Faction Milk Run

[Colton Renth]

The space lanes of the Outer Rim were a graveyard of broken promises, drifting wreckage, and quiet deals made in the dark. That was exactly why Colton Renth loved them.

His ship — the Shadow Hawk — slid silently through the shadow of a fractured asteroid belt near Ord Mantell. To an untrained eye, the freighter looked like a battered YT-1300 transport held together by mismatched hull plates and stubborn luck. In reality, it was one of the fastest ghosts in the sector.

Colton leaned back in the pilot's chair, boots resting on the console as starlight flickered across the cockpit glass.

"Come on… don't make this difficult," he muttered, watching the sensor display.

A red blip blinked into existence.

Then two more.

He sighed.

"Of course they brought escorts."

Behind him, a mechanical whirr sounded as a battered astromech unit — designation K3-V0 — rolled forward and beeped sharply.

"Yeah, I see them," Colton replied. "Black Sun wants the shipment intact. Nobody said anything about it being easy."

The job had been simple on paper: intercept a SoroSuub transport carrying spice derivatives and prototype shield emitters, relieve the crew of their cargo, and deliver everything to a Black Sun contact on Nar Shaddaa. Standard pirating work.

Except nothing in the Outer Rim was ever simple.

The transport emerged from the asteroid shadows, bulky and slow. Two Z-95 Headhunters flanked it, scanning for threats.

Colton's fingers danced across the console.

The Shadow Hawk's illegal modifications hummed to life — sensor bafflers, military-grade stealth plating, and overclocked thrusters stolen from an Imperial courier.

The freighter disappeared from scans.

"Let's dance," he said.

He cut power and drifted silently, letting the convoy pass.

At the last second, he ignited the engines.

The Shadow Hawk surged forward like a striking viper.

Before the escorts could react, ion cannons flashed blue.

One Headhunter spiraled helplessly, systems dead.

The second pilot panicked, overshooting the target as Colton slipped beneath the transport's belly.

"Boarding clamps, now."

Metal groaned as the freighter latched onto the transport hull.

Inside the cargo vessel, alarms erupted.

Colton grabbed his helmet, sealed it, and pulled a compact blaster carbine from the rack.

"Watch the ship," he told K3-V0.

The droid gave a sarcastic whistle.

The cutting torch ignited, burning through the hull. Moments later, Colton dropped into the cargo bay amid startled crew members.

"Easy," he said, leveling the carbine. "Nobody gets spaced if nobody gets brave."

They chose wisely.

Minutes later, crates marked with SoroSuub sigils were floating through vacuum toward the Shadow Hawk's cargo hold.

As the last container locked in place, the remaining escort fighter returned, weapons hot.

"Should've stayed gone," Colton muttered, sliding back into the cockpit.

Laser fire streaked past the viewport.

He smiled.

The modified thrusters roared.

The Shadow Hawk spun through the asteroid field, weaving through impossible gaps. The fighter clipped a rock and vanished in a blossom of fire.

Silence returned.

Colton set a course for hyperspace.

Stars stretched into white lines.

He exhaled slowly, tension melting into satisfaction.

Smuggling. Pirating. Living between the cracks of empires and crime lords.

Dangerous work.

But Black Sun paid well — and in the Outer Rim, credits meant survival.

K3-V0 beeped curiously.

Colton smirked.

"Yeah, yeah. After Nar Shaddaa, we take a break."

He paused.

"Short break."

The Shadow Hawk vanished into hyperspace, carrying stolen cargo, a growing reputation, and a pilot who thrived where law and order dared not follow.






.

 

[Kinley Pryse]

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

If there's a bad idea in the room, Kinley Pryse already owns the rights​

Nar Shaddaa never slept, it just breathed, slow and dirty, neon light pulsing through its veins like a bad habit it couldn't quit. Inside Cantina 9, the air was thick with smoke, spice residue, and regret, layered over the low thrum of outdated speakers struggling through a jazzy holotune. Every booth was occupied by someone pretending not to watch someone else.

Kinley Pryse sat like she belonged there, which meant she looked like she trusted no one.

Boots propped casually against the base of the table, jacket half-unzipped, she nursed a mocktail drink she hadn't finished in ten minutes. Not because she was savoring it, but because staying sharp mattered tonight. Nar Shaddaa punished carelessness fast and without apology.

She glanced toward the entrance for the third time in as many minutes, jaw tightening just a fraction. The shipment was late.

That alone wasn't unusual. What was unusual was that this particular cargo, lifted straight out of a diverted SoroSuub transport, was supposed to be invisible by now. Crates scrubbed of serials. Routes paid off. Dockmaster bribed with enough credits to forget his own name. Everything had gone too smoothly, and Kinley had learned the hard way that "smooth" usually meant "about to explode."

Her fingers drummed once against the table, slow and deliberate. She let her gaze slide across the cantina: a pair of Nikto arguing too quietly, a Rodian sabacc dealer pretending not to count cards, a human at the bar with a new blaster and old eyes. No obvious threats. That didn't mean anything.

Nar Shaddaa was a planet built on patience and paranoia.

Somewhere out there, speeders were weaving through the vertical traffic lanes, carrying stolen cargo worth enough credits to change a few lives, or end them. Until it arrived, Kinley waited, listening to the cantina's hum and trusting her instincts more than any deal ever made on this moon.

And if the shipment didn't show?

Well. Nar Shaddaa had plenty of ways to settle accounts.


Colton Renth

A Smooth Criminal

 

[Colton Renth]

Colton Renth worked in the half-light, where everything on Nar Shaddaa looked guilty even when it wasn't. The cargo hold of his battered freighter hummed with residual heat from a hard burn through the Rim, and the sharp scent of ionized metal still clung to the air. Crates sat stacked in tight rows, each stamped with fresh SoroSuub serial codes that glowed faintly under his cutter's beam.
He knelt beside the nearest container, gloved hands steady as he traced the etched numbers with a micro-torch. The alloy bubbled and smoothed, the identifiers dissolving into anonymous metal. A quick pass with a stencil pad replaced the registry with a false trademark from a defunct shipping guild. Anyone scanning it now would see nothing worth confiscating.
"Respectable merchandise," he muttered, sealing the lid.
Respectable was a matter of perspective.
Outside, Nar Shaddaa's endless skyline flickered in neon and smog. Traffic streamed past the docking spires in glittering ribbons, and somewhere below, a blaster fight briefly flashed like distant lightning. The Smuggler's Moon never slept — it merely changed crimes.
Renth finished the last crate and keyed the hold open. Repulsor sleds floated the cargo down the ramp toward Docking Ring 94, where the dock master waited with all the patience of a Hutt accountant and twice the appetite.
The dock master was a thick-bodied Weequay with cybernetic eyes that whirred softly as they focused on the cargo.
"You arrived late," he said.
"I arrived alive," Renth replied, slipping a credit chip between the man's fingers. "That's the premium package."
The dock master weighed the chip, then tucked it into his sleeve. His posture softened immediately.
"No inspections logged. No landing record transmitted. Your stay here never occurred."
"Music to my ears."
Within minutes, the speeder couriers arrived — sleek, low-profile vehicles painted in matte black with the crimson sunburst sigil barely visible beneath the grime. Their drivers wore sealed helmets and spoke only through tight-beam comms. Efficient. Professional. Dangerous.
Black Sun didn't tolerate mistakes.
Renth watched as each crate was transferred with mechanical precision. One courier scanned the falsified markings and gave a single approving nod.
"Distribution cells are expecting delivery," the courier's filtered voice crackled. "You will receive final payment upon confirmation."
"I always do," Renth said.
The speeders lifted smoothly and vanished into the traffic streams, swallowed by Nar Shaddaa's chaos. Within the hour, the goods would be scattered across the moon — spice refineries, underground armories, gambling dens, and private vaults of beings who preferred not to be known.
Renth leaned against the ramp and exhaled slowly, tension leaving his shoulders.
Another run completed. Another web of obligations tightened.
Above him, the neon glow reflected off the durasteel towers, and somewhere in the city's endless underbelly, fortunes were changing hands because he had burned away a few serial numbers and paid the right official at the right moment.
He allowed himself a small smile.
On Nar Shaddaa, anonymity was currency.
And Colton Renth was getting rich selling it.
He made his way to Cantainia9 to await confromation and payment
.

Kinley Pryse

 

[Kinley Pryse]

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

Kinley Pryse has a complicated relationship with consequences​

Kinley's datapad vibrated once against the tabletop, short, sharp, the kind of alert she'd paid extra for. She didn't reach for it right away. Let it buzz. Let the moment stretch. Then she glanced down, thumb flicking the message open just long enough to confirm what her instincts had already started whispering.

Delivered. Clean. No flags.

The tension she'd been carrying like an old injury finally loosened its grip. Not gone, Nar Shaddaa didn't allow that, but eased enough that she leaned back in the booth, boots dropping from the table with a soft thud. The spice was moving, already funneling through the right hands, already turning into profit. Flint would get his cut, the buyers would get theirs, and for once, no one had managed to set the whole thing on fire.

Good. She wouldn't have to see Flint anytime soon. That alone was worth a drink.

Kinley lifted her glass, drained what was left, and caught the bartender's eye with a lazy two-finger gesture. "Another," she said, voice easy now, like the galaxy hadn't just spent the last hour daring her to blink first.

The cantina didn't change. It never did. Same smoke, same neon pulse, same quiet calculations happening in every shadowed booth. But Kinley settled in deeper, shoulders finally relaxed, a faint smirk tugging at her mouth.

For tonight, the job was done. The spice was selling. Credits were coming. And Nar Shaddaa could keep breathing its filthy little breath without her worrying about it.

She took the new drink when it arrived and raised it slightly to no one in particular.

Sometimes, things actually went according to plan.

Colton Renth

A Smooth Criminal

 

[Colton Renth]

The neon haze of Nar Shaddaa never slept. It pulsed.
From the viewport slit of Cantina 9, Colton Renth watched the glow of endless traffic lanes slicing through the smog-choked skyline. Airspeeders drifted like lazy predators between towers layered with centuries of grime, vice, and profit. Somewhere below, a siren wailed — then cut abruptly short.
Typical.
Colton leaned back in his booth, boots propped on the durasteel table despite the sticky residue coating it. The cantina smelled of engine coolant, spice smoke, and desperation — exactly the kind of place where credits changed hands without questions.
He checked the chrono in his wrist cuff again.
Late.
His latest delivery had been clean. Too clean. No patrols, no pirates, no double-cross. He'd lifted the cargo from a drifting relay buoy beyond the Roche asteroids and delivered it to Dock Ring C without even powering down his ship's weapons grid.
That kind of smooth run always meant one thing:
Someone, somewhere, was about to complicate his day.
The band in the corner — a trio of battered Bith knockoffs — screeched through a tired rhythm while a pair of Rodians argued over a sabacc pot. A Devaronian bartender polished the same glass for the fifth straight minute, watching everyone with the bored suspicion of someone who had seen too many blaster fights and survived them all.
Colton adjusted the collar of his weathered spacer coat. Beneath it, the grip of his heavy blaster rested snug against his ribs — familiar, reassuring.
The booth across from him remained empty.
Every time the door hissed open, the cantina filled briefly with the electric glow of the vertical city outside and the silhouettes of new arrivals: bounty hunters, slicers, drifters, and the occasional fool who thought they could beat the moon at its own game.
None of them was his contact.
He exhaled slowly.
Maybe the cargo had been hotter than advertised. Maybe someone else wanted what he'd moved.
Or maybe…
He reached under the table and thumbed the safety off his blaster.
On Nar Shaddaa, being paid late often meant being paid never.
And Colton Renth had not survived this long by leaving without what he was owed.
Outside, thunder rolled through the endless cityscape.
Inside Cantina 9, he waited.
.

Kinley Pryse

 

[Kinley Pryse]

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

Kinley Pryse talks so fast the truth has to sprint to keep up
​

Kinley fished her datapad from her pocket the moment it vibrated against her hip. She didn't rush, there was no need. Deals like this rarely went sideways, and she'd learned long ago that confidence was its own kind of leverage.

A quick scan of the screen confirmed what she already expected: all payments processed, all accounts cleared, and the product officially marked as received. Clean. Efficient. Exactly how she liked her business. Somewhere across the city, a smuggler was probably checking their own pad with the same sense of relief as the credits finalized.

Kinley exhaled softly and let a faint smile tug at the corner of her mouth. Any second now, the credits would land in her account, right on time. No delays, no excuses, no bloodshed. Smooth operations were a rare pleasure in her line of work, and she savored them when they happened.

She slipped the datapad away, already moving on to the next problem that would inevitably demand her attention.


Colton Renth

A Smooth Criminal

 

[Colton Renth]

He sat alone in the back alcove, coat collar high, the dim light reflecting off the amber glow of his datapad. A pair of Devaronians argued at the bar while a Twi'lek singer held the room in a velvet grip. No one paid attention to the quiet human in the corner booth—exactly as he'd arranged. His data pad buzzed, showing his payment had been transferred.
He used the data to send a message to his contact asking for a private meeting to discuss a bold venture that would gain all involved a ton of credits and fame, nearly unheard of.
.

Kinley Pryse