Star Wars: Allegiance

Shakko, as it turned out, was a typical pirate captain.

Mara spent the first two nights roaming freely about the ship, searching everywhere except the cabins and the cockpit for Caaldra's data card. The cabins were a trickier proposition, but after a couple of days of studying the pirates' movements she discovered they spent most of their nonmeal waking hours away from the cabin area, either on duty in the cockpit or engineering room, or else working on the various weapons in the forward hold. With stealth and the prescience provided by the Force, she was able to find opportunities to slip into and search each of the cabins.

Unfortunately, none of the skulking did her any good. Either Shakko had filed the data card in the cockpit, the one place she hadn't yet had a chance to search, or else he was carrying it with him.

And she was starting to run low on time. The search had already cost her nearly four days, with only one left until their scheduled attack. So far she had avoided any further contact with the crew, knowing that two unexplained blackout accidents on the same trip would be something even the stupidest pirate would start to wonder about. But if there was no other way, she would just have to do it.

The fourth ship's day had ended, and she was waiting in her cargo hold burrow for everyone to retire for the night, when she heard the quiet footsteps.

She sat up a little straighter, stretching out with her senses. There had been occasional visitors to the cargo bay over the previous four days, but on those occasions the footsteps had been casual and unconcerned, their owners making straight paths to one or another of the crates and then retreating just as casually. Now, in contrast, the intruders were coming in a group and clearly trying not to be heard.