[Booking Passage on the Manticore]

Doesn’t this guy ever shut up?

It was about eight hours into Rasha’s flight from Tatooine, and she was starting to feel rather irritated. The twi’lek was used to hearing people brag about themselves –indeed, she’d often encouraged it when trying to gather information- but Cedric was enough to get on even her nerves. She could only take so much of listening to someone drone on about himself before she began to tune him out.

“Hey, it looks like we’re going to run clean past The Demon.”

That got Rasha’s attention.

“What?” she demanded, panic seizing her. Cedric grinned.

“Yeah, virtually all the ships that have been attacked by him were attacked during the first quarter of their journey. We’re almost through that part.”

Rasha felt intense dismay gripping her heart at Cedric’s words, but she managed to force a smile.

“That’s good to hear,” she lied.

“Yeah. I guess my-”

An alarm sounded in the cockpit, and the Manticore lurched as it dropped out of hyperspace.

“What was that?” Rasha demanded, even though she already had a pretty good idea what had just happened. Cedric scrambled to his feet.

“Someone stuck a good sized chunk of space debris in our path.”

There were a number of points along the so called ‘Passage’ that contained a lot of hazards for ships travelling in hyperspace, and as such forced ships into taking some very specific routes unless they wanted to take long detours. These routes were the perfect place to lay ambushes.

Following Cedric into the Manticore’s cockpit, Rasha was greeted by the sight of the asteroid that had been used to pull the Manticore out of hyperspace. Sitting down in one of the spare seats, the twi’lek watched as Cedric sent a transmission to the freighter’s escorts.

“Manticore to all ships. Take my six and watch for enemy fighters.”

The first escort fighter, a Z-95 whose pilot went by the name ‘Mynock’ acknowledged the transmission, but the second fighter, a T-Wing whose pilot went by the name ‘Blaster’ had something of his own to say.

“Manticore, this is Blaster. I’m picking up multiple sensor contacts coming up on our rear. Five… six… seven… eight… at least eight. They’re coming in fast.”

“Roger that, Blaster. Stay in formation. Don’t let them-”

“Stay in formation?” the T-Wing pilot demanded. “What do you mean, stay in formation? There’s only three of us.”

“Don’t let their numbers get to you. The won’t attack if you-”

“Like hell they won’t! I’m getting out of here, Cedric! This isn’t what I signed up for.”

“You can’t do that! I’m paying you two point five grand for this-”

“Yeah, but you also said there were no more then three or four pirate vessels, not a miniature space force! Screw you, Cedric! I’m getting out of here!”

Engines glowing brightly, the T-Wing roared past the Manticore. Cedric began screaming epithets.

“Come back here, Blaster! You can’t do this. I already paid you half your –Hey, Mynock, what are you doing? Get back here!”

The Z-95 was also pulling ahead of the Manticore, albeit somewhat more slowly than the faster T-Wing. Apparently Mynock was no more eager to die then Blaster was.

Cedric began to swear up a storm.

“Zach, Morris, look alive on those gun turrets! I’m going to make a break for it.”

With that, Cedric threw the Manticore’s throttle full open and committed his emergency power reserves. The well tuned freighter responded with an immense burst of speed, and for a few moments it seemed as though the ship might have a chance at reaching safety, but those hopes (or fears in Rasha’s case) were shattered when the first ion cannon beams struck the ship. Systems going haywire, the Manticore fought on for several seconds, but then it’s engines gave out under the onslaught, and it was left drifting in space, a hulk that could neither run nor fight.

Glaring out the cockpit viewport, Cedric got to his feet with a grim expression on his face.

“Do you know how to use a blaster?” he asked.

Rasha did, but she shook her head.

“No.”

“Then stay here.”

Rasha felt a slight pang of guilt as she watched Cedric go, but quickly suppressed it. She might be making use of him as part of her plan, but it wasn’t as if she had asked him to risk The Passage. He’d made the decision himself before she ever tried to come aboard his ship.

Outside the Manticore’s viewport, a pair of R-41 Starchasers glided by, followed by a pair of Y-Wings. It wouldn’t be long before the ships carrying the boarding parties arrived.

Shortly thereafter, a pair of ships approached the Manticore, one from either side. One was a Corellian light freighter, the other a heavily armed Murrian Transport. Twin shudders ran through the Manticore as they linked up with the freighter’s docking ports.

It wouldn’t be long now…

A pair of loud bangs echoed through the Manticore as a pair of stun grenades went off, followed by a brief flurry of blaster fire. Moments later, the ship fell silent again.

Apparently Cedric and his crew hadn’t lasted very long.

Hearing shouting and loud footsteps, Rasha got to her feet and put her hands in the air.

“Don’t shoot,” she yelped as one of the pirates appeared in the cockpit entrance, blaster in hand. The man looked at her for a moment, then laughed.

“Hey boss,” he yelled back over his shoulder, “I think I found something you might like.”

“What is it?” a voice from the main area of the ship growled. Rasha heard footsteps, and then a huge red skinned twi’lek appeared in the corridor, dressed in a black jumpsuit and red body armour.

“Cute, isn’t she?” the human pirate asked. “And she seems to be your species.”

“Yes,” the red-skinned twi’lek replied as he looked Rasha up and down with a hungry look. He smiled, then turned to his subordinate. “Bring her along, and make sure the others keep their hands off her.”

The lesser pirate grinned at his leader.

“Yes sir.”

He turned to Rasha.

“Come along, dear. Don’t worry, we’re not going to hurt you…”

Despite the fact that she’d planned this all along as part of her hunting strategy, the way the pirate grinned at Rasha sent chills up the bounty hunter’s spine.