Public Docking Rights and... Wrongs [Nar Shaddaa]

[Braze]

The Smuggler’s Moon prided itself on being ungovernable. A glittering rock of plausible deniability, unpaid tariffs, and creative interpretations of 'ownership'. A deplorable den of debauchery where dubious dealings and back alley backstabbings were simply how business was done.

Which made it deeply inconvenient when, by breakfast, half the docking pads had new authorization codes, updated contracts, and a very polite notice reading:

Docking Rights Under NEW MANAGEMENT. Payments Accepted Through Terminals. Complaints Filed in Writing May Be Submitted at the Kiosk.

Stranger still, there were no loud explosions. Nor scorch marks to denote that any hostile takeovers took place. No dramatic declarations of conquest either. Just a trail of dubiously legally binding signatures and several crime lords blinking at datapads like they had lost a limb.

Apparently, while everyone else had been busy smuggling, someone had discovered the far more dangerous weapon; paperwork.

For those wily enough to dig a little deeper, the truth was less glamorous and far more irritating. Rumors had started weeks ago; insurance carriers withdrawing coverage, quiet audits pending, old debts about to be called in. Then traffic began to thin. Certain captains, discreetly compensated, avoided specific pads and muttered about liability risks and potential seizures. Income dipped… just enough to make owners nervous.

Right on cue, a wealthy intermediary arrived with offers well above market value; generous, fast, and clean. Several outstanding debts were quietly purchased and forgiven upon transfer of ownership. And for a stubborn few, subtle reminders surfaced regarding unregistered shipments and irregular manifests best left forgotten.

Sell high. Clear your name. Sleep easier…

The installations and closings happened overnight. Terminals were replaced; access protocols rewritten; blast doors reinforced. Polite kiosks now stood near the docks, vending access cards like refreshments from a machine. Credits in… permission out. Security grids recalibrated. Defensive measures upgraded from inconvenient to lethal.

By dawn, half the Moon’s docking network answered to a single, impeccably organized authority.

 

[Mauve du Vain]

“Uh, Miss Du Vain?”

Dead space… what was it now?

“Someone is trying to change all the docking codes.”

“What?” Mauve set her drink down.

“Yeah they uh. They’re trying to issue a planet wide edict.”

Mauve rolled her eyes. “Let the Underlord know. Honestly, people these days.”

She thought a moment.

“Also, have the individuals who obeyed that edict rounded up.”

“And shot?”

“No… well. Not yet,” a languorous smirk curled across her lips.

Velzari Tharn Braze

 

[Kinley Pryse]

You've been hit by... you've been struck by...

The galaxy keeps trying to teach Kinley Pryse lessons, but she keeps skipping class.​

Canto Belle settled onto the pad with a muted thunk, landing struts locking into place like they were proud of themselves. Kinley cut the engines and immediately knew something was wrong. There was no shouting. No blaster fire. No dockhands trying to charge her twice for the same service.

Instead, a slim, cheerful kiosk rolled up on repulsors and chirped.

"Welcome! Please insert credits to receive temporary docking authorization."

Kinley stared at it.

"…No."

She swung down from the ramp, boots hitting duracrete hard, and leaned in close enough that her reflection warped across its polished screen. "Listen, toaster. I've docked here since before whoever programmed you learned what a liability waiver was."

The kiosk emitted a pleasant tone. "Unauthorized docking detected. Please resolve outstanding balance to avoid enforcement action."

"Oh this is personal now," Kinley snapped.

A Smooth Criminal

 

[Uros Wren]

The Gilded Hearth, Nar Shaddaa

“Captain, we have a situation at the dock.”

Huh?

“What now?”

Uros sighed, a glass of scotch in his hand.

“Apparently, docking rights is under new management.”

Weird…

“When’s the cutoff point of our stock? The Black Sun is definitely going to sort it out…”

Why waste your time and resources when you’re already paying taxes, right?

“We’re good for three more days.”

Nice.

“Good, tell Umber and Xyloz we’re going to the dock. Let’s watch a massacre.”

The head of The Gilded Hearth security puts his Beskar’gam uniform on, looking forward to see the situation unfold.

 

[Braze]

The docking concourse outside Pad Aurek-17 had been cleared in anticipation of violence. Instead, it received a Hutt. The kajidic entourage swept in with all the expected spectacle: armored enforcers, hovering recorders, a pair of very nervous accountants, and a crime lord whose shadow alone required clearance from local air traffic control.

The Hutt settled, vast and immovable, directly in front of the cheerful authorization kiosk.

The kiosk chimed with a pleasant sound, "Welcome. Please insert credits to receive temporary docking authorization."

A translator droid leaned forward as the Hutt rumbled something long, slow, and distinctly offended.

"He says," the droid intoned carefully, "that this docking district falls under hereditary kajidic privilege, subsection blood-oath and tribute, dating back three generations."

The kiosk processed taking it's sweet time as a small progress bar filled.

"Thank you. Please upload notarized documentation of hereditary claim."

There was a silence in which several nearby dockworkers pretended to examine their boots.

The translator blinked....The Hutt blinked....

One enforcer reached for his blaster; another gently pushed the weapon back down. Shooting a kiosk felt… undignified.

A datapad like screen chimed again in that annoying tune as a holocall projection shimmered to life above the terminal: a sharply dressed human attorney, immaculate collar, serene smile, seated somewhere comfortably distant from blaster range.

"Good afternoon," the lawyer began pleasantly. "I represent the Nar Shaddaa Sector's Docking Authority. I understand there are concerns regarding legacy access rights."

The Hutt growled again, louder this time.

"Yes," the lawyer nodded sympathetically. "We absolutely respect historical arrangements. Unfortunately, prior informal agreements were voided when outstanding liability bonds were called in. You'll find the acquisition paperwork in Attachment C."

Another set of chimed pinged as information was shifted and brought up on to the display. Several enforcers stared at their screens like they had just been personally insulted by a set of spreadsheets.

The Hutt demanded immediate reversal levying threats.

"Of course," the lawyer replied, folding his hands. "Reinstatement is possible pending settlement of accrued docking fees, security recalibration surcharges, retroactive insurance premiums, and congestion impact assessments."

The kiosk helpfully displayed a number....It had commas....Many of them. A low murmur rolled through the gathered crowd. Somewhere, a captain quietly backed his freighter out of an adjacent pad and pretended he had never seen any of this.

The Hutt's tail twitched before flopping over with a heavy thump. One accountant practically fainted.

The lawyer continued, voice smooth as polished durasteel. "Alternatively, the Authority would be delighted to offer your kajidic a Preferred Access Partnership. Competitive rates. Priority scheduling. Reduced enforcement friction."

The Hutt spat something venomous in Huttese and the translator hesitated thinking how best to convey such a message.

"He says," the droid offered delicately, "that this is extortion."

The lawyer smiled a gleeful sort of knowing grin.

"No," he said gently. "This is compliance enforcement."

A new notification flashed across the kiosk:

Pending Legal Review. Estimated Wait Time: 3–5 Standard Business Days.

The annoyingly happy sounding, chipper and cheerful hold music resumed.

Around them, the other docks grew more crowded and tempers rose. Two captains argued over a repulsor lane. A cargo pallet tipped and scattered sealed containers across the floor. Somewhere in the distance, a minor collision thudded with the sound of arguments breaking out over 'insurance premiums' increasing.

The Hutt Cartel had arrived to reclaim its authority yet had found itself arguing with a man in a suit who wasn't even physically present.

And the kiosk chimed again.

"Would you like to upgrade to Premium Resolution?"
"Kark this bureaucratic bantha dung."


The first enforcer didn't bother lowering his blaster as he stepped forward instead, boot grinding shattered permacrete beneath it, and slammed a gloved fist against the reinforced blast door.


It answered with a dull, resonant thud.

"Move," another snarled. They didn't wait for permission. A cutting torch flared to life, white-hot glare spilling across the frame. Sparks spat in angry bursts as alloy began to scream under the heat. One of them wedged a prybar into the seam and leaned in with a full-bodied shove, armor plates creaking with the effort.


"Kark your kiosks. Kark your contracts."

The door groaned and blasterfire followed at close range, impatient, punching glowing divots into the locking mechanism. The corridor filled with smoke and molten drips, the sharp stink of scorched circuitry filling the air.

With a violent wrench, the upper hinge tore loose. The blast door sagged inward, then gave way in a shriek of tortured metal, crashing half-open and half-detached into the threshold. Fragments of door skittered across the pad.

One enforcer kicked the fallen slab aside, stepping over it with the confidence of someone accustomed to even gravity bending around kajidic authority.

Behind them, a kiosk chimed softly.

Structural integrity compromised.

Overhead, something shifted as a recessed panel parted with clinical smoothness. The point-defense array descended, deliberate as a gavel lowering with the un mistakable sound of capacitors that had began to cycle.

The sound was low… and steady… resonant in the chest more than the ear. It settled an almost uneasy feeling on those familiar with it. Heat shimmered along the emitter's mouth as unstable energy gathered, thick and distorted.

The targeting lattice unfolded across the breach, sliding over armor, over weapons, over the jagged edge of torn durasteel.

Unauthorized entry confirmed.

The charge snapped forward in a warped pulse of light. Where an enforcer had stood, a faint gray haze drifted upward, a pair of boots left smoking in it's wake; the torn blast door lost a neat circular portion of itself as though carefully edited from existence. The point-defense array hummed as it cooled, and a kiosk chimed softly:

Enforcement action concluded. Cleanup fees applied.

Where the blast door had hung, twisted and useless, a thin line of light ignited across the threshold.
It began at one side of the frame, a sharp white filament that crawled horizontally, stitching itself through open air until it reached the opposite wall. The beam thickened as it stabilized.

 

[KkT'or'R'R'R]

O B J E C T I V E
WATCH FROM AFAR
Tags: Braze Mauve du Vain Kinley Pryse Uros Wren
Ship: TYE-wing
Weapons: Gaderffii, MR-90 "Covert Causality" Proton Rifle

The codes being changed wasn't of much concern for a space vagrant like Tor. What was, however, was the exact reasoning behind it. While he went and did as he pleased, even he had standards to uphold. People always have to go changing things, don't they. He went to ready his aircraft when he noticed the Hutt arguing with the lawyer. Huttese was a second language of his and he could tell the translator was taking a lot of the sting out of the Hutt's remarks.

Entertained by the interaction, he decided to step down from his aircraft and watch to see what would happen. One enforcer was clearly upset at the situation as he kept going for his blaster. Not wanting to risk catching a stray shot, Tor readied his own rifle and waited for whatever was to happen next. Just try it, I dare you. He had delt with a lot of unsavory characters in his life, and he wasn't about to let some dockyard bullies get the best of him.

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[Kinley Pryse]

You've been hit by... you've been struck by...

Kinley Pryse can talk her way out of a firefight, or talk her way into one if she's bored.​

Kinley got an eyeful of the Hutt landing and arguing with the dockside kiosk, and the spectacle pulled her attention away from her own terminal, which was still beeping angrily beside her.

"In a minute, toaster!" she snapped at it.

Right now, she was far more concerned about potential death than a docking fine. Angry Hutts were never a good time, and this one looked particularly motivated. Whoever had just swooped in to seize control of the docks wasn't bluffing either, they were carrying the kind of firepower that didn't wound people. It erased them.

Kinley watched another flash of heavy weapons fire crackle across the landing platform.

"You know what… I've changed my mind."

She turned on her heel and jogged briskly up the ramp of her ship, ignoring the beeping of the kiosk behind her. The hatch hissed open, and a battered protocol droid was waiting for her just inside.

"Can it, tin man," she said, brushing past. "I know Flint's gonna be angry. I'll figure it out."

The ramp sealed shut behind her.

A few moments later the ship blasted clear of the docks and clawed its way into orbit. Kinley leaned back in the pilot's chair, scowling as the planet shrank beneath her viewport. She pulled out her datapad and flicked it on.

There was still a buyer down there waiting on a shipment of spice.

And Flint didn't care about excuses.

He cared about credits.

A Smooth Criminal

 

[Braze]

Tags:
Mauve du Vain Kinley Pryse Uros Wren KkT'or'R'R'R ​

For a few long seconds, no one rushed the threshold.

That, more than the ruined door or the smoking boots left behind, seemed to settle over the concourse like a bad omen finally understood. Eyes moved, not just toward the ruined breach, but outward… toward the surrounding pads, the gantries, the upper walkways where armed presence usually gathered whenever someone made enough noise to matter.

Only, this time, very little came.

A pair of local toughs stood beneath a cargo crane, speaking in lowered voices as they watched the white line hum across the opening.

"That's it?" one muttered. "No local response?"

His companion glanced over the neighboring platforms, uneasy now in a way bravado could not quite hide.

"Been thin all morning," he said. "Saw more hired guns from three gutter crews than I did Syndicate boys."

Nearby, a dockhand hauling a scanner unit slowed to stare toward a checkpoint that, on any other day, should have had black-clad enforcers leaning against it like they owned the air. It stood half-manned now… one bored functionary, one damaged repeater post, and nobody hurrying in to reclaim the lane.

Another worker gave a short, humorless laugh.

"Either they're pulling back… or somebody told them not to die for parking."

That drew a few uneasy looks.

Because that was the part people were beginning to understand. This was not some loud turf tantrum that would burn out by second shift, nor a passing provocation. Not even some flashy raid meant to make a point and vanish by nightfall... This had weight, planning, and timing behind it.

And across the neighboring berths, where Black Sun's presence should have loomed thickest, there were gaps. Missing patrols, and delayed responses. Fewer enforcers than the district was used to seeing… and every absence was being counted by the sort of people who survived Nar Shaddaa by noticing when a throne had begun to wobble.

​

The first breach had ended in smoke, ash, and a lesson no one on the Smuggler's Moon particularly appreciated. By the time the lingering haze had begun to thin, word had already spread beyond Pad Aurek-17.

Not through panic… not exactly.... but through sheer irritation of heated tempers bubbling over.

By midday, the neighboring berths had begun to choke.

Pads outside the Authority's control filled first, then overflowed. Ships circled holding patterns longer than their captains liked. Repulsor lanes clogged with freighters jockeying for space that no longer existed. Dockhands shouted over one another, trying to redirect arrivals into queues that had long since stopped resembling order. Loader rigs stalled nose to nose, tempers sharpened, and Fees climbed. Bribes climbed faster.

Elsewhere across the district, terminals chirped cheerfully while captains discovered that 'alternative accommodations' came with congestion surcharges, revised hazard premiums, and temporary processing delays measured in hours rather than minutes.

A cargo pallet split open near one lane divider, scattering sealed spice canisters across the permacrete. Three different crews reached the scene at once; each claimed the shipment belonged to someone important, which on Nar Shaddaa usually meant no one let go first.

The kiosks, of course, remained polite and absolute in the wake of the unfurling chaos.

"Notice: overflow berths currently at capacity."​

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"Notice: congestion pricing in effect."​

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"Notice: liability waivers required for docking within secondary risk zones."​

It was not the sort of language that inspired calm let along such an unsavory sort of society...

Near the outer pads, a few captains took one look at the mounting backlog, at the reinforced doors, at the white line still burning across one ruined threshold, and thought better of their odds. One battered freighter had already broken atmosphere rather than test its luck twice. Whatever business had been waiting on the Moon would now be waiting longer, and on Nar Shaddaa delay had a way of becoming debt.

Further off, beyond the worst of the crowding, watchers lingered.

A lone figure near a TYE-wing remained apart from the concourse crush, rifle ready, gaze fixed on the spreading disorder as if waiting to see whether this would become a riot, or a massacre. He was not alone in that instinct as plenty had begun to watch from farther back now. The smart ones were learning that distance was its own kind of armor.

And still the pressure built yet still edging ever closer to a tipping point.

Two captains came to blows over unloading priority. A refueling hose was cut loose in the confusion. A docking tug clipped the flank of a courier vessel and very suddenly three different insurance claims were being screamed across the same channel at once. Security shutters came down over one auxiliary lane, forcing traffic to reroute again, packing more ships and more bodies into less room.

The delays were no accident now, and that had become painfully obvious. This was no longer about one Hutt being embarrassed at a kiosk. It was an infrastructure wound opening in the middle of a district built on cutthroats, grudges, and cargo that could not afford to sit still.

Every diverted ship pressed another queue as every crowded berth raised another argument. Each delay tightened the flow of goods inch by inch, until cargo went 'missing', pickups failed, and certain clients on the Moon began asking why their spice had not yet arrived.

 

[Mauve du Vain]

They said when a powerful animal died in the Felucian jungles, all of the scavengers scurried to pluck at the corpse.

Of course, Mauve had never been to Felucia or seen the jungle except on the holos, but she imagined the metaphor fit for the Syndicate, who these scavengers viewed as a weakened predator.

They forgot even a dying man in the gutter can shoot back.

Mauve blew out a plume of smoke from her lips, the ixetal cilona of the deathstick drifting through Nar Shaddaa's neon drenched night.

"Is this them?" she asked K'obb, her Nikto enforcer. She gestured at the row of figures kneeling in the gutter.

"Yes, Vigo. They cooperated with some outside entity. We have a name and are tracking the source down."

"Good. Kill them."

Turning on her heel, Mauve strode back to her waiting airspeeder. The report of blasterfire rang behind her. Once, she might have flinched at the sound. When it had been an unfamiliar thing. Before she'd clawed her way to the top of the pile.

Not anymore.

The Syndicate might be reduced in power across the rest of the galaxy, but only an idiot believed them weak here in the beating heart of the underworld.

And anyone who wanted to come for Nar Shaddaa would have to deal with Mauve Du Vain first.

 

[Kite 'Lord of the Night']

​

Kite had a hot cup in hand as, he now stood beside one of the backed-up berths as though the whole docking fiasco had been staged for his personal amusement.

He watched as a red-faced captain started shouting at a kiosk, then took a leisurely sip and clicked his tongue. "A tragic sight, this… a grown being losin' an argument to a cheerful box-o-bolts." His singular blue eye gleamed as he leaned toward a passing dockhand and lowered his voice as though sharing state secrets. "Give it three more minutes and he'll threaten the machine's mother." Right on cue, the captain slapped the terminal hard enough to hurt his own hand. Kite beamed beneath the folds of his mask, delighted. "Ah… there it is. Nar Shaddaa remains a city of dependable little joys."

Every few minutes, another stranded captain, loader boss, or gutter-runner came storming through, cursing the queues, the fees, the kiosks, and whatever gods had allowed this insanity to come to be.

Kite, of course, was only too happy to help. "Now, now," he said as he stepped out to soothe one frazzled Duros hauling captain, laying a hand over his heart as though wounded by the poor creature's distress,

"ye could keep rotting here till your cargo turns to dust… or ye could pay a very modest little finder's fee and be introduced to folk with a far more flexible view of berth priority." Not far off, two rough-looking locals had already taken his hint and begun charging 'escort fees' to guide frightened crews around the worst choke points, while a third lot quietly rolled unsecured cargo off a delayed freighter whose guards had wandered off to argue with a terminal.

Kite watched it all with bright approval in his one good eye, then murmured to the dockhand beside him, "See? That's the beauty of it. The moment the old dogs stop barkin', every little rat in the walls remembers it's got teeth." Kite gave his cup a little swirl, eyeing the spreading disorder with the satisfaction of a man watching credits practically hatch. "Ah, chaos," he sighed warmly, "the only bird on this moon kind enough to lay golden eggs."