Fake It Until You Break It

Shinca Starport was not much to look at. A dozen or so berths of varying sizes centred around a traffic control tower. As Shomwe snuck toward the port, she questioned the need for the tower in the first place. She doubted she had ever seen any two ships coming or going from this place at the same time. It was probably a matter of Republic regulation or something.

The port was light on formal security. The lone Republic squad assigned there was very much obligatory. However, it was not formal security that Shomwe had to be worried about. Those serving the Hutts did not wear uniforms nor patrol in consistent patterns, making them a far more insidious threat.

Shomwe was still not clear on how aware the Cartel was of her escaped status. Had she felt confident that they were none the wiser, then she would have bought travel off-world in a casual manner. She was not confident of that though, and thus committed to the effort of remaining inconspicuous. She walked the port with her head down and her eyes to herself. It may have been a suspicious look to any watching out for such behaviour, but she hoped it could pass for the spiritless disposition of someone who had had a long day.

Not a lot of truth-stretching going on there...

It did not take long for her to realize that she was not sure what she was looking for. Getting as far from Dantooine as possible was optimal, just getting off-world was satisfactory, but what if she committed to a transport that was just hopping to a different planetary region? Worst-case scenario, word got out about her jailbreak and a surly greeting party awaited her wherever they landed. How does one know what a ship’s destination is just by looking at it? This was not a fancy superport on Coruscant with labelled terminals and boarding calls. Asking around could clear things up but it could also attract attention, not to mention eat up precious time.

Having paused by the side to think it over, Shomwe flinched when she felt a tap on the shoulder. She whipped around to face a squad of clone troopers. The one squad of clone troopers at the port.

“Woah,” the soldier reacted to her abrupt motion. “Are you alright, ma’am? You don’t look too good.”

“Excuse you!” Shomwe scoffed. “Just because I’m not to your liking does not mean I am an unattractive woman!”

“No, that’s not what I meant,” the trooper raised his hands defensively. “You look like someone gave you a hard time. Are you alright?”

“Yeah, I’ll be fine. I already reported it,” she said, pre-empting his next question.

“Okay then, let us know if you have any more trouble.”

As the clones moved on, Shomwe glanced around. Naturally, a civilian being approached by armed authority figures had drawn the attention of a few nearby. Most immediately returned to whatever they had been doing before, but one or two bystanders allowed their gaze to linger. Knowing agents or discourteous strangers, Shomwe was not sure.

“Well, where did you think it was?!” someone shouted.

“Not halfway across the galaxy, that’s for sure!” came a response of comparable aggression.

Halfway across the galaxy? That’s a place I want to be!

Shomwe moved to see what all the fuss was about. Near one of the bays, a Weequay man was arguing with a human woman. Both were dressed like blue-collar workers – jumpsuits and utility belts for technical work.

“I never would have signed on if I had known the journey was going to take a week!” the woman was exclaiming.

“Well you can’t back out now,” the man countered. “Where are we going to find a substitute five minutes before launch?”

“I’ll go,” Shomwe interjected. “Where are you going?”

“Ha!” the Weequay man barked. He turned back to the human. “Never mind then. Guess we’re settled.” He held out a hand expectantly. “Hand over the belt and get out of here.”

The human woman undid the utility belt and threw it on the ground defiantly before storming off. True, she had gotten what she wanted, but now she was out of the job.

The man retrieved the belt and dusted it off before holding it out for Shomwe to take. “You ever transported high-sensitivity flora before?”

“No,” Shomwe answered candidly.

“Eh, whatever. Come anyways,” he waved her along.

The Weequay led her aboard a medium-sized craft; too big to be operated by a single person but small enough to keep the crew intimate. As a cargo transport, most of it was holding bay. A minority of the interior was dedicated to crew facilities – cockpit, quarters, dining, and the likes.

“Change into this,” the man said, handing Shomwe a jumpsuit he had pulled from a closet. It was akin to the one he wore, perhaps a little shabbier than his. “Lavatory’s around that corner if you want to do it in private.”

Shomwe stowed her bags by the bunk the man had said was hers. She changed into the coveralls in a washroom that was small enough to give some humanoids trouble. As she was coming out, she felt the craft tremble around her. She found a porthole and watched the ground drop away beneath them.

No backing out now.

“Look at you,” the Weequay man remarked buoyantly, returning from whatever he had been doing while she changed. He made a swift examination of the uniform. “Fits like a glove.”

If that glove were a full size too big, maybe. The coveralls sagged in numerous places. The sleeves were baggy and long enough to obnoxiously hang over her hands. The collar that was supposed to hold snug to her neck hung slack, letting wayward drafts onto her collarbone.

“Come,” he waved. “Let’s get you started.”

Their footfalls clanked noisily as they walked the crude metal floors of the transport. The passages were narrow and Shomwe had to stop more than once to unsnag her coveralls from various protrusions. The holding bay was a single large chamber. It looked like a warehouse that had been converted into a botanical museum. Rows, columns, and stacks of vitrines filled the hold. Inside each was some sort of exotic looking vegetation. Some were airtight, others were open to circulate with the hold’s atmosphere. Some had their temperature regulated while others were fed specific nutrients at intervals. Walkways laced between the two levels of vivariums, granting other crewmates access to maintain and monitor the plants. The foreman approached one of these crewmates with Shomwe in tow.

“Hey, Lelses. I have a newbie here for you. Get her up to speed.” The Weequay clapped her on the shoulder and walked away.

The Clawdite man looked up from the plant he was tending to, neither upset nor excited to be saddled with this spontaneous responsibility. “Newbie, huh? Just how new to this profession are you?”

“This is minute one, hour one of my botanical experience.”

“Uh-huh,” the Clawdite acknowledged. It would have been understandable if he had felt resentment for the tall order of training someone so lacking of any prerequisite knowledge, but it did not look as though he felt that way. He appeared totally indifferent about it. “Take a look here,” he gestured to the container before him.

Shomwe leaned in for a good look at the plant inside the container. Like many of the others in the hold, it looked alien, delicate, and pretty.

“This here is an especially choosy bloom native to Yavin 4. It’s picky about everything from its watering cycle to its atmospheric gas ratios.”

“What’s it called?” Shomwe asked out of curiosity.

“No idea,” the Lelses answered, earning a puzzled look from Shomwe. “I can remember which plants like what but don’t ask me to keep all those damn names straight. I just call this kind Prima Donna.”

“Okay… so what do we need to do?” the Mirialan asked.

“It’s inside an airtight chamber because it’s sensitive to changes to most any aspect of its environment. It looks like the air composition in there is nearing the limits of appropriate parameters. Give it a pump to get it back on track.”

Lelses had said ‘pump’ while waving at a dial, so they were off to a splendid start. Shomwe reached out for it and the botanist said nothing to correct her, so she must have understood correctly. The dial only had two labels on it, one on each side. They were vague pictograms that looked like inversions of one another, so Shomwe got the idea that it was a binary control – activate and deactivate. Therefore, when she tried to crank it one hundred and eighty degrees and it clicked numerous times – as though she was jumping straight over a dozen settings – she felt a little surprised. She had expected to hear a hiss or witness a puff of mist as gas was introduced, but instead a nozzle spewed a significant amount of some liquid at the base of the plant. It was enough to puddle before soaking into the soil.

“That was the fertilizing cocktail,” Lelses stated in an undisturbed tone. “And a lot of it.”

“Oops,” was all Shomwe could respond with. Her stomach fell. The man beside her had made a point of how sensitive this plant was. But maybe it will be okay. After all, it was just fertilizer. Fertilizer is good for the plant, right?

Over the following minutes, Shomwe and Lelses watched as the plant withered and died. It now looked twice as brittle and half as colourful. The Mirialan sat frozen in terror. She had just destroyed precious cargo. She did not turn to look at the man for fear that it would prompt him to throw her out the airlock then and there.

The silence was broken when the Clawdite spoke. His voice was flat and uncaring as ever. “Well, that’s probably two hundred credits or so that we’re not going to be paid for.” He faced Shomwe and she cautiously met his gaze. His emotionless expression matched his tone. “And it’s not coming out of my cut.”