Private No Rest for Smugglers

[Caliban Arkay]

Tags: Kinley Pryse

The saloon was more rust than wood, more spit than polish. It clung to the edge of the town like a dying man to shade—barely standing, but too stubborn to fall. Caliban stepped through its battered threshold without ceremony, coat still carrying the red dust from the trail behind him. His armor left behind on his Jagdhund fighter, this mission required secrecy, the Empire had few friends this far from their territory. Instead he wore a simple brown coat and beige clothing, his long, flowing red hair swaying in the wind.

Inside, the air was sour with heat and recent violence. Eyes barely looked up from their drinks, but he could sense the unspoken threats. That suited him fine.

He moved slow, boots whispering over cracked floorboards, stopping only when he reached the center of the ruined saloon. He crouched and pressed both hands to the floor, closing his eyes as he did so and mentally blocking off any outside interference.

Psychometry was a quiet language. A discipline of memory and echo. His fingers brushed the wooden floors, and through the Force, the past spilled into his mind like smoke curling under a locked door, announced by a searing white light.

Voices. Footsteps. The sharp bark of laughter from a woman's throat. Not local. Cantonican accent, clipped but playful. He pressed deeper.

Kinley Pryse.

She'd been here. Sat at this table. Dealt sabacc with a trembling Rodian and left with more credits than good sense. The dealer had been her contact. She'd asked about fuel cells. A route through the canyons. A mechanic who didn't ask questions.

The vision faded like heat shimmer on the horizon. Caliban opened his eyes. They were colder now.

He reached into his coat again—this time for the holo-portrait. Her face stared back: sharp-jawed, sun-scorned, confident in the way only the desperate learn to fake. He slipped it away before anyone could see.

Imperial property. That's what she'd taken.

Didn't matter what badge he wore, or how many systems the Empire had lost. She'd stolen from the machine and he was the hand sent to take it back.

He stood, walking toward the bar. The barkeep was a Trandoshan with a glass eye and a bitter mouth. Caliban laid down credits with one hand.

"Fuel," he said, voice low and even. "And the woman who asked about it."

He didn't need the law here. Just a direction. She was close, he could feel it. When the Trandoshan hesitated Caliban place his lightsaber on the counter just outside the field of view of the other patrons. That got him talking quick.

Now he knew where she was headed. Time to follow. Time to hunt

 

[Kinley Pryse]

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

Everybody's Doing it So Why the Hell Should I?
​

The dust soaked winds did little to mask the tension that followed Kinley Pryce like a shadow. She moved like someone used to watching corners, shoulders hunched beneath a patched synth-leather jacket, eyes shielded by mirrored lenses that flickered with data readouts. Somewhere deep in her satchel, wrapped in carbon-scramble foil and desperation, was the reason half the remaining imperial sector would want her dead, or worse, bought. She was just lucky they weren't onto her. Or at least that's what she thought.

An imperial hard drive. Not just stolen, well ripped from a secure corvette docked in the Ardent Spire Shipyards during a routine inspection. Kinley had slipped in, played the part of a junior tech, and walked out with ten pounds of encrypted access codes, unregistered flight paths, and enough clearance overrides to ghost a smuggling fleet through the entire imperial belt. Now she just needed one thing: a mechanic. Not just any back-alley wrench monkey but someone who could interface forbidden imperial tech with a non-compliant ship core without frying the drive or flagging every patrol in orbit.

She pushed her speeder bike forward, through a canyon whose innards hid a bazaar that might hold the man she was looking for.

Tags: Caliban Arkay

A Smooth Criminal

 

[Caliban Arkay]

Kinley Pryse

902 ABY | The Ecstasy of Gold
The Crimson Hollow Bazaar

The canyon breathed heat and silence, its throat narrowing into shadows. Caliban moved slow, deliberate, cloak trailing behind him. Ahead, the tracks curved, they were thin, etched deep from a speeder driven hard, still fresh. She was here.

He knelt by the stone, fingers grazing the scorched edge of a heat bloom. The Force whispered across time, flashes of motion, her presence burned into the air like smoke from a long-spent match.

Caliban adjusted the vambrace at his wrist, eyes narrowing toward the shadows deeper in the canyon. A black-market bazaar waited beyond the rock. If Pryse was looking for a mechanic, she'd find one there. Someone bold, or foolish, enough to wire a stolen Imperial drive into a rusted hull.

He started forward, boots pressing slow and steady into the stone. No need for confrontation. Not yet. He let the effects of force cloak settle in, making him completely invisible.

The bazaar sprawled ahead, a patchwork of corrugated metal, faded tarps, and rusted pipes. Neon flickered weakly against the dust-choked sky, casting fractured light on faces half-hidden beneath weather-beaten hats and stained scarves. The hum of barter, the sharp clink of tools, the screams of unsatisfied clients. Now he just needed to find that damn mechanic.

 

[Kinley Pryse]

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

Great, Kid! Don't Get Cocky​

Kinley Pryce had seen her fair share of backwater settlements, but none quite like The Crimson Hollow Bazaar. The place was carved into the red-rock gulch of some long-dead planet, with vendors stacked on rusting scaffolds and rope bridges spanning the crevasse like spiderwebs. Blaster marks pocked the walls, sun-baked banners fluttered with forgotten clan symbols, and the air smelled like oil, spice, and sweat. Kinley adjusted her wide-brimmed hat, the sun burning behind her like a second threat, and pushed deeper into the chasm where she'd heard whispers of a mechanic who worked miracles and didn't ask questions.

She found him near the bottom tier, tucked in a smoke-choked alcove between a droid scrap vendor and a stall selling roasted womp rat on sticks. The shop didn't have a name, just a faded repulsorlift engine hanging above the entrance like a trophy. The mechanic was a wiry human with half his face replaced by crude cybernetics and eyes that glowed faintly red. He didn't look up when she approached, just kept working on a speeder engine that looked held together by sheer spite and scavenged wire.

"I heard you fix ships," Kinley said, resting her gloved hand on the grip of her blaster, subtle, but not hidden. The mechanic snorted, spat into the sand, and finally met her gaze.

"I fix problems," he said, voice like ground stone. "Ships are just one kind."

It was the kind of answer that meant trouble, but Pryce was used to trouble. She needed to be airborne before the Empire's reach caught up with her trail again. In a place like this, everyone was running from something. She just hoped this grease-stained shadow with a hydrospanner wasn't running in the same direction.

Caliban Arkay

A Smooth Criminal