Life back on Listehol had settled into some kind of routine.
Gin couldn't bring herself to go home. The thought of facing her family after everything she'd done was too awful to contemplate. The little jawa Mnessas had offered her space in his hut - at least she was reasonably sure that was what he was offering - and she accepted gratefully.
She needed money. Without Mnessas's more practical skills she fell back on the one thing she was sure of. Talking. People in bars talked about things they needed, and things they were planning to get rid of in a hurry, and there was always a use for someone who could fascilitate transfers of property. She wasn't the only person in the game, but a talent for discretion could get you a long way.
And now it had got her a job.
A break-in at Listehol Industries wasn't the kind of thing she'd normally involve herself in, but this job wasn't coming from the top, but from Hulo Tamii, rather lower down in the organisation. A quiet investigation, with all property returned before the Baron who owned the place learned anything about it, was what was being asked of her. And at the price offered, she couldn't afford to turn it down. She made an appointment to meet her contact at the site of the break-in that evening, and then recruited a little help.
Getting info out of people was one thing. Getting it out of machines was quite another, but if she could drag Dax away from that old wreck of a spaceship for a while he could probably handle that. You couldn't beat the new Track-u-bot droid if you needed someone followed, and it just made sense to bring Mnessas along in case of trouble.
At the appointed time she met her team at Listehol Industries and got to work. A fence cut with some kind of heat based cutter, a broken door, and a large piece of digging equipment missing its critical industrial gemstone. Four corpses wearing overalls; two shot with some kind of energy weapon, one with a slug thrower, and one riveted to the wall. All workers, not droid guards. The guards had been elsewhere dealing with a fire started by an incendiary device on the other side of the building, clearly a ruse to draw them away.
With the evidence from the bodies she was confident that the team would get the job done, especially with Z1 Track-u-bot on the case, but Dax had managed to throw a metaphorical spanner into the works. His sister had been given a valuable ring by her owner, Rica Obrik, and had managed to lose it. He managed to borrow a duplicate off another of Obrik's girls, and wanted a replacement made. Gin had done her best to negotiate with the jeweller, but ultimately couldn't convince him to drop his price.
She had more important things to worry about than the bizarre romances going on between Obrik and his girls though. Z1 had come through on finding the thieves, and some borrowed speeder bikes would soon get them there.
Things got a bit hairy in those caves - meaning, of course, that she could barely keep the rippling of her fur in check as she found herself far closer to the action that she'd intended. Only Z1's quick application of a stim-pack, almost at the cost of his own structural integrity, had saved her. But ultimately they succeeded, and returned to town with the stolen gem, evidence of the culprit's deaths, and a number of other useful bits and pieces about which nobody needed to be asking too many questions.
The job was done. Quietly, discreetly, and fast. The money was enough that she could stop imposing on Mnessas and get her own place with a slightly higher ceiling. And if Dax chose to spend all of his share on bailing out his sister, that was his choice.
Of course, that meant there was still a very valuable ring out there somewhere. Perhaps it was time to take up a new hobby as a metal detectorist?
Discreetly, of course.
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