Nar Shaddaa
Lower Landing Sector, Dusk
The neon glow of Nar Shaddaa’s skyline pulsed off the durasteel panels underfoot, a flickering mix of filth and firelight. Rheyla Tann stood just outside the spaceport's security perimeter, her back to the docking towers, a cigarette-thin holoprojector flickering blue in her palm.
Cassia’s image hovered in the air again—faint and translucent in the smog-heavy dusk. Big eyes. Pretty face. Lady X’s voice spilled from the device in velvet tones, all business and poison.
“Injury may be unavoidable, and will be excused as the cost of this type of venture. However, she is not to be permanently damaged…”
Rheyla exhaled through her nose and thumbed the message off.
Pretty little head, huh? she thought dryly, slipping the holopad back into a pouch on her belt. Nar Shaddaa would chew a girl like that alive if she weren’t careful. But Cassia was still breathing, apparently. Smart enough to run, not smart enough to vanish. That left a trail.
And trails could be followed.
Rheyla tugged the cloth tighter around her lekku and adjusted the strap of her thigh holster. The sector was already loud—air traffic screaming overhead, speeder horns, some poor bastard yelling two blocks down about stolen credits or bad spice. Didn’t matter. She tuned it all out and got moving.
The job was simple on the surface: find the runaway, grab her, deliver her in one piece. Twenty-five thousand and expenses. Not bad coin for something Lady X seemed so desperate to keep quiet.
Desperate clients meant leverage. She wouldn’t use it—unless she had to.
Her boots clicked across the slick permacrete as she melted into the crowd, eyes scanning for cameras, enforcers, and marks worth squeezing for info. She didn’t need to know why the girl ran. Didn’t care what data she stole. That wasn’t part of the payout.
This was a hunt. That was all.
And if Cassia thought she could disappear into Nar Shaddaa’s underbelly without leaving footprints?
Well.
She hadn’t been hunted by her yet.
~~~
Two hours later, Rheyla was ankle-deep in lies and alley smoke.
Information didn’t flow easily on Nar Shaddaa—it had to be bought, traded, or squeezed out. She’d hit three cantinas, a spice den fronted by a noodle shop, and a backroom broker who still owed her for getting his cousin out of a Crimson Dawn debt pit.
Each place gave her a little more.
A girl matching the holo had passed through the lower levels two nights ago. Kept her head down. Paid in clean credits. Walked like she was scared but trying hard not to show it.
Rheyla hadn’t smiled once the whole time, but her eyes stayed sharp.
Now she stood on a crowded mezzanine bridge overlooking a choked street market below. Towering ads blinked around her, selling false hopes in bright reds and synthetic blues. The air smelled like fried meat, ozone, and the bitter tang of too many species packed too close together.
Her contact back at the spice den had said the girl came through here—just once. No name. But pale, white-haired. Clothes too clean for the sector. Looked like she hadn’t figured out the Nar Shaddaa rulebook yet.
Rheyla leaned on the rusted railing, scanning the press of bodies. No sign of her.
Not yet.
She flicked her goggles down and switched filters—infrared, UV, motion-enhanced. Just long enough to clock a few thermal echoes on the street below. Nothing special.
Then she paused.
A darkened shop stall tucked under a broken awning had faint residual heat signatures. Someone had lingered there. Recently. Shorter than average. Human, maybe. Female. It was a threadbare lead, but she’d followed thinner.
She pushed off the railing and started down the stairs.
No dramatics. No helmet. Just quiet steps, one hand brushing the edge of her cloak and the other near her holster.
Cassia was close.
Not close enough to catch, not yet—but the scent of the hunt had changed. The air was sharper now. And Rheyla could feel it.
The girl had been here.
Rheyla Tann
