A planet with just one sun with a prairie covering the entire landscape as far as the eye could see and the air filled with birds that sang better than he ever could. In the morning, he'd roll out of bed with a pot of coffee already prepared and waiting for him with the team rising tantalizing from his mug. When he'd walk outside, the morning dew would fill his nose and the calm spring warmth would slip through his fur to massage the skin underneath. He'd spend a few minutes smoking and appreciating the view before he went out to the farm and give his favorite Tauntaun an appreciative pat before a morning trot.

Then, he'd spend the afternoon working the land. Good, hard, legitimate and legal work that'd bring sweat to his brows and work his body to the bone. When the sun finally set, he'd come in with his muscles aching and a beautiful wife and a pair of good-behaving kids waiting for him. He'd get kisses from all of them and they'd enjoy the fruits of his labor with more food than they could possibly eat. When his children fell asleep, he'd spend passionate hours with his wife. She'd call his name louder and louder...

“Nagoss!”

Yeah, that was the stuff.

“Nagoss!”

That was the dream.

“Hey, you backside of a Banta! They just sent out the distress signal! We've incoming from hyperspace!” Beshara yelled.

Too bad dreams rarely came true. Nagoss frowned and tightened his grip on the controls and pushed them forward. A few switches were flipped and the not-so-steady rumble and clank of the hyperdrive waking up from its smoky hibernation rattled his ship. He sighed and his chair was turned forcibly around so quickly that he barely had time to register what was happening when his sister's hand whipped across his face in a vicious slap.

Nagoss had been infuriated before. Livid even. Now,. He was just stunned, but only for a moment.

“What the hell was that for?!” he roared!

“To snap you out of it!”

“Snap me out of what?!”

“Whatever was making you slow! Did you even hear me?”

"Proeka ba su sra Vued!"

“Shut that guy up!”

"Proeka ba su sra Vued!"

“I said shut him up!”

“Hey, dimwit. I know you're Imperial Intelligence, but this is my ship-”

“My ship!”

“Our ship!” Bashara corrected.

A datacron flew across the bay and hit Bashara square in the back of the head. She lost her balance immediately and fall to the floor in front of their captive. The Chiss, who seemed unreasonably calm about the rather dire situation they were in, took his eye away from his hologram to look down at the fallen smuggler. He sighed.

“As much I would like to,” he began to explain, “I'll remind you both that our captive-”

“My bounty,” Nagoss grumbled.

“Our bounty,” Bashara corrected.

Alretiss stared at them both in turn, then shook his head.

“Communicates via the mind. He doesn't have a mouth to shut up.”

“Don't you have a brain scrambler or something?” Bashara asked. She had since gotten back up to her feet and was picking up the datacron. With a frown on her face, she bounced it a few times in her right hand to test the weight. Yes, this would do nicely.


“Well, I did.”

“Then use it!” Nagoss demanded. With a hard kick, his ship-

Their ship, Bashara thought-

leaped into a tunnel of blue and white as they sped through hyperspace. They had lost the signal of both the prison and, more importantly, whatever reinforcements said prison had called on. For once, Nagoss relaxed in his seat and let out a sigh of relief. The steady hum of the ship's engine was comforting. It was violent whenever it began to move, but once it got in motion, the damn thing was as smooth as a baby's bottom. He turned his eyes to see his younger sister plop down in the copilot's seat.

She took out her blaster pistol. The small one. The one with the kick that he hated that he swore chose the worst moments to misfire or jam. Damn thing was archaic but Bashara loved it.

"Tra Vued verr cuka kur ik orr!"

“I would, but unfortunately most of my tools mysteriously disappeared, only to be replaced by, what I assume was, my portion of their sale,” the Agent said.

Nagoss narrowed his eyes.

Bashara smirked and shrugged.

When all this was done, Nagoss was going to find a backwater planet. Someplace that most people don't go and wouldn't go. No more bounties, no more crazed religious fanatics. No more strange, psychic aliens. He'd land his ship there and scout the place out. 'Hey, how often do smugglers, agents and psychic freaks tend to come here? None. Fantastic. Time to settle.'

"Tra Meksrakk uk sra Vued ovoesk!"

Would there be no end to this torment?

Bashara turned around in her seat and straddle her chair. Her gun hand rested on the back edge and she looked at the Agent and the grotesque monstrosity that would make them more credits than they knew what to do with. Well, as long as they managed to get him to the Sith. She stared into his beady, black eyes for a few seconds, then watched as some strange purple ooze leaked out of his gaping pores before she gagged and put her attention back to Alretiss. He was looking at his hologram again.

“So, you know. One time, I was watching the Empire's News Feed. Something about a gunfight that the Imps had in a Republic Stronghold.”

He didn't reply.

Her brother grunted.

“So, anyway, the Imps start unloading down these guys. Nothing happens, though. They didn't hit nothin'. It was just the Imps and a bunch of Pubs who had been caught with their pants down. You know. I mean. Psh. It's freaky, but it happens.”

Nagoss rolled his eyes. “Look, if you want to keep doing this stuff, go on ahead. I know better. This is the last job for me.”

“What? Last job?”

"Tra Meksrakk kvaodk su ka!"

“What the hell are you talking about, Nagoss?”

“From this point on, you can consider my ass retired.”

“Jeeze...”

Bashara shook her head in disbelief.

“You can't be serious about that. You know they're gonna laugh at you when you tell them, right?” she asked.

“I don't care if they laugh. I'm done. Hear me? Done. I've been shot at, my ship nearly destroyed, held captive, interrogated, shanked, lied to, betrayed and all in a span of 23 hours.”

"Tra Vued ek cukems!"

“Will someone please shut him the hell up?!” the bounty hunter roared.

“Alretiss, what do you make of all this?”

The Chiss agent shook his head. “I don't have an opinion on this particular subject.”

“What? Come on. You have to have an opinion. I mean, do you think all this was-”

BANG!

All at once, the cockpit of Nagoss's ship was layered in a thick film of brain matter and blood. Skull fragments and bits of an eyeball had splattered against the back of the bounty hunter's head, but the agent and his sister had gotten the worst of it. Instinctively, he pulled hard on the controls and took them out of hyperspace. Everyone was thrown forward and Nagoss reached back to touch the slimy bits that covered from the back of his head to the right side of his face.

“Gah!” Bashara squealed.

“Whoa! What the hell's happening, man?”

Alretiss casually looked down at the corpse laying next to him, then went to look at his hologram. He changed a few things on it.

“Ah, man. I shot the guy in the face,” Bashara lamented, her antique gun still smoking.

“Why the hell would you do that?!”

“I didn't mean to do it, it was an accident.”

“I should have never taken you along for this! Remind me to never do you any favors again!”

“Chill. I told you it was an accident. You probably hit a bump or something.”

“Hit a bump? Hit. A. Bump? We were in hyper-space. I didn't hit a goddamn thing! Trigger discipline! And stop waving that thing around!”

“I believe we have other concerns,” Alretiss finally chimed up. Nagoss was still wiping himself clean, or at least attempting to. He was just about to ask what those concerns were when an armada came out of hyper-space right in front of them. A Republic Armada. He didn't even get a chance to turn around when the Imperial Fleet appeared in a near instant behind them.

Nagoss cursed underneath his breath.

No farm. No prairies. No family. No Tauntaun.

Instead, he had a brat of a little sister, an agent he couldn't trust, a dead bounty that the Imps expected alive and a Pubs that needed said captive back enough to send a fleet after them.

Rock and a hard place didn't even begin to describe this.

“Any ideas?” Nagoss asked.

Bashara shrugged.

“I've already launched the missiles to both sides,” the Chiss said.

“You what?!” yelled the siblings in unison.

In disbelief, they both looked out the window to see most of the ship's armaments streaking through space to both fleets at once.

“Both sides want our captive alive. If they find out he's dead, we're dead. I think it's best we use this opportunity to start a small battle and use the chaos to escape.”

“I hate you both,” Nagoss grumbled.

Bashara's mouth turned into a wicked grin and she hopped out of her chair to head to one of the turrets.

The Chiss shrugged and opened his hologram again.