Smuggler Archive
Thread: New Smuggler Story: Ashla's Wing
) ... but as it is no longer really suited to be an in-gamebio and since I spent the time to write it, I thought I'd share it here.I don't think she believed me. She certainly didn't trust me, but hey who could blame her? This wasn't the sort of place where you trust by default, and I'd chosen the spot after all. I got the impression she was perfectly willing to get up and wave off the whole deal and I couldn't let that happen - but she was intrigued at least, and that's half the battle.
Now, every smuggler works just a little bit differently. Some want to only talk business, and they do it with a blaster in hand. Others, like this woman, prefer more cautious introductions; making sure everyone is who they say they are before anyone actually says who they are. When she first sat at the table, I'd wondered if she might be Dalan herself, but something about her just didn't fit with the ethos that was Dalan. She'd been pleasantly trying to get me to admit I was an imperial agent (which I'm not) for at least 5 minutes, and I, just as pleasantly, assured her that I was a friend of a friend.
She took a sip of her drink and rather suddenly broke free of contemplation and smiled. "So where are you from, Korin Sterling? You're certainly not from around here". She asked.
I wondered what made that so certain; Tatooine was pretty easy to fit into … just wear something dust covered. I tell people I hate Tatooine, but I don't really. In fact, if I had to choose one planet to spend the rest of my life on, I suppose it would be Tatooine. Although, as difficult as the choice would be for me it wouldn't really matter, as I'd kill myself shortly after being grounded. I'm a spacer. People are always asking me where I'm from - I suppose people ask that of everyone - but I hate the question. "I'm a spacer" never seems to suffice for them. I'm not from anyplace. I grew up on Ashla's Wing - my fathers ship. He and my mother were smugglers. I suspected that this woman was as well.
She was human but had that air about her that well traveled people can get making her seem something more than your average human woman, which was only emphasized by her height. She's slightly taller than me and I'm slightly taller than average. I think I hated her for it at first, but to say her smile was disarming would be an understatement of galactic proportions. She had the look of a Tatooine nobel even though she'd dressed in average clothes - some people just cant look average no matter how hard they try. Honestly, she attracted just a bit too much attention for my liking, but hey she was sitting at my table now and I love being envied. Her name, apparently, was Lyra (in all likelihood that wasn't her name at all, but it was the name she'd given me) and we had each heard from a friend of a friend that the other might have something we were looking for.
Now, I have a nose for smugglers and I could smell Lyra from a parsec away. She wasn't your typical smuggler mind you, and she'd probably convinced herself that she wasn't one at all ... but she was, I'd have bet this deal on it. A bit too classy for this joint, but all too familiar with how such places work, she was probably the most attractive and most dangerous thing in the room. Just the kind of smuggler a guy could take home to Mom and Dad.
For the official record, by the way, Dad was a Merchant and Mom was a Musician and these are the professions they solely practice now, but not so very long ago those were just vehicles for smuggling as surely as Ashla's Wing was.
Mom was actually pretty well known for her music and it took us all over the galaxy. Dad was her business manager and ran an import business, Sterling Imports. He specialized in rare items and exotic spices from around the galaxy - collected as we traveled between performance venues or on some business trip of Dads. Of course these trips and the performance schedules were carefully planned to fit the needs of the true family business, which took place back stage, after hours, or high above in orbit.
There were some planets we frequented more than others I guess, and a few where we even had houses. But it's weird; I don't feel at home on those planets. I feel more at home in orbit around them. There are even certain regions of space that I breathe a bit easier in as soon as we arrive - often long before anyone else (other than the navi-comp) has recognized them. It's not that these regions are actually safe mind you; I just feel a certain fond nostalgia when we drop out of light speed there.
I feel at home when I get on board my ship and the loading ramp closes behind me - but people get confused when I tell them I'm from "Ashla's Wing". It's a conversation that frankly I'm tired of having. Lately I resort to telling them I'm from Lok. This too gets the occasional odd look, but I actually have a house there. I guess I followed in both my parents' footsteps. I run Sterling Imports there. I've a small shop and even run my own Cantina where I perform when I can.
But my house, cantina, the shop ... these are for me - like my parents honest professions were for them - merely tools for a Smuggler. Space is where I'm from and Ashla's Wing is my home.
Still, I managed to look engaged at her question and rattled off some nonsense about Sterling Imports, and my cantina and Lok and yada yada yada, and naturally finished it off with "but honestly I spend most of my time on my ship, Ashla's Wing".
I could feel her stomach drop from across the table when I said the last part. The corners of her mouth involuntarily, and ever so slightly, lowered and her gaze went from the edge of her glass to somewhere light years away. Oh yeah, she's a smuggler. I could see the repulsor lifts firing as she put it all together.
"Ashla's Wing," she pondered trying to fake ignorance, "seems I've heard that name before."
"Perhaps." I answered as if the question and answer were of no real importance. "The ship's been with us for as long as I can remember."
"Us?"
"It's a family business, sweetheart." I nodded at the server and took my 4th drink. "At least it used to be. It's really just me now a days."
"What business is that, exactly?" I'd just told her I ran an import business and a cantina, she was fishing for information again - silly little smuggler.
I ignored the question. "I can't tell you what a traumatic experience it was when the first Ashla's Wing was destroyed. It was the one I grew up on."
"Sounds like you're lucky to have grown up at all." She's said sighing as she fell back into her chair. She had said that aloud by mistake it seemed and swallowed her words with a bit of a smirk.
"You don't know the half of it sister." I said. In actuality, although she was probably right, you wouldn't have known it growing up on the Ashla's Wing. As a kid, I never got the sense that we were in any trouble, never got the the sense that we were avoiding anyone (although we most certainly were). This is probably because my father had perfected the art of smiling at someone who was about to shoot him and somehow make them wonder why they would ever want to do something so distasteful. Thankfully my mother had perfected the art of incapacitating the person before they snapped out of it.
I guess on some level I knew we were party to shady deals ... but it wasn't till I was in my early teens that I started to understand the true nature of the family business and the consequences it could have. It was about this time that I started to realize things about my parents ... that they weren't above violence, for example. It wasn't a shocking or traumatic realization ... just a new one.
I started running my own deals when I was 14 - kid stuff naturally, but hey we all start somewhere. I was a natural at slicing, and I'd learned the fine art of negotiations and closing the deal from my parents even if they didn't realize I was learning it. Still, it wasn't until Ashla's Wing was destroyed that my life truly took on a momentum of it's own.
It happened when I was 19. It was the first of several blows that eventually lead my parents into retirement, and it was the conclusion of an adventure, which gave me my first true appreciation of my parent's abilities and the scope of their escapades - which they had so carefully shielded me from up to that point. It was also no doubt the first time they realized just how well I could hold my own as a smuggler. I think we all walked out of that with a shocking new respect for each other.
"It's a big deal when a smuggler loses his ship - even more so when it's home to a family of smugglers." I explained.
"Smuggler!?" she said in rehearsed shock.
I ignored it. "Several years and several ships later I finally found the ship that was worthy of the name and christened it Ashla's Wing." I said and smiled at her.
"How touching." She'd abandoned her attempts to feign interest, shock, or some other socially mundane reaction and her sarcasm was only out done by her now obvious mistrust. Her shields were going up faster than a lost TIE in Kessel. She didn't trust me before, but my free admission of being a smuggler had her even more on edge. If it weren't for the fact that I could see two hands and was rather sure she was neither droid nor alien I would have been concerned about a blaster under the table.
I nodded a bit looking at my drink. "Mom laughed at me for being so sentimental but I know it pleased her. It wasn't purely for sentimental reasons that I kept the name, you understand. Ashla's Wing is known in all the wrong circles if you know what I mean ... and I like that." I looked up from my glass at her "All the cantinas on Nar Shaddaa get a little quieter when they hear Ashla's Wing is on approach."
She relaxed a little bit. She accepted now that I knew as much about her as she did about me - or at least on the things that mattered I did. I knew she was a smuggler as much as she knew I was one, and she didnt have to be bothered with admitting it. She understood now that I hadn't shown her my hand because I'd decided she was a risk and was about to kill her, I'd shown her my hand because she'd inadvertently shown me hers -- and frankly things would just be easier if we got past all this. Her recognition of my ship had given her away … only smugglers and those who peruse sector criminal activity reports would have heard of it.
It's good for business, I've found, that smugglers know of it. Good smugglers kept such things to themselves and the bad ones don't live long enough to matter. It's not good for business to be on the criminal activity reports of course, but it is good for the soul at any rate to think that some Imperial data parser might somewhere be shaking his head and saying "Ashla's Wing again!"
I wonder what my parents would say if they knew what's happened to my ship. Not that I actually know for sure ... ah but that's another story, I'll have it back soon enough.
For now I am resigned to the galactic shuttle system or Imperial transports. A change that is frustrating beyond my ability to relate in any language I know ... and I know just about all of them ... but it's only temporary, and it's a required even if unplanned part of what may be my biggest score to date. It's a plan that if it doesn't kill me (which frankly I'm nearly certain it will) will by it's conclusion put me in front of The Emperor himself, the illustrious Jabba the Hutt, and take me deep into hidden rebel bases ... a plan that's going to make me rich, perhaps even turn the tide of war, and most importantly ... reclaim Ashla's Wing.
(Read Part 2: Closing the Deal)
Message Edited by IndySWG on 11-05-2004 10:31 AM
IndySWG wrote:
.... is your name homestarrunner inspired by chance?
IndySWG wrote:
bah that's a type-o. It's "Ashla's Wing" ... I'll go fix it
.... is your name homestarrunner inspired by chance?
Okay, I wasn't sure if it was a typo, or if you had named the new ship "Ahsla's Wing" instead to differentiate the two ships.
And to the second part, yes it is. 50 points if you can name the source character and episode.
