“Are you really doing this?” said Torian. “Not my place, but…it’s a little tacky.”

Pride wasn’t really something Calline had experience with. She had once been paid to punch a man in front of his girlfriend until he cried, no more and no less. “Credits mean better gear, means better bounties.”

“You need money to make money,” Gault said sagely. “I’ve bootstrapped it before, but believe you me, it isn’t fun.”

So that was the next gig. Calline brushed her long, dark blue hair more carefully than usual that night. Would Adascorp bring its own camera crew? Of course they would. Calline would have to be ready to object: she had never submitted to stage makeup before and she wouldn’t now.

It was a weird bedtime thought, but she slept well anyway.

*

It was a Jedi/SIS sting. This kind of thing had never happened before she became Champion. Now crusaders just wanted to pile on. Calline had killed combatants and fat cats, and preserved more than she killed; she would defend her right to go on fighting.

All of this raced through her mind as a Jedi on holo watched half a dozen SIS spooks melt out of the patented Quesh woodwork and open fire on her.

Mako sounded even more indignant than Calline felt as they closed back to back and started picking off targets. “Adascorp is legitimate, I checked!”

Gault was skulking toward the light switch. “Not every legitimate thing is helpful, or even friendly.”

Calline and Mako were used to sudden lights out. Their attackers were not. Calline had a target in sight when Gault shut down the light. She fired and hit, fired and hit.

Until the only enemy in the room was on the holo. He blustered. “You’ve only made things worse for yourself, bounty hunter!”

Calline theatrically raised one blaster toward the ceiling and blew over its hot barrel. She laid eyes squarely on the Jedi image and suggested, “Pay me to stop,” and shot out the holo controls. He vanished in a puff of outrage.

The room was quiet.

“I like your thinking,” Gault said. “Have we considered advertising this approach?”

Calline shrugged. He could monetize anything. If people wanted to pay her to stop doing things she felt at best neutral about doing, that was fine. She put on her respirator and walked out. The sooner she was out of this poison stew, the better.

*

Mako could tell Calline liked Blizz, because Blizz stole and returned her blaster and didn’t get the business end. The Jawa—and Mako kind of hoped it was a lady Jawa—was their best lead on their mark.

“You go out find bounty hunter? Flamethrowers much bad in snow. Temperature differential too great.”

Calline clearly knew Jawaese trade language in all its technical glory. She gestured over her shoulder. “Heat deflector.” She twisted to show the Jawa.

“No-no. Fin break. No repair in field. Bad time.”

“I installed struts to keep the fins straight. More surface area. Faster dissipation.”

Calline plunged into debate about the finer points of pirate-stymying. It was all the detail she put into her little droid, only put into words so she could match the little Jawa. Mako looked at Torian. Torian grinned and shrugged. Calline continued to be technical.

“I’ll build one better,” she said sharply. “It’ll work.”

“Get Blizz components!” The Jawa waved wildly. “No ion emissions, and more stable!”

“Yeah, right.”

Mako had to stop this. “Um. Calline?”

“Hm?” She looked up.

“White Maw? Pirates? Finding our target?”

Calline blinked. “Yeah. We’ll talk, Blizz.”

“You bring diatium flanges,” Blizz said…sulkily.

“Aurodium plate the whole thing, huh.” Calline scoffed and turned around. “Where to?”

*

Dorn Base was one long, low hallway with narrow doorways on both sides to where the business was transacted. A pair of people sat at a wide desk backed by a pile of crates. It was kind of a lousy headquarters, but Calline felt like they already knew that.

And they stood. “You,” said the Human. He was in military uniform, with tracing of a goatee on his pale face. “Hunter?”

Calline stopped and folded her arms across her chest. Then surprise knocked the words she hadn’t meant to speak down.

The other man was uniformed in a way that was different. And he…he was Chiss. He had gray hair and a lined face, but he was blue,  and simply standing he gave the impression of a nexu about to pounce.

She was outside Imperial space. This couldn’t be a complete shock. But she hadn’t expected to see anything like him.

“Hunter,” he said in a cultured voice, with only the faintest slur of a Csillan accent. “I am Captain Yudrass. This is Commander Tritan. You reach us at an awkward time. Our commander has been slain by Talz.”

“We need to find their food source and destroy the lot of it,” Tritan said sharply.

“It’s precious material,” Yudrass said. “Any amount you can retrieve for us would help the effort.”

“You should burn it,” Tritan said.  “And much joy may they have of it.”

Waste not, want not, Mimma would always say. The idea of torching supplies that had been hauled all the way out to a planet that was 99% ice seemed…insane.

Yudrass watched her without the slightest urgency. A Chiss. A man of rank, in uniform, fitting in with Imperials…a Chiss, here. Her mouth was dry. She had left the colony world of Rentor and its oligarchically owned icebergs when she was a tiny child. She hadn’t gotten close to another Chiss in all the years since. She wanted to get him alone and just…what, exactly? Talk.

“Buy you a drink?” she said weakly.

Commander Tritan coughed and looked away.  Yudrass looked sincerely confused. “This isn’t the best time to be…”

“Want to talk. Ten minutes, I’ll time it. Then work.” She made eye contact with Torian and Mako and they looked as baffled as Yudrass, but they stayed quiet.

“Very well. Commander, if you’ll excuse me. This way…?”

“Calline.”

“Hunter Calline.” He gestured as he started walking. “That’s an unusual name.”

“Callinel. House Luor.” It just sounded more alien with the third syllable.

“I see.” He led her to a hole in the wall that turned out to be a small, feverishly heated cantina. He led her to the bar and signaled for two of something. “I can almost place your accent. Say something more. Do you know Tebec Noor Sagani?”

“Oh.” The monologue was the most famous part of the Creac Cycle, which hadn’t exactly been in her formal schooling. But you couldn’t grow up Chiss and not hear parts of it. “Urugik Noor vaela, arrakaer son hmaela, niri kataa d’uru.”

Yudrass studied her eyes. “Rentor. Working…er.” He looked down at the tall narrow glass the bartender had pushed toward him.

“Working class.” She wasn’t ashamed of it, even if he was. It amazed her that somebody should exist who had heard of her home planet. She took her glass and tried it. It was layered in shades of red and very sweet. “Where are you from?”

“Csilla.” He threw back half the drink with perfect dignity and eyed the rest. “My family has served the Aristocrae for generations.”

And, for six years of her life, she’d been in that universe. Way at the lower end, where it got dragged a bit in aphosite dust. “We’re far from home.”

“But we each have a place, no? They send two kinds of people to this planet: people they despise enough to let goods go, and people they trust enough to bring goods in. I imagine you already know which you are.”

“You too.”

Calline’s holo went off. Her time was gone. She ducked a nod at the Chiss officer and pocketed her holo.

“Calline. I didn’t brief you on how Dorn Base is operating. Do you think you can get those supplies?”

“Have my fee ready, Captain.”

That serious expression softened. “With pleasure.”

She never made another overture to him. She didn’t want to know what assumptions Chiss men made that other men did or didn’t. It was enough that there was someone in her world who had come from her old world. That there was a continuity, a part of her history that didn’t have to hang solely off her shoulders.

They returned to the cavernous main hall. Tritan hid a smile badly. Torian just looked at Calline. “Ready?”

“He knew my home planet. Bonding’s done.” She said it loudly enough for Yudrass to hear. Then she beckoned to Torian and Mako. “Pirate time.”

*

The chase left the nice warm base. Actually, it went way, way beyond the nice warm base.

An ice world didn’t bother Calline too much. She had been six years old when her family had moved from the mining colony in the iceberg on Rentor to the bright, live, scrub-spangled factories on Atalan. Atalan’s winters had been mild. For her older siblings it must have been a welcome change. To Calline, snow was a distant memory, notable only because it made the mine workers sad.

Hoth seemed to want to make its own reckoning. Calline equipped the overlays recommended by Imperial staff and still felt chilled to the bone after half an hour riding speeders through the blinding white.

In fact, after the first hour, they went back to buy all the supplies Calline would have considered overkill. Any observer would probably laugh their ass off, but with her heaters and her thick face mask and shaded goggles, she at least felt like she wasn’t dying with every turn.

“So not a big snow person?” Mako said innocently. “I mean, for a Chiss.”

“There’s a lot,” Calline said defensively.

Torian snorted, then looked innocent when the two women looked his direction. “Champion.”

*

They had to camp on Hoth, and they did so in a corner of a rocky rise. Their tent fit all three of them, Gault having drawn the long straw back at base. 

But Calline was restless. She unzipped the tent, slipped out, and zipped it closed. 

She stood facing a wide expanse of snow. The galaxy was a weak silver breath across the night’s black face. It was all pure, somehow. 

Someone came up alongside her. Big. Torian.

“It's beautiful,” she explained. 

He nodded. “If the wind blew the other way for a few hours, it'd be a totally different scene.” 

“I was hborn on an ice planet. I lived in an iceberg.” 

“No.”

“Yep.”

“Did it tip over if you went topside?”

“Nah. Very hbig iceberg.” 

“How did you get from there to…here?”

“Slow learner.” She had a rough laugh, easy in cadence if rare in provocation. “I have a brother. He ran away when I was a kid. Hmaybe I can find him.” 

“I can help.” 

The sky was clear and the sparse metallic stars hung low, just above the soughing current of wind. Calline punched Torian's shoulder and said nothing else. Torian brought a hand up and mussed Calline's hood as if mussing her hair. They stood a while longer, isolated  but not alone, watching an empty world illuminated by an endless cover of white. Then he held the tent flap for her and they went to their respective bed rolls.

*

The tricky thing about proving oneself a worthy enemy is, one fought so many fights along the way, one was probably in really, really good practice…yes, that was the point of a worthy enemy. But only a moron would ask Calline to be one.

Oh, she proved herself a worthy adversary. She proved herself a worthy adversary half a dozen times over. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected at the end…a Trandoshan twelve feet tall with magic heat powers? God? Something.

But it was just another fight, and Torian and Mako were with her for every moment she didn’t specifically label as one-on-one.

Freeing Blizz was the most natural thing in the world. After Calline had finished impressing everybody on Hoth by killing everybody else on Hoth…which was really what this had come down to…well, adopting a Jawa who had a philosophical opposition to flanges felt like a step back toward sanity.

They took the shuttle to the orbital station. They yelled at Gault to open the Boorcati’s airlock.

And Calline felt moved to speak while they rushed into the nice ship. “Warm. Warm. Warm.”

Blizz scurried up behind her. “Blizz set up flamethrower?”

“No.” She reviewed what she knew about Blizz’s gear. “Wait. Whose?”

Blizz tugged at Calline's fuel feed. “Blizz make warm.” 

“Down. It's okay. Hey, Mako. Tatooine.”

Gault launched himself to block the staircase. “No, sir. Never going back there.” 

Torian coughed. “Right, all those people you rooked. So where?” 

“Naboo,” Gault said decisively. “It's summer in the northern hemisphere. The lakes are like mirrors under the passing clouds, and the hills are green seas with islands of flowers in the dotting meadows. The perfume of the air is like first love, a kiss on every breeze. They say the birds sing in twenty-nine languages there, and maybe more that society forgot.”

Calline’s crew stared at the Devaronian.

“And Ol Filik owes me money. I'm way overdue for a visit with him.”

“Flowers?” said Calline, seizing one of the few details that sounded appealing.

“A thousand species including seven aphrodisiacs. Trust me, I once bilked the tourism bureau out of thirty thousand credits in the middle of a funding negotiation.”

Mako looked almost malicious. “You seem to have memorized all their pamphlets first.”

“There’s just not enough beauty in the galaxy,” Gault opined. “I’m doing my part. In more ways than one.”

“Mako.” Calline nodded. Mako vaulted up the stairs to reach the bridge.

Calline was halfway out of her armor in the Boorcati’s main room when T5-M7 screamed like a child being taken from her mother. Calline pounded to the engine room, where T5-M7 was brandishing a small acetylene torch against a shaking Blizz.

“Crazy droid has fire! Blizz did nothing! Droid crazy!”

Jawa = rude // Jawa = tried to emulsify primary motivator

Whatever “emulsify” meant in Teefive’s messed-up language libraries, it couldn’t be good. “Blizz? House rule. Teefive’s not a droid. Teefive’s a person. You don’t take people’s parts out to build stuff with.” She hoped.

Blizz hunched pathetically. “Okay okay. Blizz no improve Teefive.”

Teefive dwooped something eloquent at that.

“It’s okay,” Calline urged. “Ladies? All friends?”

“How you know Blizz lady?” The last word was painfully sounded out in Basic. The trade Jawaese didn’t really care.

“All the best people are,” Calline said airily, and went to see how the path to Naboo was going.

*

Naboo was gorgeous. Calline wasn't sure about the aphrodisiacs and forgotten languages, but the sun was bright, the air was warm, the lakeside bungalow was comfortable, and her friends were here.

Calline cracked off her armor. She hiked up a flowery meadow and cartwheeled back down, dark blue hair flying. Mako greeted her at the bottom. "I didn't know we have to take you out for walks."

Torian wrapped an arm around Mako's waist. He was helmetless. "I get it. I have to feel air this warm to believe it after Hoth."

Gault sauntered from the bungalow. "Did you know this rental came with a speedboat? I only ask because it won't anymore if Blizz spots it."

Calline walked fast. She had learned water sports with an old mercenary contact, years ago. Time to show everyone what a speedboat was really for.

*

“We got an invite,” said Mako. “To celebrate clearing Jicoln and Vause. The other Champions want to celebrate on Nar Shaddaa.”

“Not to smell a trap everywhere,” said Gault, “but we should seriously consider upping the sensitivity on our trap-o-meter.”

“This is Bloodworthy and Nightbringer and the Defenestrator,” Torian said. “They are Champions. They are as honorable as Calline is.”

Gault waved dismissively. “Nobody with honor parties on Nar Shaddaa. It’s one of the reasons I enjoy the place so much. Though it does make the big-time idiots slightly harder to reach.”

Calline just jerked her head toward the bridge. If the Champions wanted to get together, she was in favor.

*

So the party hall was a bloody mess. The Champions had put up a hell of a fight, but there were too many droids, and the acid tang of something that would have hurt the fleshier Champions. The Defenestrator’s motionless husk was crusted with ion charges.

Mako scanned the scene, and Calline was certain she was downloading information about the obvious signs. Filling in details. Readying the report. Calline reconstructed an uneven fight against someone who had bought war droids en masse for one ugly fight.

Blizz scurried past Calline. “Boss pick up droids? Boss pick up all the droids?”

“Wait ‘til we know,” Calline growled. “Hey! Not him!”

Blizz froze, one tiny gloved hand held out. “Not all ions spent!”

“That’s the Defenestrator. He gets buried as is. He was tougher than me.” 

“That not possible!”

 Well, they would never find out, directly or otherwise. “Leave him,” she said. “Mako, direct.” The person with the walking Holonet access could organize it. She walked around the room of the dead, making notes and speaking them aloud when she had to.

“Calline.” Mako was touching the cybernetic curve on her face. “It just got worse.”

“Mako,” Calline said. She tried to figure out the words for why she hated this scene so much. “I’m tired of coming for the party and staying for the funeral.”

“You’re wanted for this string of murders. Or the two that count under interstellar law, anyway. Your accuser is our friend from the holo on Quesh. And the heat’s turning up in a dozen…fourteen…it just keeps coming in.”

“Actual murders?”

“Some of them. If we don’t move now I’m not sure we’ll make it off Nar Shaddaa.”

“Fine. Cart? Those three.”

“I never leave home without a means of disposing of bodies,” Gault said, picking up a collapsed rack he’d left in the doorway. “A moment.”

“Blizz. Gather.”

“Utini!” The Jawa went berserk.

So at least one person got something nice out of this.

*

Darth Tormen offered to keep the heat off Calline, and, with Mako lying down with a headache from just collecting the charges getting leveled at Calline from the galaxy at large…well, Calline needed something large-scale, and that might be Tormen. So he sent her to a prison planet called Belsavis.

And a foul-mouthed Houk got between her and her target.

“You, runt. Name’s Skadge. You hit the shield generator, I get Zale.”

Like hell. She walked.

“Wait! You need me!”

“We do?” Torian said, so neutral he could smother a chemical reaction.

“You’ll see.”

The thing was, Skadge kept turning up, clearly intent on killing Calline’s target. She had to chase the Houk away from her carbonite spray with a charged blaster.

“I’ll be taking that,” Skadge said with impressive if totally delusional confidence. “Time to go.”

Calline didn’t budge. “Bye.”

Skadge’s voice dropped. It was a quiet, ugly rumble. “I’m leaving on your ship, with or without you. Get me?”

Calline looked at Skadge.

Skadge looked at Calline.

Calline looked at Skadge.

Skadge looked at Calline.

Calline shot Skadge between the eyes. Three times, as it took him that long to start tilting and falling to one side.

“Torian,” she said. She didn’t quite trust a blaster to stop a Houk. An electrostave in the throat, that was more verifiable.

“With pleasure,” said Torian. “He never touched you, did he?”

Calline snorted and shook her head.

“Good. I just kill him for everything else he’s done.” And Torian, faithful, ready Torian, did exactly that.

*

Faithful, ready Torian. So how did they manage to lose him?

Calline had let the crew loose on the Imperial fleet. Everyone wanted some kind of R&R, and maybe some things to patch over the memories of Belsavis and Skadge. Mako was chasing down a lead on her “sister,” Coral. Gault was looking for a sufficiently fine vintage to drown his sorrows, which meant he was so upset by what he’d seen he was considering actually spending credits. Or just talking someone else out of it. Torian did Torian things, probably meeting friends; they would likely get together for dinner before this trip was done. Blizz stayed close by Calline’s side as she resupplied. If she thought Imps were racist about a tall blue woman out of armor, that was nothing next to the treatment Blizz got. And the Jawa barely stole anything at all. Calline bought Blizz a club membership at a fleet mechanic’s shop that gave discounts on lubricating fluids to members. Blizz was ecstatic.

But Calline got a holo from a man she didn’t know, asking what she was missing.

Calline stared at the holo figure.

“Torian,” the figure said, sounding annoyed. “You’re missing Torian.”

Calline's senses kicked into high gear. She could mess with this guy while he didn't have her. She waited, listening very hard.

“Cadera? The blond?”

“Huh.” They’d split to tour the Fleet, but she would’ve noticed by the end of the week.

“We’re holding him!” the figure yelped. “You have to come save him, or else!”

Calline was glad Mako wasn’t there. She might try to engage the idiot in conversation.

“Angry man’s helmet is bad fit,” Blizz opined. “Could buy better.”

“Buh-I-Come to these coordinates!” the figure yelled, and cut out.

Calline holoed Mako immediately. “Torian. Meet me at the ship.”

*

The GenoHaradan. Calline knew little about them, except that apparently they wanted Calline out of the way. She and Mako walked straight into their trap, where Torian waited, tied to a chair, looking immensely sheepish.

“Got careless,” he said across the room.

“Let him go,” said Calline.

“No.” It was the figure from the holo. “A bounty hunter should know her limits. Draw and I kill him.”

“It’ll be the last thing you do,” Mako flared. Calline didn’t interfere. She kept her hand ready, and she waited.

The figure stamped a foot. “Could you pretend you care about this situation?”

“If I cared?”

“Yes.”

So Calline drew very fast. And she started cutting people down, not even trying to subdue. She and Mako shot down every armored figure in every corner of the room.

Calline knelt by the original figure to search pockets. Mako was sprinting to untie Torian.

“That’s my girl,” he drawled, and though Mako’s laugh was nervous, it was a laugh.

*

Tormen blah blah blah Corellia blah. Despite the annoyance, Calline made note of every word, every name, that passed from Tormen’s lips. One of the principles of surviving Sith attention was to never, ever have to hear something repeated.

He didn’t send her to Corellia first. He sent her to a weird planet called Voss.

“Not a lot of information,” Mako said. “The Empire tired to swallow it whole, and failed. I’m dying to find out how they did that, but the HoloNet doesn’t seem to know.”

“Naval or ground?” said Calline.

“Not sure. Naval, probably.”

Calline rolled her shoulders and thanked whatever powers might be that the major problem seemed to be with ships. Her ship was maneuverable and small. And if passing their space defenses was the hard part…well. “So we land.”

*