Mithridatism

“That’s what I mean!” Mara interrupted, her voice dropping to a fierce whisper. “You’ve been practicing with a remote for less than a year and it can’t keep up with you. You figured out how to read intent entirely by yourself. <i>I</i> was trained and I can’t do all that as consistently.”

“It’s just practice. You don’t practice eno—”

“People get targeted and killed by the Emperor for a fraction of what you can do,” she snapped. “You need to be careful.”

“I <i>am</i> careful,” Luke insisted, keeping his voice low and steady. “I don’t walk around with your lightsaber. I don’t ever use it in public. Everyone thinks I’m just good at tracking because I’m near-human. You don’t need to worry about me, Mara. Really. You don’t need to. Focus on you.”

He lifted a hand to her face, warmed by her concern. She wasn’t usually this effusive, but maybe she’d needed the release from earlier—both physical and otherwise, all of it. Coming here had been exactly what they needed to get back in sync. He pressed another kiss to her temple, as she leaned into his embrace.

Mostly to have something to occupy his hands, he crossed to their bags and pulled out the training remote. Even on its highest setting, batting bolts hadn’t been a challenge in a while, so he’d gone back to the journal instead—specifically the sequences that had looked almost impossible at first, studying the diagrams as much as the written notes.

Over the last few months he’d worked through it in pieces. Slowly, the entries stopped feeling like instructions and started breaking down into repeatable motion patterns. Not sentences anymore, just structure: the timing between actions, how distance opened or closed on a single half-step, and the “reset” point where a movement broke off early and then re-centered before continuing. The problem was he still didn’t have any reliable way to tell if he was actually doing it right.

Frustrated, he’d started translating it into his own shorthand first, then refining that into simple drill inputs a remote could guide him through. That’s where he’d hit a wall. Hardware he could manage. Software logic—sequencing, timing loops, conditional behavior—would take him forever to cobble together properly.

“Shh. It’s okay,” he murmured. “It’s okay. Everything can be–it can be awful out there, but here’s it’s us. It’s still us. And I got you. All right? Just…” His arms tightened around her, “let me. Stay here with me. Don’t– don’t think. Don’t think about anything outside.” 

She didn’t move away this time and bit by bit her breathing synced with his, the noise in her head dying down, as she leaned more heavily against him. He kissed her temple, smoothing back her hair. 

“Tell me about the rain,” he whispered softly.

She startled slightly.“What?”

“On Coruscant.” Luke stroked her back. “In those squares near the upper verandas. When the weathernet makes storms roll in through the grid... does the air actually get cold? Does it smell like the desert when the moisture breaks?”

Mara was silent for a long moment, her eyes fixed on the dark ceiling.Through their connection, the jagged, looping memory of the alleyway and its screaming and shots finally faltered—interrupted by the sudden, image of a gray sky.

“It’s cold, yeah,” she said. “I didn’t like it. I don’t remember how it smelled, but even if you were inside, it was damp and unpleasant. Like being wet in the desert at night.” She settled closer to him. 

He didn’t say anything knowing she felt his fascination with the splatter of drops against transparisteel. The plop-plop sound.

“Was it hard to fly in?”

“No. The instruments help.” She yawned. “You probably wouldn’t need them.”

He nuzzled her cheek. “You’ve never seen me fly.”

She snorted. Through their connection, he saw the looming cliffs of Beggar’s Canyon.

“That's not real flying,” he said with a soft chuckle. “Not high altitude.”

“High altitude is easy,” she murmured, voice beginning to drift at the edges. “Just math and clean air lines. Rebels are the ones always forcing fights down into the soup. They strip the safety baffles off their X-wings so they can pull tighter turns through gravity storms. That’s crazy.” He heard grudging admiration lurking in her words. 

“That what they say about them on the ShadowNet?” he added a teasing lilt to his voice. “Do I have to be jealous of some hotshot Rebel pilot impressing you now?”

She scoffed into his neck, arms tightening around him. “Please.”

Luke huffed softly. “I remember reading about gravity storms.” He frowned faintly, trying to remember those manuals he read over and over at the farm, mostly to daydream all the flying he could do one day. “The manuals called them…Suicide vectors, I think.” The technical term surfaced suddenly in his mind. "High-risk descent vectors."

A small ripple of amusement moved through her in the Force, warmer now, sleepier. He knew she’d seen the memory and felt charmed. 

“Yeah.” Her head shifted more heavily against his shoulder. “But Rebels don’t care about manuals. They patch engines with scrap and fly anyway.”

He felt her relaxing by increments now, the tension slowly uncoiling from her body.

“You’re good at that, too,” she said quietly. “Making things work when they shouldn't.” Her voice softened further. “You’re good at everything."

“Name’s Dren Tal. Freight loader under Yanfo.” The bruiser glanced briefly toward Luke before continuing. “Father died six months ago. Just of age to inherit the family debt and housing contract.”

“Who else lives with him?” Luke asked.

The bruiser shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know.”

Suer exhaled sharply. “Then karking ask, idiot.” He jabbed a finger toward him. “Find out who the kid knows, where he sleeps, who feeds him when he’s broke. Otherwise we’ll spend all night chasing shadows.” His expression darkened. “And send someone to Teeth with the name.”

“She doesn’t need to be involved yet,” Luke said immediately.

Suer ignored him. “Go.”

The bruiser hurried off into the crowd.

For a moment Suer watched him disappear between the narrow lanes before glancing sideways at Luke. “Sita said to loop Teeth in.”

“All you have is a frightened kid with a dead holder attached to him.”

Suer leaned back slightly against the wall, arms folding. “A hothead kid with a blaster who shot a holder -- one of our flushest holders-- and some passerbys at my district while he was at it. Worth Teeth’s time.”

Luke frowned. “When he’s found, she said. If Teeth starts tearing through Uplands now you’ll just panic the district worse. No one loves panic like Imperials.”

Suer opened his mouth, then stopped. Luke felt the reluctant recognition in him through the Force before it ever reached his face.

“She knows how to keep people quiet,” the Nikto muttered finally. “Nobody’s going to chatter to the Imperials after she’s done making examples. Look, everyone knows you think she’s heavy handed but–”

An Ortolan child interrupted him suddenly coming up to Luke. “Master, master!"

Suer scowled immediately. “Manners, brat.”

The Ortolan startled upright so fast he nearly tripped over himself and bowed again and again. “Apologies." He turned to Luke. "My mistress is asking for you.”

“Mistress?” Suer repeated scanning the runner’s tunic, then barked out a rough laugh as he realized the youngling came from the Veil. “You let the whores send for you? No wonder Arica was half feral the other night.”

Luke shot him a flat look, but something cold tightened low in his stomach. Nenea wouldn’t do this lightly. Something big was happening.

“I got a name,” Mara announced when she slid into bed beside him.

Through the connection he caught flashes immediately—an Imperial officer moving through the site in a pressed gray uniform, the accompanying pulse of anger that belonged to them.

“Sita’s handling it.”

“We can handle it ourselves.”

Luke turned his head toward her in the dark. “Imperials aren’t your usual gang.”

“I know that,” she shot back. He felt her irritation rise the instant she sensed his own.

“Sita’s looking for dirt on him,” he said patiently. “Officers who shake people down usually do dirt somewhere else too. Credits, spice, prostitutes, confiscated shipments. She’ll find something eventually and then he’ll work for her.”

Mara shifted beside him restlessly, repositioning under the sheets until her leg brushed against his and her hand settled briefly against his side before withdrawing again.

“So we sit here and wait for someone else to fix it?”

“Yes,” he said flatly. “It’s Sita’s call anyway.”

“Thought Flip was yours.”

He scoffed softly and rolled onto his back.

The silence that followed carried a disgruntled edge now, and somehow that irritated him more than if she had simply argued.

“You want to lash out,” he said finally. “Like you did with that officer back at the Arena. But we can’t risk that. It’d feel good for five minutes to get rid of him and then the entire garrison starts connecting dots. Imperials look for patterns. Any excuse to squeeze Mos Espa harder and they’ll take it.” He rubbed tiredly at his face. “Just let it go, Mara. Sita’s people will handle it.”

In one smooth motion she shifted over him.

“Do Sita’s people actually know Imperial protocols?”

Luke blinked up at her outline, momentarily thrown by the sudden weight of her settling across his waist. “They deal with Imperials all the time, so yes.”

She exhaled sharply through her nose and rolled off him again onto her stomach.

Luke stared up into the dark a moment longer. He could leave her to her mercurial mood. He probably should.

“What would you do to them if you could?” she murmured eventually, voice muffled against her folded arms.

“What does it matter?”

“Humor me.”

Luke was quiet for a moment before answering. He rolled onto his side, one arm folding beneath his head while the other drifted almost absently along her shoulder, fingertips brushing over the place where the prosthetic joined flesh beneath the fabric of her nightshirt. She still wore long sleeves even to bed.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “What Sita plans sounds fitting.”

“Why?”

“Because they’re Imperials,” he said. “They think the uniform gives them permission to do whatever they want.”

His voice remained even, but restlessness moved beneath it now. He found himself thinking again about where Mara had gone to get the officer’s name, who she’d spoken to, how long she’d spent chasing it. Other bruisers that had gone on the convoy had taken several days. Mara had taken none.

He shifted closer without fully realizing he was doing it, settling half over her, though the nearness didn’t calm him the way it normally did. If anything it only sharpened the unsettled feeling under his skin.

“They’re still murdering, lying, thieving scum,” he murmured near her hair, catching the clean scent of soap and recycled water against her skin, “but they built a system where they can call it maintaining order and stop thinking about what they actually are.”

“So why’s it fitting?” she pressed quietly without lifting her head.

“Because even officers answer to someone,” Luke said, fingers sliding lower until he found the hem of her nightshirt. Her breathing shifted faintly when his hand brushed against the bare warmth of her thigh, skin goosebumping beneath his touch. “Once there’s proof one of them’s stealing or abusing his position, his superiors can’t just ignore it.”

Mara made a low skeptical sound. “Yes they can.”

Luke laughed softly against her neck, dark humor threading through it. “Maybe in the Core. Not here. Out here they function like any other gang.” His thumb moved idly against her skin. “The ones higher up protect their own privileges first. They’ll punish somebody like him just to remind the rest where the line actually is.”

He shifted closer still, brushing her hair aside before pressing a kiss below her ear.

Two workers were trying to intervene, speaking in quick, clipped Huttese as they moved along the catwalk urgently.

“You can’t—please step away from the regulator,” one of them said, his hands half-raised as he neared the officer.

“There’s a calibration cycle—if you just let us reset—” the other began, already edging toward the panel, eyes flicking between the wheel and the pressure readouts.

The first worker was younger, lean, his coveralls stained dark at the cuffs, hair plastered damply against his forehead from sweat. He moved again, more decisively this time, fingers stretching toward the control interface.

The Imperial slapped his hand away without turning, not even looking at him, like brushing off an insect.

“Basic,” he said flatly. “You will address me in Basic.”

Luke stopped at the edge of the platform above the tanks.

Below him, the reservoir system breathed and shifted in uneven pressure cycles, gauges twitching as the flow struggled to compensate for what was being forced through it. A pressure gauge was flickering in a way it shouldn’t, jittering between readings. One of the secondary overflow lines had begun to backfeed, water moving the wrong direction.

Someone downline was about to lose output entirely, Luke noticed.

“Stop.”

The Imperial finally noticed Luke.

“Oh,” the officer said, brightening slightly, as if a missing piece had just been supplied. “There you are. I was beginning to think your people didn’t keep anyone on hand who could be spoken to properly.”

“They’re asking you to step away from the valve,” Luke said, already descending the stairs.

The Imperial glanced at the wheel in his hand like he was weighing whether it still interested him, knuckles loose around it, posture relaxed. “I’m fine where I am.”

A worker edged closer again, hesitant. His eyes flicked to Luke before he spoke, voice tight with effort, in anxious Huttese.

“Boss,” he said, “if the reservoir overfeeds the lower line, we’ll lose pressure to three blocks—”

“What did he say?”

Luke didn’t look away from the system as he answered. He could smell the alcohol clinging to the officer. “He said that if you shut that down, you destabilize distribution for half the district.”

The officer tilted his head. “That sounds like your problem.”

He turned the wheel another quarter inch.

One of the workers made a small, involuntary sound—half protest, half alarm—as the flow shifted harder into the wrong channel, the sound swallowed almost immediately by the rising noise of the system straining.

Luke stepped forward. “Step away, please.”

The Imperial officer smiled. “Or what?”

One of the workers shoved the officer from the side, quick and desperate, boots slipping slightly on the wet grating as he committed fully to the motion. The Imperial stumbled sideways into the railing, boots splashing hard into the runoff water. In the same motion, the same worker slammed the valve shut.

Metal bit into metal. The system resisted for half a second, as if deciding whether human urgency counted as authority, then locked with a heavy, final clunk.

The flow didn’t stop cleanly—it fought it, surged through remaining channels, overshot the correction curve, then began to settle into a violent, contained churn.

The Imperial officer straightened slowly.

He looked at the worker in astonishment, as though trying to reconcile the action with the category he had already assigned him.

“You touched me.”

The worker was breathing hard, chest rising unevenly beneath his soaked jumsuit. Water clung to his boots up to the ankle, and he didn’t step back, didn’t even seem to register the distance anymore. His gaze kept flicking to Luke as he spoke, Huttese breaking slightly under strain.

“I’m sorry— the valve—had to close it— it was going to blow the line— I had to— it’s my job—”

“You think you get to touch me?” the officer snarled.

The worker opened his mouth again, but didn’t get the chance to finish. The backhand came fast, clean, almost casual in its execution, snapping his head sideways and sending him stumbling into the railing hard enough that the metal rang. A second strike followed immediately, then another, the rhythm tightening as the space around them seemed to contract.

A circle had formed—workers and bruisers alike, hemmed into the narrow space of the maintenance area.

The worker dropped to one knee, and Luke stepped forward, lifting a hand toward the officer, who had finally begun to register the fact that he was surrounded.

“We can take it from here.”

“Can you?” the officer spat. “You have your workers talking back to me. Laying hands on me as though they’ve forgotten their place.”

“They answer to us,” Luke said mildly. “Let us handle this.”

His voice dipped mockingly. “And what are you going to do?”

“We have our own enforcement.”

“Ah, ‘enforcement’” he laughed, and it came out loose and wet. “Your ‘bruisers’ is it? Enforcement—kriffing butchers more like.” The officer shifted his weight. His eyes moved over the workers, over the damp grating, over the valves still shuddering back toward equilibrium.

“The ones who blast beings who can’t pay into little pieces,” he continued, voice lifting slightly as if it amused him, “and send them back to their folk. Broken up. Packed in crates. Tagged like cargo.”

He gave a short laugh.

“Fucking savages. Efficient, I’ll grant them that. There’s something almost honest about it—debt collection at the end of a blaster barrel.”

His gaze drifted over the tanks. “Can’t expect better from this shithole planet.” The officer sniffed. “Fine,” he said, rolling a shoulder. “Call one of them up. I’ll say when.”

Luke gestured without looking around.

A Duros patrolling with Mara stepped forward and stopped close to Luke—Smoot—his posture loose.

“I’ll do it, boss,” he said in Huttese.

Luke nodded at him. “Don’t hurt him much, Smoot,” he replied in Huttese. “Just enough to make this drunk go away.”

The officer narrowed his eyes. “What are you telling him?”

“You should get your datapad.” Luke fit the magna specs over his head. “This’ll take a while.”

“It’s just the hand.”

“I’m going to do the whole arm.” He didn’t look up as he reached to clasp her wrist and scanned the arm over. “Last thing you need is your forearm locking mid-use.”

“I could have the techs do it.”

She didn’t want that and he knew it.

“They won’t do as good a job as I will.” 

She knew that too. He could see it in the faint shift in her posture.

He lowered the specs. The world sharpened into layers of detail—the faint scoring along the finger joints, micro-abrasions along the casing, a hairline gap at the base of the thumb assembly where the alignment had shifted just enough to matter.

Luke paused at the wrist, testing the joint again. He didn’t force it—just applied pressure, enough to read how it answered. 

“There’s a little misalignment here too,” he murmured half to himself when the resistance came back clean. Each time he cycled it manually he ran into the same limitation; it had no uneven give, no internal hesitation in the feedback. Whatever had happened to her hand hadn’t reached deeper systems. It had stayed where he could reach it. 

“Bad?” Mara asked tightly.

Where he could fix it.

“No, I got it.”

The misalignment could be a little tricky. Luke adjusted his grip at her wrist and rotated it a fraction, gently, carefully watching how the housing tracked against itself as he read the response through the joint. He flicked his eyes up to Mara, but she wasn’t reacting in any physical way—no pullback through the shoulder, no tightening in her breathing—and through their connection there was awareness, guarded, but nothing that registered as pain or strain.

Still…“Uncomfortable?” 

“No,” she answered quickly, leaning slightly towards him. “Just a little weird.”

Luke went back to the hand. The thumb assembly lagged slightly behind the rest of the frame, just enough to throw the natural line off. Not damage—shift. Something had taken load while it was locked and forced it out of true.

Luke steadied the forearm against the table and applied controlled counter-pressure at the joint, carefully guiding it into its correct seating. There was resistance at first, from packed grit and stress in the coupling, but he held it there until it yielded with a faint, dry click. The alignment settled back into place under his hands.

He tested it again. This time the thumb tracked cleanly with the rest of her hand.

“I should have done this before you left,” he muttered. “We need to get on a schedule.”

“We’ve been busy,” she said in a gentle tone that made him think she’d read the self reproof.

He picked up the compressed air wand and angled it into the knuckle seams. “Yeah, but this is important. Like all the conditioning you do.”

A flicker of embarrassment crossed her awareness as Mara watched him work. “I guess I’m not used to it.”

“We aren’t,” he said emphatically. “We’ll get there.”

Luke triggered the air in short bursts. Fine dust lifted at once, spilling out in pale streams from the joints and settling across the table. He worked from her fingertip to the base, rotating each segment only as far as it would allow, clearing the compacted grit in stages instead of forcing anything loose.

Once the worst of it was out, he set the air aside and reached for the cleaning solution. As he worked the fluid into the seams the remaining residue softened and broke free.

Up close, the darker staining became harder to ignore. Dried blood. It had settled along the plating edges and into the articulation points, not just surface contact but driven deep where the joints had been working. Some was fresh, some wasn’t. It had been there long enough to bond to the metal in places, worn thin where movement had scraped it away and preserved where it had been trapped.

He kept his focus on the work and not what it represented, pressing the cloth into the seams until it came away stained and heavy. Using another when it was too stained. Then another.

The smell rose faintly—metallic, stale, cut through with solvent.

He felt Mara tense immediately, her presence drawing inward. “I heard there was a scuffle at the docks before we got there.” 

“Like you said,” Luke replied. “Too much strain. You got back in time.”

He adjusted her hand again, checking the wrist alignment a second time now that it was seated correctly. The fingers were still held in that partial curl, but the structure beneath them now tracked properly when he tested it.

“Should be better,” he said.

He switched to a finer tool, working it into the knuckle seams again, drawing out what the air hadn’t reached. It came free in compacted fragments, enough to clear the articulation without stressing the housing.

He paused briefly at the base of her thumb where the residue had packed hardest. Clearly she had used it at close range, under load, long enough for material to be forced into the joint itself.

For a second he could almost hear his uncle’s voice, like this was just another broken moisture pump. 

That there? That’s not dirt sitting loose. That’s compressed into the housing. Means it got there while it was moving, while it was closed up tight. You don’t get that from standing back and swinging at air, son. Think about it. Joint’s fully flexed, held under load, sustained contact—organic material, pressure, time.

Repeated use in close range, while the joint stayed engaged. While it stayed closed around something desperately working against it. Someone.

Mara sat straight, her other hand resting in her lap. Her gaze stayed angled away from him, fixed on the table rather than his face.

Unbidden he thought of Mara’s squared shoulders yesterday, her saying, You were right about Teeth.

Luke didn’t ask what they’d done out there. He didn’t need to dive into their connection to feel the weight of it, pressed down. And he understood enough about the horrors of this life to not want to push into her mind for it even without feeling her resistance. That would make it worse.

Besides, he didn’t care.

Her hand in his grip twitched once when he shifted pressure, a small involuntary response. He set the tool down carefully.

“You won’t go on the next one,” he said, still looking at Mara’s hand—the bare mechanical frame resting in his grip, fingers now moving cleanly but still too exposed, every joint and linkage visible. Someday it'd look like her hand in his again, he promised himself.

His voice stayed even, leaving no room for argument. “They know the route now. They don’t need an alarm.”

Quietly, he added, “I need you with me. I don’t trust anyone but you.”

Pros: underworld shit, scowly lady, dark visuals

Luke dreamed he was walking down a hall, white floors, walls. He kept his balance on the crutch, the sling binding the arm against the ribs, the brace along his side pulling tight with each step. The pain remained a steady pressure beneath everything else, controlled in its intensity, calibrated so it never became enough to interrupt function.He tracking the corridor out of habit more than necessity, counting doors, noting sightlines.

Until he came to an open door at the end.

Inside, the lighting was so uniform it flattened depth, stripping corners of any place to hide. A table was fixed to the floor. Two chairs. An officer, human, tall, dark haired and nondescript, seated.

“Sit.”

Luke did, placing the crutch was placed within reach without conscious decision. The motion tugged at the injury along his side. He didn’t react to it. 

“State the designation for your last assignment.”

“Asset 7-39-J.”

His voice came out level, higher pitched.

Mara’s voice.

“State the objective of your last assignment.”

Mara’s voice again said, “Directive fidelity protocol.”

“That is not correct.”

He held the officer’s gaze. His mouth knew what to say: “Clarify.”

The officer asked instead, “Why did you deviate?”

A shift in the room behind the officer. Not smooth unbroken white wall suddenly, but desert stretching far and featureless to the horizon. A speeder listing sideways, a body dragged behind it. Luke blinked and it was gone.

 “Why did you deviate? Answer.”

He picked up the thread quickly. “I assessed operational necessity.”

“Incorrect. Assessment is not authorization. State the objective.”

He felt himself frown. “Maintain directive fidelity under deviation conditions.”

“Incorrect. You treated deviation as variable,” the officer said coolly, his expression tightening. “Deviation is not variable. It is failure to maintain order. You functioned without authorization in the absence of instruction.”

For a moment the view of the desert returned this time with  heat, and bone-deep vibration. The dunes flattened into white light, the same light as the room, sand was in his mouth, pelting his cheeks –

An echo of screams gone in a wide expanse of wind and sand. Opened bodies along the desert with scavenging birds overhead.

Mara’s own voice small in the roar of engines. “We don’t have time for this!”

Ugly laughter. “Let’s see how long it takes.”

More screams. 

The sky is white.

The room is white.

It hurt so he closed his eyes.

“State the objective,” the officer said again.

He tried to retrieve the answer as it had been spoken before, but it didn’t feel like it was much of an answer anymore. An alarm began to trill.

“I—” he began, but he couldn’t concentrate over the alarm.

The officer’s expression pinched. “State the error!”

“I–”

It’s his comm. His comm was sounding–

Luke gasped awake, his hand fumbling for his comm at the bedside table. His other went to the blaster adhered to the back. He pried it off in a smooth motion as he flipped the line open.

“Yeah?”

“Fighting across the yard.” Jast sounded out of breath. “Warehouse by Second Cut. Two salvage yard crews over their allotments. I’m nearly there.”

Luke swore. “Blasters? How bad?”

“No one dead yet, far as I know. Just a rumble, but you should probably show 'fore it gets worse.”

“All of that will mean delay after delay down the line. Me and Mara have watched them mismark columns. Stupid shavid like that.”

Another section of plating was lowered into place, the system holding under strain.

“Jast did say you’ve brought her here a few times,” Genush said.

“She has good eyes.”

“She also shares your den.” The Besalisk watched him a moment, then went on, voice even. “Business doesn’t stay contained when you bring it home.”

“Business is never contained,” Luke muttered.

“No, but one chooses where it spills. You pulled her in,” Genush continued. “Had her treated, fed, gave her a place. That’s a debt. Cut her loose and it stops being one.”

Luke turned his head slowly towards him.

“Otherwise,” Genush went on, unfazed, “she stays tied to you. Which means anyone looking to move on you starts with her.”

Luke didn’t reply right away. His gaze drifted back to the Arena. “They found Black Krrsantan at Mos Eisley,” he said after a moment. “What was left of him. Chest a few meters off from the rest. Arm never turned up.”

Genush looked at him more closely now, but Luke didn’t return it, his attention still fixed on the work below.

“You heard, right? Cuts were clean, like something went straight through him. Fusion cutter, maybe. Or a lightsaber, a kind of…plasma blade. Funny thing is, those weapons don’t exist.” 

He finally glanced back toward Genush. “But if they did, Jabba would have one just like he has everything. And if someone took it from him, then you know Jabba – he’d send a bad Wook like Krrsantan to get it.” Luke scanned out to the construction one last time. “Doesn't look like that Wook came back.”

Genush stayed staring at him as the wind whistled through the scaffolding.

But Luke’s unease hadn’t dissipated. Teeth taking point still gnawed at him. “She’s the kind of being that will leave you behind if her luck runs out. No principles at all. Just completely self-centered.”

Mara didn’t look up from the clothes she was folding. “That’s almost everyone here.”

“Maybe. Genush isn’t like that.”

“Sita said it’s Teeth, so it’s Teeth’s. No sense stewing.”

Luke let out a frustrated noise, rubbing his forehead and stopped, turned towards her. “I just don’t want her to come back with half the convoy because saving everyone else was too much trouble.”

Mara straightened and set her folded clothing in a nearby shelf. “Sita wouldn’t be happy to lose half the convoy.”

“If she got all her water, she’d be fine with it,” Luke snapped. His mind flicked to the crates stacked outside, the tanks for Flip, too low for comfort. "She'd just have Genush go see who got tossed out of Slave Row again."

“That’s not really your problem with Teeth.”

He met her eyes, with a flat expression. “All right. Tell me what my problem with her is.”

She stopped and tilted her head, parsing through the knots of worry and frustration in him. “It’s more than not having principles and being self-centered. You think she doesn’t see people—unless she’s hurting them. You don’t want her around the moisture farms…or the crew doing the run, or…anyone.”

“She likes hurting people,” Luke blurted out. “Haven’t you felt it? It’s wrong.”

Mara nodded, expression unreadable. In his mind, she felt muddled, disturbed but it made sense. “She’s effective. Teeth helped Sita clean out Mos Espa. Tristedes wouldn’t have the hold it does without her.”

“Genush–”

“Genush isn’t feared. Teeth is. You need a...Nexu if you want to own something and keep it-- the more vicious the better.” Her eyes flicked to the bedside lamp, then back. “Ever heard of Darth Vader?”

Luke shook his head.

Mara’s lips pressed together for a fraction of a second. “He serves m– the Emperor. People say he wiped out the Jedi for him, hunts down Force-sensitives. Supposedly used to be one of them. No one really knows.”

“You met him.”

Through their connection, the memory bled across: a dark shape towering, a red blade slicing the air, a presence so cold it made the hairs in the back of his neck stand.

“A couple of times,” Mara said, voice calm but tight underneath. “Not...pleasant.” She shook her head slightly. “He feels worse than Teeth. She’s slippery. Him—he’s cold. Wrong too, but it’s..deeper...”

She paused, eyes gone hazy with memory. The wind rattled outside the window and she shook herself. “Anyway. I submitted myself as a volunteer for the run.”

“No,” Luke said automatically. “Why?”

“Why not? I can sense danger. I’ve dealt with the desert–”

Incredulous Luke spread his arms. “We almost got killed–”

She extended her index finger. “You almost got killed. I put up a fight. That’s how the convoy comes back,” she pressed before he could keep arguing. “The risk is too high not to send me. Besides, it’s not a long trip—not with how badly we need the water.”

“I just told you I don’t trust her.”

“What does that matter?” Mara’s head tipped slightly, eyes locked on his. “It should be why you want me to go. With me there, there’s another layer of protection. You have your attack dog and an alarm,” she said, letting the words sink in, a small smile on her face, a flicker of pride glittering in their shared mental terrain. “I can more than hold my own in a fight. Doesn’t make sense for me not to go.”

Luke’s eyes flicked over to his datapad. He thought of the map, the jagged line cutting across shifting dunes, unmarked territory that might vanish under a storm or a sand tide. He could see the water tanks moving along that route in his mind, the convoy stretched thin, vulnerable to bandits, sarlaccs, to shifting sands, to whatever monstrous desert thing had nearly killed them a year ago.

He thought of the bright glare of the two suns overhead and Mara, her blaster rifle in hand. Her stricken face as she looked down at him.

I love her. Let me keep living in this terrible galaxy just for her.

Lost in thought, Luke barely noticed her step towards him until the warmth of her body pressed against him, her arms curling around his waist, her cheek settling against his shoulder.

“I’ll be back before you even miss me,” she murmured, teasing, eyes lifting to meet his. Her usual stubbornness mingled with affection bloomed through their connection “With the water. I’ll save you again.”

Jast leaned against a half-set duracrete column, dust clinging to his boots, voice kept low under the grind of cutters further down the site. “Sent a couple of my boys to shake loose word on him. Usual stops, side of the Third Bend.” The enforcer shook his head. “Nothing. People who know him are saying the same thing—he doesn’t just disappear. He’s not the type. Regular sort. I know you’re busy but you might have to do some tracking yourself, if you want to get more. I’ve been meaning to send boots to Saltwind but haven’t been able to spare any yet.” It made sense to Luke, the outpost was an hour towards the wastes. There was enough to do around the district without sending their people on a wild bantha chase.

“Could it be desert crews that got him?” Kesh asked, though it sounded like he didn’t believe it.

“Maybe,” Jast said. “If he got pushed out far enough.”

Luke shook his head before he could stop himself. “Skrellic doesn’t run those routes.”

Jast’s eyes flicked to his, and that was enough. They were thinking it already. The only dangerous element in Skrellic’s route were Imperials. Luke thought of the runner crumpled on the floor. Skrellic saying, I’ve kept my prices low. Kept things clean, predictable. That’s the deal, right? I don’t cause problems, I don’t get crushed.

Luke just didn’t know.

A loader whined somewhere behind them, dragging a crate into place. The whole site smelled like hot metal and dust, beings moving in lines that looked organized until you watched too long and saw where things snagged. 

“The fronts are starting to push,” Jast said. “They’re not saying it outright, but—” he tipped his chin, like Luke could already hear it. “Water’s coming up short.”

Kesh rubbed a hand over his mouth. “I’ve been tightening it where I can. Non-essentials, lowering the impurities thresholds. But we’re not holding that line much longer at the site either.”

“How long?” Luke asked.

Kesh hesitated. “Two weeks, maybe. Less if anything else slips.” He seemed to think. “And that’s squeezing it thin.”

“If Skrellic’s not coming back,” Jast put in, “we need another line. Fast. Otherwise…” He didn’t finish it.

Luke drew in a breath, the dust catching in his throat. He could feel the way everything needed just a little more work to keep moving. If he somehow could find Skrellic, could find their water then things could go back to smooth, but that hope seemed misplaced.

“You’re in early,” Mara noted, toeing off her boots. He felt her measure his demeanor. “Interview?”

Luke exhaled through his nose, a humorless huff. “Yeah.” He took a bite of the flat bread. “Sita called me in for it.”

Her gaze sharpened slightly. “I heard Genush was busy over at Uplands.”

He shook his head. “No. He wasn’t there. Polk neither.” A beat. “Teeth.”

The corners of her mouth tightened a bit, her presence flickering slight apprehension.

“She doesn’t usually handle those.” 

“No,” Luke replied after chewing his bite. “She doesn’t.”

He didn’t need to elaborate. The ugly scene still sat too close to the surface of his mind, and Mara could feel the remnants of it without him offering it up—sharp, repulsive, something he’s deliberately not turning over.

Instead, she crossed the room, setting her gloves aside, her holster on the rack. “They say that there’s a leak over at Gradient Ash. Someone talking to Imperials. I’m not surprised they’re hauling beings off.” 

Luke leaned back slightly, some of the tension easing out of his shoulders as the question gave him something cleaner to hold onto. “It’s not this guy.”

Mara approached, stopping near the table, her fingers resting lightly against its edge. “You told Sita about Skrellic?”

“I did,” he heard the bitter resignation in his own voice, “it doesn’t matter to her what happens to him as long as she gets her water.”

Mara’s brow furrowed slightly. She’s disturbed. “That’s it?”

“That’s it.” He shrugged, but there’s no looseness in it. “He’s a number to her. If he makes it, she profits. If he doesn’t, she finds someone else.”

Mara’s mouth pressed thin at that. “That could be…short-sighted.”

Luke tilted his head. That’s not the argument he would make. “Is it?”

“It depends on the amount he’s moving, right? You lose credits finding someone else. Wait – show me.”

Luke lets the memory come up in his mind between them.

The speeder rig. The heat. Skrellic standing a little too stiff, hands moving more than they need to when he talks, eyes flicking, fur ruffling—not evasive, not exactly, but never quite settling. The way he’d leaned in when Luke gave instructions, trying to track every detail and losing pieces anyway, the tension in him coiling tighter the more variables were added.

Mara stepped into the memory, not deeply, just enough to see, to get a sense of the Bothan as Luke interacted with him.

When she pulled back, her expression was worried. “I don’t know if he can do it.”

Luke set his jaw. “He has to.”

“He’s jittery,” she pressed, her tone mild. “If he gets nervous at the wrong moment—if someone presses him at a checkpoint, even a little—he might give it all away without meaning to. He's a water broker not a smuggler. And he's honest, not used to...this.”

Luke looked away, toward nothing in particular, a sinking feeling in his stomach. She’s right.

“There’s not a lot of choices. Sita won’t pay more,” he continues, the logic coldly settling into place the way it always does, the way it has to. “The Imperials aren’t going to tax less. And he needs the credits. I already told him how to do it.”

He glanced back at her. “It’s up to him now.”

That’s how it is, he said to her silently.