[Episode I - A] Unsuspecting Courier

Excerpt from "Black Starbirds: Memoirs of a Fleet Intelligence Officer", published 44 ABY

Now, where were we? Ah. The Bacta Cartel. I was the station chief on Yag'Prime during that. Fleet Intelligence - Alliance Fleet Intelligence, that is; things changed while I was out there - sent me to Yag'duhl a few months before Endor. The Cartel was just another government-run corporation, then. The Alliance was interested in the planet because of its location - astride the intersection of the Corellian Spine and the Rimma run.

I set up a little carry-away bar as my cover, in one of the nooks along a cargo transfer corridor. Most of the station was pretty cramped, and I could hardly turn around in the bar without sweeping bottles off the shelves, but the cargo corridors were massive, big enough to drive a speeder truck down. There was a noodle shop on one side, run by an old Sullustan; I can't rightly recall the shop on the other side except that a couple of Givin owned it. Information flowed as freely as booze, there. I remember, just before Jakku…

"Saphrel, you bastard, I haven't seen you in months!" greeted the rangy Duros mechanic as he stepped up to the bar. "Two fingers of your ten-credit-est Dalastine scotch, if you haven't drunk it all up."

"Ten creds? Why, if I didn't know better, I'd say you must be a Neimoidian! How's business on Mynock Mother?" A glass clanked on cheap plastoid counter, then a gurgling pour from a green bottle.

Ta'Maal shook his head a but. "Best not mention it. She was impounded out in the Western Reaches, one of those warlords that are springing up like bantha-wasps. I was able to jump ship and hitch a ride on a bulker headed Corewards. Now I'm shipping on Bottle Shop." He sipped at the smoky-amber liquid. "Couple days here, then it's out to Dalastine to pick up some salvage."

Saphrel grinned, realizing an opportunity. "Well, maybe you do drink for free today, friend. I've got a package about yea big" - He indicated a box roughly the size of a datapad with his hands - "I need sent to a friend on Dalastine. It's worth a couple drinks to not have to hassle with customs."

The Duros glanced over his shoulder at the bored-looking security troopers standing in the main corridor.

"Oh, don't worry about them, Ta. It's nothing you'd get in trouble for, even if they searched you. Just some holonovels she'd been looking for, and a bottle of Corellian red." The bartender-et-spymaster carefully did not mention the encoded data hidden in those holonovels, or that the label on the wine bottle provided the key to reading it. "Here, she runs an electronics repair shop just outside the spaceport."

Saphrel set a bundle on the counter, and clipped on a datachip with the recipient's details.

"Well… I guess that wouldn't hurt. How many drinks did you say it was worth?"

Closeup of Saphrel and Ta'Maal

A freighter captain enjoys a mug.

Bacta Cartel bully-boys.