Private Through the Blackwall, Past the Storm

[Rheyla Tann]

JUTRAND // SITH SPACE
SECONDARY PORT — DOCK 17G // SCAV-CLASS DESIGNATION: THE SCOURHAWK​

The moment the navcomputer spat them out of hyperspace, everything felt... wrong.

Rheyla had jumped into cursed systems before—old battlefields, dead moons, pirate scrapyards steeped in rot. But this? This was different. The void itself felt coiled, watching. Like she'd brushed up against something ancient that chose not to strike—yet.

Crossing the Blackwall hadn’t been clean. The encrypted chain code had worked—barely. The storm corridors surrounding Sith space had groaned with warped gravity and dark-side interference. Void storms lit the hyperspace lanes like lightning through veins. Her cockpit instruments wept static. It took every ounce of her skill—and the smug bastard confidence only Mandalorian training and a few brushes with death could grant—to ride the path through.

And now here she was. Docked. Still breathing. Barely.

She hadn’t been on Jutrand more than thirty minutes, and already she hated it.

The station’s lighting was too clean. The air too still. Even the shadows didn’t behave. She kept her headwrap drawn tight around her face, leaving only her eyes and the lower length of her lekku visible and one hand resting near the blaster at her thigh—not on it, not yet. The kind of place where twitchy fingers vanished behind doors that didn’t open again.

She’d seen stormtroopers before. Hell, she’d gunned down a few. But these weren’t just enforcers. The Sith troopers here moved like apex predators—quiet, cold, efficient. No banter, no swagger. Just discipline carved in blood and silence.

Rheyla didn’t talk to them. She didn’t talk to anyone.

The job was clear: pick up the client. No questions. No trails. Get out.

Encrypted Channel XHR40-BAND5 — Active

“Tann here. Through the wall. Landed and waiting. You’ve got thirty before I get twitchy.”

Message sent...​

She closed the channel with a thumb flick, leaned against a crate of sealed coolant coils, and watched the docking corridor from under the brim of her cloak. Eyes sharp. Posture lazy.

Behind her, the Scourhawk squatted on its landing struts like a wounded bird of prey—low to the ground, wide-bodied, and ugly in all the right ways. The hull was a patchwork of gunmetal grey and matte olive panels, battered by time and dogfights. One side jutted out slightly from a retrofitted sensor array and a bolted-on shield casing where the hull had once given way. Red-orange striping peeked from under grime like the ghosts of stolen parts—or maybe just a past owner who didn’t make it.

Twin engines sat at the rear, one newer than the other, humming with uneven heat. The forward landing strut still groaned like an old man every time it extended—she'd had to kick it into place when they touched down. A topside cannon jutted near the nose, clearly not stock. The underbelly turret was half-dead, but it looked functional enough to bluff.

It wasn’t pretty. But it was hers.
And it hadn’t failed her. Yet.

She hadn’t come this far to admire the skyline.
This was a pickup, not a pleasure cruise.

No detours. No politics. No getting involved in whatever passed for “normal” inside Sith space.
Just slide in, collect the client, and punch out before anyone got twitchy—especially her passenger.

One warm body in the seat beside hers. No holes in either of them.

Just another job.

Except she’d never set foot in Sith space before. Never wanted to.

Too many lies. Too much drama. And things that didn’t stay dead.

Rheyla exhaled slow through her nose, eyes flicking to a nearby security camera that had definitely turned toward her.

She gave it a lazy wink.

She wasn’t sure if it was the tech watching her… or something worse.

Either way, she was already counting the seconds to get back out.

Kirie​

 

[Kirie]

On Jutrand, the usually sombre streets were alive with festivity. It was a warm summer evening, and the factories had stilled early to allow for a night of celebration for the Sith holiday of the Day of the Red Star. The event had been opened by the Sepulchral priests, who performed divine rituals and led rambling prayers exalting the Sith as gods, and espousing Eternalist doctrine. The crowds of every day people thronged in the streets, free from their day's work, clad in robes and masks and elaborate religious garb, navigating their way through streets overflowing with live music and street food and storytellers and pilgrims and merchants. A horde of people milling about in all directions, but not going anywhere in particular.

In other words, the ideal cover.

Kirie had abandoned the chartered speeder a few blocks from Dock-17G, stepping out and joining the throng as she pulled the hood of her thin wine-coloured coat over her head. She snaked her way through the people, none of them even sparing the short, scrawny woman a glance. The only time she strayed from her path was to give a wide to berth to a procession of priests and their escort of Sith enforcers. Trying to push through that kind of group was trouble at the best of times, not to mention it could have a Tsis'kaar in it, or worse.

All these terms that had been unknown to her only a little over a year ago. Now they were intimately familiar, each a unique twist on an identical threat. The cruelty of the Sith, the prying eyes of their Lords. The temptation to snag a wayward servant going where she wasn't supposed to, and use her as a political bargaining chip, or to set an example. All of them bad news except her Quinn, and perhaps Kaila. But neither of them could be relied upon for this venture. That would only endanger them too.

The group of Sith passed by, and Kirie turned off the street, her shoulders remaining tense even as she passed the threshold and entered the clinical, conditioned air of the spaceport.

It was quiet inside, especially compared to the din of the streets. Even through the thick windows she could hear the whoops and the horns drifting through the cavernous spaces, blending with the sound of engines and muffled announcements, and the unmistakable clomp of soldiers boots, making their rounds down the scuffed plasteel corridors, wrinkling their noses at the smell of burning fuel. Bored. Looking for trouble. Trouble like her. Kirie shivered, but she pushed the thought aside. Now she was inside, she risked pulling her communicator out, and turned left towards the farthest landing bays, following the little blinking light leading her to her escort.

<: "Trust that I'm in as much of a hurry as you." :> Kirie fired the message back hurriedly, before typing out another one and stuffing the communicator in her pocket. <: "I'm close. Think I see you." :>

This end of the spaceport was deserted, and no doubt chosen for that reason. It seemed to be mostly reserved for medium freighters and oversised yachts, many of which had obviously been parked long term and had seen better days. There was only one person waiting by the terminal, right where the commlink said they'd be. And still Kirie hesitated a few paces away, trying and failing to look preoccupied with her bag while she decided if she was stupid enough to go through with this.

But there was not really any turning back now anyway, so Kirie flipped her hood down and signed a quick greeting, closing the distance to the woman she'd decided must have been Tann.

'Are you my ride?'

Rheyla Tann ​

 

[Rheyla Tann]

Rheyla didn’t move at first.

She’d clocked the figure the moment they stepped off the main route—small, hooded, posture tight. Too deliberate to be random foot traffic. The kind of person trying to look like they belong but hesitating just enough to give themselves away.

Her body reacted before her mind finished the thought: spine straightening, weight shifting, fingers ghosting toward the blaster at her thigh without touching it.

No one else was in sight. End of the port. Quiet. But quiet didn’t mean safe.

Not in Sith space.

The stranger stopped a few paces off. Tension in the shoulders, but no aggression. Just nerves. Then, with a flick of motion, they signed.

Rheyla’s eyes narrowed slightly. No theatrics. No over-enunciation. Just clear, fluent ORSL—spare and confident.

She didn’t answer aloud. Just held the silence for a beat longer, reading more than the words: timing, body language, twitch reflex. Then her own hands moved—fluid, crisp, practiced.

< Depends. Which channel brought you here? >

Even as she signed, her awareness didn’t waver. Her gaze flicked past the woman for half a second—to the far corner of the corridor, the rust-burned bulkhead, the stack of crates near the maintenance lift. A shadow that didn’t move. A reflection in the viewport glass. A sound like a hydraulic hiss, or maybe a breath.

Nothing obvious. Still, her skin prickled beneath the armour.

Rheyla let her hands drop, but not her guard, as her hand fell back on her holstered blaster.

The stranger might be the contact. Might not. Either way, someone had walked into the den. And Rheyla didn’t survive this long by assuming it was a friendly visit.

Kirie​

 

[Kirie]

The bounty hunter didn't move at first, remaining silent and watchful in a way that made her stomach flip. Had she got the wrong person. Kirie tried to take a step back, but her leaden feet wouldn't move. The bounty hunter raised their hand. Yep. This was it, she was done. But no blaster appeared, instead, ORSL signs, responding to her question with a confirmation of their own.

< Depends. Which channel brought you here? >

Kirie's shoulders sagged in obvious relief. She let out a puff of air, letting the wave of fear wash out of her.

'XHR40-BAND5' Kirie fingerspelled the code, waiting for the hunter's confirmation, and then closing the distance between them. When she was in front of her escort, Kirie bowed her head respectfully.

'Ms Tann. Thank you for taking this job. You can call me Neris. I hope you understand I can't give you my actual name.' Kirie had never had to use an alias before, but it didn't feel so strange. She was used to lying, to keeping things concealed.

'How long before we're ready to go?' She was beginning to feel the eyes of the Sith turning on them. Whether that was real or imagined, she didn't know. Kirie looked around the spaceport, gaze flicking between the rusted hulking freighters.

'Which one of these is your ship?' She had been expecting some corporate flier, or a cramped little jumper, but she didn't see any of those around. She only saw things that looked slow, and looked like they could barely fly.

Again, she worried she was making a mistake with her approach. But what else was there to do? There wouldn't be another good chance to do this any time soon She supposed she had to trust that Tann knew what she was doing.

Rheyla Tann ​

 

[Rheyla Tann]

Rheyla didn’t flinch when the girl fingerspelled the code. XHR40-BAND5. Right channel. Right tension behind the eyes—familiar weight. Not relaxed, exactly, but... less twitchy. Less likely to bolt.

That was enough.

She gave a short nod, hand lowering from her blaster but not far from it, as the girl stepped in closer.

Then came the bow.

Ms Tann.

Rheyla tilted her head—more bemused than anything. No one called her that. Not clients. Not crew. Not past clan kin.

“Rheyla’s fine,” she said. “I’m not some syndicate heiress.”

The girl—Neris—followed it with the alias line. Rheyla didn’t blink.

“Name’s not in the payout,” she replied simply with a shrug. “Neris works.”

She cast a glance past the girl, back toward the corridor entrance. Still no movement. Still quiet. But quiet, here, meant nothing. Sith silence was always watching.

“Soon,” she added. “We’re not lingering.”

With a nudge of her chin, she turned and walked—smooth stride, boots near-silent on the scuffed deck plating. Her tattered cloak caught faintly behind her, shifting over the scratched green of her chestplate as she moved.

The Scourhawk waited.

A mid-sized freighter with the attitude of a bar brawler: gunmetal grey pitted with age, streaks of matte olive still clinging to the hull like dried blood. One wing sloped lower than the other. The nose jutted forward like a broken jaw.

No nameplate. No transponder tag.

And the ramp was already down, the ship’s belly yawning open like it was waiting to be fed. Faint engine hum vibrated underfoot—not shutdown, just idle. Ready to bolt.

“That one,” Rheyla said, with the faintest tilt of her head.

The Scourhawk wasn’t pretty. Asymmetrical, scarred, and stitched together with grit and salvage. A bulky sensor array distorted the portside silhouette. The forward landing strut creaked quietly in the low hangar air. The topside cannon looked like someone had welded it on during a chase. Blaster scoring patterned the hull like tattoos earned in survival.

“But don’t let the damage fool you,” she said, glancing over at Neris. “She’s got teeth.”

A pause. Her voice low but certain.

“And she’s already hot. We board now—we’re gone in under two.”

The ramp hissed beneath their feet as they stepped into the Scourhawk’s belly. The change in atmosphere was immediate—quieter, heavier. The spaceport din faded behind them, muffled by the freighter’s scarred hull and dull insulation.

Inside, the air was dry, tinged with scorched wiring and yesterday’s caf. Dim ceiling strips flickered faintly overhead, casting the interior in a muted amber haze. The kind of lighting that made you think twice about how much blood the floor had seen.

Rheyla walked without ceremony, boots thudding against the metal decking. She didn’t slow, didn’t give a tour—just pointed as they moved.

“That door’s the refresher,” she said, gesturing to the first one on the left. “Toilet only. You’ll survive.”

They passed the galley—two narrow counters bolted to the wall, one with a battered sink and the other home to a caf machine that looked like it needed therapy more than maintenance. Across from it, a tiny table clung to the wall, two foldable chairs strapped down tight. Carbon scoring lined the ceiling above it—old, cleaned, but not hidden. Nothing on this ship was hidden. Just worn. Just endured.

“Cockpit’s this way,” Rheyla said, pushing through the central door.

The cockpit was cramped, clearly built for two, though only one pilot was needed. Both seats looked like they belonged to a pilot, but the setup left no doubt who was in command. Manual controls ruled here—stick-and-throttle only, and the dashboard was a chaotic mess of aftermarket toggles, duct-taped panels, and scavenged screens from a half-dozen ships that hadn’t made it.

The transparisteel viewport sloped forward, offering a sharp view of the hangar bay outside. One corner panel was mismatched, the salvage job obvious. But the seat was shaped by long use. Every system was clearly known to the woman who sat there.

Behind them, the ramp began to rise—slow at first, pistons hissing.

Rheyla’s eyes flicked past Neris, catching movement at the far end of the platform.

Two Sith troopers emerged from a side corridor, rifles in hand, followed by an officer in a blood-red uniform barking something they couldn’t hear. Rheyla didn’t wait to find out.

She threw herself into the pilot’s seat.

“Family members here to see you off?” she muttered dryly, fingers dancing across the throttle.

Blaster fire lanced toward the ship, clanging uselessly off its battered hull. The Scourhawk groaned once, then surged into the air with a violent jolt, rising past the edge of the landing pad as the docking bay shrank below them.

Through the cracked viewport, they caught one last glimpse of the officer—now shouting furiously into his comm, his voice drowned out by distance and engine roar.

Then the spaceport vanished below them, swallowed by the clouds and the climb.

Kirie​

 

[Kirie]

Kirie cringed internally at the smuggler's bemused reaction to her introduction. She wasn't surprised, really. It had felt wrong coming out. What Kirie realised she had to remember was that she was entering a different world. Her learned etiquette and mannerisms she had tried so carefully to pick up as a servant would do her no good with the rough and ready spacers of the Rim, Tann- No, Rheyla- included. She had to cast her mind back to a time before the Sith, before she had learned how to fade into the background, and watch with attentive reverence. She had to be the farmgirl from an irrelevant backwater again. Anything else would result in her escort treating her like a liability.

'Good' Kirie signed curtly. Strictly business. From now on she was a businesswoman and she would treat this like the paid contract it was. She fell into step behind Rheyla, walking in her shadow as they would their way around freighters, past drums of oil and crates of unfamiliar parts, towards the back of the landing bays, where a ship that blended perfectly with it's surroundings was waiting. It was, at least on the surface, a scarred rust bucket, a no-frills transport that looked well past its use-by-date. But then, she looked closer, at the pits, the burns, the scuffs in the paint. It wasn't just old, it was a survivor, and that no doubt meant it had been through a lot worse than whatever this border-hop could throw at them. Once she'd noticed that, she saw the hefty landing gear, and the array of antenna's sticking out from her left side. It was ugly, unsightly, even. But, it looked both unassuming and tough.

Still, she was nervous to get on. Kirie didn't have a great history with inter-system travel, having survived a crash and then spent every trip since tucked into a bed on Quinn's yacht stuffed full of anti nausea and anxiety medication. Rheyla's ship did not like it would be a gentle ride. Unfortunately, as she had already come to realise multiple times, there would be no turning back now. However unpleasant, however dangerous the ride across the Blackwall would be, Kirie would just have to trust her guide, grit her teeth, and bear it.

Kirie followed Rheyla up the boarding ramp, keeping her arms stiffly by her side, either because she was scared she'd break something by touching it, or that it would shock or bite her. Her head swivelled back and forth, listening carefully and noting the layout, the few amenities. Really, there wasn't much to memorise. In no time, their short tour was over. The engine's were warmed up, so Kirie wasted no time buckling herself into her feet, gingerly arranging herself so that she wasn't touching any of the controls in front of her. Kirie looked up at Rheyla to let her know she was ready, but she saw the bounty hunter was looking past her.

“Family members here to see you off?”

She shook her head grimly.

'No, and I don't want to find out why they're here-' No need to continue. The metallic ping of blaster fire against the hull communicated clearly enough that the port authorities had taken issue with this unauthorised vessel, and likely, its passengers. Before she could tell Rheyla to go, the engines were already firing.

If Kirie could have shrieked she would have. A yelp like an injured dog. As it was, her voiceless puff of air was lost in the roar of the engines firing. Kirie screwed her eyes shut and gripped the armrests of her seat as hard as she could, her fingernails cutting crescent moons into the worn material.

Kirie screwed her eyes tightly shut, lost in the rattle of the ship and the knowledge that they were surely about to be taken down by some rocket or pursuit craft or something.

Rheyla Tann ​

 

[Rheyla Tann]

The Scourhawk screamed through the upper atmosphere, engines howling against the weight of the planet, trying to drag her back. Rheyla’s hands flew across the controls, flicking toggles and yanking a lever that nearly snapped back out of its socket.

“Stars, damn it,” she muttered, gripping the yoke as the freighter shuddered. “Every time I fix you, you find a new way to fall apart.”

A sensor ping shrieked. Three red dots closed fast from behind.

“Ah, there it is.” She spared a glance toward her passenger. “Sith fighters. Guess they weren’t waving goodbye after all.”

“Ah, there it is.” Rheyla’s eyes flicked to the sensor cluster, where three red markers bloomed in a tight wedge formation. She spared a glance toward her passenger. “Sith fighters. Guess they weren’t waving goodbye after all.”

The words had barely left her lips when twin flashes of cannon fire streaked past the cockpit, close enough to cast warped light through the transparisteel. Rheyla slammed the throttle forward and jerked the yoke left, tipping the Scourhawk into a sharp, grating roll. The ship groaned in protest—old struts, ageing servos—but it obeyed.

“C’mon, girl,” Rheyla muttered through gritted teeth. “I’ve seen you outfly debt collectors, pirate packs, and an angry Zygerrian in a gunboat. Don’t embarrass me now.”

The freighter dove hard, skimming the upper cloudline. Vapour hissed off the hull as they slipped just beneath a dense cloud shelf, turbulence rattling the bolts in the console. Rheyla kept one hand firm on the stick and reached for a row of manual toggles overhead, flipping three in sequence. Power surged unevenly.

"Hold onto something," she called over her shoulder. "If I cough hard enough, this panel pops off, and I’d rather not decapitate you mid-chase."

Behind them, the fighters tightened formation—textbook Sith doctrine. Fast, disciplined, relentless. The first peeled off and swung low, trying to flank. The second fired again, a trio of pulses that lit the sky and peppered the Scourhawk’s portside shields. The ship jolted, and a string of warning pings lit up the dashboard.

Rheyla smacked one of the blinking lights until it shut up.

“You hit anything important, I’m selling you for parts,” she growled—not to the fighters, but to the ship.

She dove again, then yanked them into a tight corkscrew turn. The gravity compensator lagged a half-second behind—just long enough to throw weight into her shoulders and the pit of her stomach. She tasted copper, kept flying.

The first fighter followed—too close, too confident.

"Think he wants to die brave," Rheyla muttered, angling toward a rising mesa of cloud bank.

A flash of insight. She cut the throttle mid-turn—just for a second—killing forward inertia and letting the fighter overshoot.

As it whipped past above, she flipped a vent valve and sent a burst of raw plasma gas into its undercarriage. It didn’t destroy the craft, but the flickering sparks and panicked drift told her it wouldn’t be following.

"One down," she said, smug.

The remaining two doubled down, firing in alternating bursts that lit the air like tracer rounds. The Scourhawk shuddered again. Warning klaxons warbled. Something behind the control panel sizzled.

Rheyla didn’t blink.

She flew low—so low the clouds split against the nose of the ship like waves, blinding her view ahead. Then, a break in the cover. Open sky. And beyond it—

“Almost there...” she said, voice low, teeth clenched. Her hand flew to the nav panel. Coordinates locked. A tremor ran through the ship as the Waystone seated itself into the modified jump chamber.

She looked up, through the cracked viewport.

The Blackwall loomed ahead.

Not a wall, not really. A distortion. A border. Stars bent unnaturally around it, as if something on the other side refused to be seen. There were no beacons. No lanes. Just raw space and whatever unspoken warning the galaxy tried to give by folding light and logic at the edge of Sith control.

“Almost there,” Rheyla repeated. “Just need the opening—come on, come on...”[/color]

The Waystone pulsed once.

And the veil began to part.

Outside the viewport, the sky began to distort—light bending strangely, stars smearing like wet paint. The edge of Sith space shimmered like a fever dream, the border held in place by the void-churn and invisible stormseeds that marked the edge of the Blackwall.

“Let’s see if this artefact's worth what I paid,” she muttered, tapping the inert stone wired into her nav panel. The void ahead flexed unnaturally—recognising the Waystone. A narrow hyperspace corridor began to peel open.

"Welcome to the ugly side of paradise," Rheyla said with a crooked grin. “Hang tight.”

With one last dip below a volley of blaster fire, the Scourhawk punched through the veil—past the edge of Sith control—and vanished into hyperspace.
The stars stretched, then snapped into the streaked blue of hyperspace. The cockpit lights dimmed, the alarm klaxons fell silent, and for the first time in minutes, the ship stopped shuddering like it might fall apart mid-atmosphere.

Rheyla leaned back in her seat with a breath that wasn’t quite relief. She flicked a few switches overhead, then finally turned toward her passenger, lekku twitching slightly from the adrenaline still bleeding off.

With a little gallows humour.
“Well,” she said with a dry smirk, as if they hadn’t just dodged Sith fighters in a freighter that looked, felt, and sounded like it should’ve retired a decade ago. “Piece of cake.”

A beat passed. Then, with a crooked smirk:
“Next time, though, let’s not schedule our Sith meet-and-greet during rush hour, yeah?”

Kirie​