I’ll be back before you know it.”

   With that, Kai was off. She reached the door that connected the two ships, double-checked that she had her blaster securely strapped to her leg and turned on her datapad for a quick look at her destination. Straight down the main hall towards the command deck, a sharp corner right about mid-way and a few extra small turns and she’d be there, hopefully.

   The Revelatory wasn’t all that different from the Comet in terms of appearance. It was clear that the cartel hadn’t yet racked-up the credits they needed to upgrade their interior design. Kai walked slowly down the main corridor, keeping an eye on her datapad to guide her way. The ship was relatively busy, with mercenaries passing noisily in groups or walking by in somewhat of a rush, perhaps on their way to start their shift, but nothing that Kai couldn’t handle. She had spent most of her life in the under levels of Coruscant, after all. Kai avoided the mercenaries easily by ducking away behind a connecting corridor or pausing in front of a door with her back turned as though about to open it. 

   As she ventured further into the ship, she noticed that there were fewer passers by. After another couple of turns, she arrived at her destination, the control panel on the side of the door a good indication that she was in the right place. Kai took a look around to make sure no one was there and entered the access code. To her relief, the lock turned green and the door opened.

   “Two out of two. Nicely done, Aine,” Kai whispered to herself.

   The room was a relatively small storage area with one notable difference from other small storage areas she was used to: everything was kept in closed cases of various sizes, a great majority of which were black.

   “You’ll know it when you see it, she said,” Kai told herself ironically.

   With no time to waste, Kai started checking the smaller black cases. Not to any great surprise, she quickly found that all of them were locked.

   “Locks everywhere in this place,” Kai muttered annoyingly. “I guess trust doesn’t go far in cartel circles.”

   There were too many cases for her to cary all back, so she could either guess which one to take or find a way to open each of them and hope she would know something important when she saw it. Either way, her options were less than ideal, and realistically she didn’t have time to unlock piles of cases. Their team’s head start was running out and Brin was probably finishing up his task. She had to get back to the ship. Kai stood there in the midst of the cases, staring at them as though they would provide the answer to her predicament. She closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. She exhaled slowly, clearing her mind. After a few more deep, mindful breaths, she opened her eyes. Letting her intuition guide her, she grabbed one of the cases stashed towards the back and left the room without another look, hoping for the best.

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