The Twi'lek found herself - she burst out of the workshop completely happy, clutching the materials and tools found in the workshop to her chest, and ran towards the cabins.
Sher, on the go, replaying the details of her conversation with Rick in her head, didn't have time to dodge unexpectedly and barely stayed on her feet from colliding with a hurricane named Weymi. And that was only because she grabbed her hands. On top of everything else, they bumped into each other like two glasses of sparkling wine, with the difference that there was no ringing. Sher released the Lethan and touched her chin, where the girl's head had landed.
"Excuse me, Weymi," she mumbled, "are you very hurt?"
The Lethan looked at her with wide eyes, hiding her leku behind her back, and backed away.
"S-sorry..." she finally managed to say.
"Did you get hurt, Weymi? Are you in pain?" Sher worried. "Come on, I'll treat your forehead, or it'll bloom like Jetro's in 'The Shelter'... And we'll be beauties, right?" she added with a laugh.
The girl looked at her almost with fear. Sher didn't understand the reason, but she wanted to get at least a response, if not a smile, from her, so she continued: "It's you who should forgive me, Weymi. I was just lost in thought. I brought glue," she said about the glue and spread her hands, trying to emphasize the comicality of the situation.
Fear turned into uncertainty, and the Twi'lek shook her head.
"N-no, everything is fine, r-really... Glue?"
She shifted her gaze to her loot, which she was still clutching, managing not to drop it.
"Glue," Sher confirmed, looking at her intently, but with all the warmth she could express with her gaze and smile. The girl evoked sincere sympathy in her; she seemed especially miniature and fragile to Sher in the ship's techno-interior. "The Cap told me to help you with the eighth crew member. He said you would explain everything to me, Weymi," the girl looked with interest at what the Lethan was protecting so carefully, pressing it to her chest.
The Twi'lek blinked in surprise.
"Are you sure you're okay?" the doctor doubted for some reason. The ice... The ice of alienation in the Twi'lek's eyes. So strange... "How about we wash it all down with herbal tea or caf?" Sher suggested, making another attempt to bring the Lethan into a mood more suitable for her young years.
This time, the Twi'lek smiled timidly. She had hurt the free one, but she wasn't going to be punished. She didn't have to hide her leku from blows, especially those sensitive for head tails...
"With pleasure, only..." she looked at the tools again. Rick said not to tell anyone. And the doctor knows something, but... The master's order. "I need to do something first. It won't take long."
"Don't rush, please, I'll brew it... And what do you prefer, Weymi? Herbal tea or caf?" Sher took a couple of steps towards the galley and turned to the girl, shaking her light braid.
"And... And the glue?" the Lethan asked confusedly after her.
"Yes, exactly," Sher laughed and turned back, taking out a small can of glue spray and handing it to the Twi'lek. "What is the root of evil, and what is the reason... So, tea or caf?"
Weymi pressed her leku - her hands were no longer enough.
"Tea, probably... I'll be quick."
And she ran to the cabin, trying not to drop anything.
"Well, I'll have tea too. For a change," Sher said aloud, becoming serious, although no one could hear her anymore. She glanced where the deck ended with the bridge and the familiar darkness. And stepped into the galley opening.
Weymi returned very soon, surprised and slightly confused.
"The captain's cabin is closed," she said, dumping her loot on the table. "I'll have to make a bit of a mess here... but I'll clean up after myself."
"Perhaps Rick needs to be alone," Sher suggested, opening a pack wrapped in natural foamed paper. The herbal aroma immediately spread through the galley, as if it were on Naboo, and the bass buzzing insects swarmed over the grass in bloom. "Maybe he doesn't want to be disturbed."
With these words, she looked at the girl with a smile and sighed almost imperceptibly.
The Twi'lek deftly laid out the tools in front of her. The set looked strange: metal scissors, a small hammer, a pair of metal rods of different calibers... Among all this, a scrap of transparent packaging plastic looked completely out of place.
Shergi glanced with slight surprise at the items laid out in front of the Lethan. What could be made from this? But she didn't ask. If Weymi wanted to, she would explain herself. The boiling water finally poured into the teapot. And the galley became even more like Naboo in summer. At least - by smell.
"Do you have food coloring?" the Lethan raised her head. "Chemical ones won't do."
Sher froze for a second with boiling water in her hand over a metal brewing container.
"N-no... I definitely don't have natural ones, Weymi... How about we make them ourselves from food? What color do you need?"
"Any," her leku swayed in an uncertain movement. "Absolutely any. I need to color... a liquid."
Sher covered the tea with a towel and went to the refrigerator.
"There are vegetables here that can color... Of course, they've already undergone all sorts of processing and will color slightly, but we can try..."
Sher chose burgundy frozen vegetables from the cabinet and laid them on a plate, trying to brush away a strand that fell into her eyes.
"By the way, caf also colors... What do we choose? Or maybe, first - tea?"
"Vegetables won't work, and tea and caf won't either..." Weymi was cutting a strip of metal lengthwise with concentration. "I'll try to manage without it..."
With a thin clink, two metal curls, a finger wide, fell onto the table.
"Then I can't help with that, Weymi," Sher shrugged in disappointment, watching Weymi's work with growing interest. "And I offered tea not as a dye. I wanted to pour it for you, if you don't mind..." she added cautiously. "I can also participate, just tell me what needs to be done."
The plate with vegetables went back to one of the middle shelves of the freezer.
"Oh..." the Twi'lek paused for a moment. "Sorry, I got carried away and didn't understand... Yes, thank you. With pleasure."
And immediately added:
"I mean the tea."
A mug of steaming herbal aromas, among which Sher easily identified one plant, which was difficult to call a herb - very tall, blooming with pink-raspberry flowers, was placed in front of the Lethan. Sher moved the second one towards herself and closed her eyes for a second, sticking her nose closer to the mug.
"And what will this be, Weymi?" she asked, taking a tiny sip, like a bird.
"Clips for ribbons on the leku," Weymi stuck her nose into the cup. "It smells delicious... And it tastes wonderful too..."
Holding the mug in one hand, she pressed the end of the metal ribbon with a hammer, and with a twig marked three dots - in the center and closer
"You'll scald yourself now, you can't do that," Sher shook her head and pushed her tea away. "Command me, Weymi, what to do, where to hold, where to punch? And you calmly drink your tea."
"Nothing needs to be punched!" the Lethan flustered. "I'll do it myself, I know how, really-really, I helped the master a lot, who was before Mr. Karvo... And I'll drink the tea first. I just wanted to explain where the inserts would be."
She put down the rod and hastily took a sip of hot tea.
"Weymi..." Sher was confused, "please, forgive me! I scared you again... I won't touch it, don't worry, please... I just wanted to help... And I was afraid you would spill tea on yourself..."
Sher was in despair. She had scared the girl terribly again. And she wanted the opposite... So that she wouldn't be so... lonely.
Sher fell silent, looking down at her cup of tea. "The master, before Mr. Karvo..." Was she working for Mukh?
"And still, maybe you'll show me where the inserts will be?" Sher asked, raising her eyes with a smile. "If, of course, you want to. And someone promised to teach me to move beautifully..."
The Twi'lek sat quietly over her cup of tea, looking at it with big eyes.
"I upset you," she said finally. "I can see that. And you're apologizing. Is that how free people behave?"
"Free people?"
The question that was about to escape Sher's lips froze.
"It can't be... The girl is a slave?.."
Something painfully squeezed on the left side of her chest, and immediately ached... "Unfreedom" in her understanding was associated with a cell, torture, and a mercilessly cynical interrogator. And here... To be someone's possession... That could be sold, bought... One could humiliate and mock, one could break... It's more interesting - she's a living thing... And this seemed scarier than a cell and torture...
"No, Weymi," she finally said, "I'm upset myself because I scared you. And the last thing I wanted was to scare you... I would like you to call me 'you,' and to never be afraid. At least..." her gray eyes looked into the blue ones warmly and sincerely. "As for 'free people'..." Sher gave a sad smile, "it turns out to become 'unfree' is so easy... There is a war now. And it's so easy to be captured, on Kessel, in the dungeons of the Security Service... And to return to freedom is very difficult. Very few chances. I was just lucky," Sher sighed, "so we are all the same..."
And taking a big sip of tea, she winked at the girl with a smile. "And the tea is really luxurious, right?"
Weymi nodded, sipping the drink.
"You see..." she stumbled on the ending, "Rick... He wants me to behave like free women of my race. But those whom I saw here among the free... I don't want to behave like that. Any of them, if I had run into them like that in the corridor, would have cut off my leku in slices and forced me to eat them with a sharp sauce. And those I read about on the HoloNet... They like to attract attention. Not like slaves, so that the master doesn't punish them, but in a different way. I don't like that either. And it turns out that I condemn the free people, and... I'm confused," the Twi'lek finished plaintively. "I thought... Maybe you'll teach me how free people behave?"
"Weymi, I understand..." Sher agreed. "But you don't need to be like anyone. Neither like them, nor like those on the HoloNet... Nor like anyone else. You are you. You can choose everything in your life yourself. Clothes, profession, gait, the planet you would like to live on, life itself. This doesn't mean that a free person does whatever they want. For example, I want to return to my planet, to my mother... I face a choice - I can return, but I end up in dungeons, and they will get into my brain and find out information about those dear to me. That's my price for my choice," Sher took a breath. "Or I don't return, I miss my mother, but everyone is free... A free person always faces a choice, every minute... It depends only on us. And freedom, first of all, is responsibility to oneself. What we will eat, where we will live, most importantly - how we will live. What we will be guided by in our lives. There is no master with a stick over us, who beats us every time for not fulfilling his will, and it depends only on us what choice we made, but we will also have to pay for it ourselves, and life sometimes hits even harder than the master..." Sher finished and chuckled. "I explain poorly, and the concept itself is very ambiguous... You will encounter this again. But not everything at once."
Her leku twitched uncertainly.
"I think I understood," the Twi'lek replied just as uncertainly. "To be free is to always be responsible for the choice you make yourself. Right?"
"Absolutely right!" Sher rejoiced, pushing a strand of hair away. "You are so smart, Weymi! It's no wonder you're the captain's assistant," she smiled. "I talk too much and emotionally, and you understood and formulated it briefly and precisely. Freedom is our conscious choice." she brought the mug to her lips, and from behind its metal edges, shining eyes sparkled. The tea was drunk in one gulp, and Sher stood up.
"Please, Weymi, forgive me, but I have to run. Shai has probably woken up already," Shergi's face clearly showed regret that she had to leave, and they had only just started talking...
"But I hope we'll talk more often now, right? I don't know anyone here except the Cap and Nick either," she said, quickly washing the mug. The navigator's name sounded particularly significant on her lips. Much softer...
"Yes," she remembered at the door, "and who is the eighth team member? Although there's no time anyway... Weymi, if you need help, just say so. And come. Just come."
Her light, as if sun-bleached, braid tip described an arc from Sher's swift head turn and disappeared into the doorway.
Rick emerged from the workshop a little less than an hour later. In his hands were two items. The first was slightly larger than a loaf of Vastrilian bread, the second was a small rectangular medallion with "resh" engraved on one side and polished on the other. The edges of the medallion were covered with a slight metal etching, which simultaneously gave the item a finished look and concealed the seam. Inside, the guy managed to install a small transmitter, an energy cell, and an encryptor in case someone decided to listen to the frequency on which the device operated. The first device served as the decryptor. The medallion was intended to be worn either on the neck or on the wrist, for which it was equipped with two small fasteners recessed into the body.
First, the counter headed to the communications room: he needed to install the decryptor and receiver in one unit into the signal reception system, and check the medallion's operability. And then go down to the cockpit and explain to Nick where to look for the innovations and how to use them.
Upon the captain's appearance, the navigator did not look back - he was looking at the scanner readings.
"I have a bad feeling," Nick said instead of a greeting, "that someone has lost something..."
"And is actively looking for it?" Rick inquired, throwing his jacket onto the back of his chair and sitting in it, simultaneously displaying the instrument readings.
"Persistently, I would say..." the navigator replied. "But not where they should be yet."
"Finding a ship in this garbage... It's quite difficult," Rick looked at the technical characteristics of those who were looking for them. "Another question is that it will be somewhat difficult to send me back to the planet."
"To drop, exit the atmosphere and jump - it's not difficult," the ex-ISB operative shook his head. "You can even lead them on a false trail if you set the jump direction to one of the planets that don't interest us."
"How kind you are," Rick chuckled and decided to inquire, "and do you think it will be difficult for me to dance the Corellian blues, fleeing from this in a speeder?"
"That's what worries me..." Nick summed up thoughtfully. "As well as the fact that someone with military equipment on board is prowling the orbit."
"We won't be able to escape," Rick said this after a few thoughtful seconds, "I'll lose my reputation with the Black Sun. This will have long-term consequences... No one will find me in the number of streams. It's just a pity about the people and non-people too. Why did you decide about the equipment?"
"Because our scanners don't see this someone, he's too far for them. But he occasionally hits us," the navigator explained.
"We'll get some of our own," the guy didn't clarify that by military equipment on board he meant something else, "at the first convenient opportunity. This ship can be turned into a candy. If only there was time. And money."
"If we manage to take one base, then we won't need money," the scanners registered another radiation surge. "It's there. It should be."
"That would be pleasant," Rick concluded, "alright, look."
He displayed the communications instrument readings, sending them to the navigator.
"I assembled the transmitter. The signal will come here in encrypted form with the coordinates and time of departure according to the common galaxy. It will appear here as a message with gibberish inside. But it can be identified by the sender. You enter the command manually," Rick typed the command, after which a small black window popped up, "and drop the message into it, after which you receive all the information. Simple, convenient, relatively reliable."
"Understood, accepted," the navigator nodded. At that moment, the console beeped with an incoming message signal. The short file contained the time and place. In half an hour, at the hangars of a private cargo transportation company.
"Well, they won't let me sleep properly," the guy said with feigned despondency, "I'm running to the hold, we'll put your words into practice. See you at Tunnel."
"We've been detected," the navigator chuckled. "The signal went in a beam. It must be the message that worked... Ah, it's been a while since I played slalom in orbit..."
Rick didn't answer, rushing to the speeder. Talking anything now would be a waste of time; the navigator knew what needed to be done, and he himself had a lot of work to do to return to Nar Shaddaa, whole and combat-ready.