They arrived back at Barb’s place late that afternoon. The desert had turned the color of old brass. Heat rippled above the sand as Barb’s speeder climbed the final ridge toward the homestead. The wrecked transport came into view first. It had settled deeper into the sand since the morning. One wingtip was buried completely now, and the forward hull looked even more like a crushed soda can. Barb slowed the speeder.
“Well,” she said. “Good news.”
No one spoke.
“It didn’t explode while we were gone, and no one fucked it! Unbelievable!”
Geraldine squinted.
“That was not my primary concern.”
Ace stepped out before the engine finished winding down. He walked around the transport slowly. Lucky followed. The impact had twisted the main structural spine. Half the avionics bay was crushed. The starboard thruster was split open, its interior cables hanging like exposed nerves. At least the G-Monter bleed had coagulated.
Lucky climbed halfway into the engine housing. Ace waited. After a moment she dropped back down.
“Well?”
Ace asked.
Lucky brushed dust from her hands.
“Shitfucked.”
Barb leaned against the speeder.
“Exactly how shitfucked?”
Lucky gestured at the hull.
“The frame is warped. The reactor mount sheared loose on impact. Even if you rebuilt the engines, the ship would tear itself apart during lift.”
Ace nodded once.
“Scrap.”
Barb perked up.
“Dibs!”
No one acknowledged her.
Lucky was staring at the wreck differently now. Not at the damage. At the registration markings on the side of the hull. The logo had been half sandblasted away by desert wind, but enough remained to read it.
Lucky frowned.
“Damnit.”
Ace looked over. “What.”
“This transport company.”
She tapped the scorched lettering.
“They don’t operate in this sector. Not passenger routes. Not charter. Corporate logistics only. No local fleet. No tow network.”
Ace studied the hull.
“So we’re stranded.”
“Very.”
Barb stepped closer and squinted at the markings.
“…this doesn’t look like a Galactours craft.”
Lucky didn’t even look at her.
“No Barb.”
“But the prize packet said luxury transit,” Barb insisted, pointing vaguely at the wreck. “Champagne shuttle buckets. Complimentary spa-ssage knuckle butter. Little bitty towel animals.”
Ace rubbed the bridge of his nose.
“That’s… not what this was.”
Barb frowned at the shuttle, then back at them.
“Well that there’s a problem ‘cuz the paperwork clearly stated transport provided.”
Gerry shifted awkwardly.
“Sometimes promotional travel packages include… flexible routing.”
Barb narrowed her eyes.
“Flexible how.”
“Creative! Uh…self-service, y’know, travel “familiarly”. That’s the highest comfort right?” Gerry said quickly.
Lucky ignored them and kicked the landing strut. It creaked like a dying hinge.
“No comm relay. No service beacon. No registered route through this sector. Whoever chartered this thing didn’t expect anyone to pick it up.”
Ace nodded toward the dunes.
“So what’s the play.”
Lucky gestured to the wreck.
“We’re not flying that anywhere.”
Barb jerked her thumb toward the ridge behind the house.
“Well if y’all can’t make good, I can get us to my vacation I guess.”
They all turned.
Perched on the ridge sat a ship.
Long. Heavy. Ugly in the specific way that meant it had survived many terrible decisions. Paint scorched. Hull patched. Engines large enough to argue with gravity.
Ace studied it.
“That yours?”
Barb grinned.
“Ol’ Scumpy.”
Gerry blinked. “…Scumpy.”
“Lady Scump Humper if’n yer feelin’ formal.”
Lucky looked at it carefully.
“That thing spaceworthy?”
Barb slapped her thigh proudly.
“Baby that ship placed semi-bronze in the Seminal Congress Hyperfab Super-Circuit.”
Ace frowned.
“…semi-bronze?”
“Technically fourth. As in the base we’ll share, if you play yer cards right. I might just have an Ace in the hole”
Barb slobberwinked as Ace gagged as privately as he could manage.
Lucky folded her arms and pressed on.
“That gets us off planet?”
Barb’s grin widened.
“Oh hell yes skinny B.”
She looked around at the wreck again, then clapped her hands together once with excitement.
“Oooweee! Guess my luxury cruise just upgraded to an pre-embarcation adventure leg. So excited fer mah sweepstakes vacation!”
She pointed at Gerry.
“Thank YOU Gerry Bird!”
Gerry gave a tiny, terrified smile.
“Yes. Congratulations again.”
Barb spread her arms toward the horizon like a tour guide unveiling paradise.
“First stop: exospheric survival experience.”
Ace stared at Gerry. Gerry stared very hard at the sand. Lucky sighed. Barb continued happily.
“Then we redeem the full Galactours prize package at the Hyperyacht embarkation port.”
She slapped the side of the wreck.
“Which I assume is wherever you three idiots were headed before you crash-landed on my porch.”
No one answered. Lucky looked at the wreck one more time. Then at the ship. Then back at the wreck. Finally she folded the contract datapad closed.
“We leave tonight.”
Barb pumped her fist.
“Oh HELL yes!”
She started marching toward the ridge.
“C’mon winners! Hyperyacht ain’t gonna vacation itself!”
Ace watched her go.
Then looked at Gerry.
“…sorry I said she won a vacation.”
Gerry shrugged weakly.
“I panicked.”
Ace sighed.
Lucky started walking.
“Well.”
Ace followed.
Behind them Barb shouted from halfway up the ridge:
“DON’T WORRY! I’LL PACK SNACKS!”
The cargo bay of Ol’ Scumpy looked like the inside of a moving day that had gone slightly feral. Crates had been pulled from their clamps and half-packed with supplies Barb seemed to have been accumulating for years—ration tins, spare engine couplers, coolant canisters, a coil of rope thick enough to restrain a bantha, and at least three objects whose original purpose had clearly been forgotten but whose continued presence felt non-negotiable. The freighter’s engines were already awake somewhere behind the bulkheads, humming with that unsteady vibration that suggested if it turned on, you should probably leave it on.
Geraldine Potts wandered through the cargo bay slowly with the thoughtful curiosity of someone touring a pharmacy that had accidentally been left unlocked. She paused at a rack of tools, then a locker full of engine parts, then a narrow cabinet that contained what appeared to be several compact explosive devices arranged beside a jar of ancient pickled vegetables.
She closed the cabinet gently.
“I feel compelled to ask,” Gerry said, brushing a little dust off her jacket, “what exactly the legal classification of this vessel is.”
Barb, who was dragging a crate of supplies across the deck with the casual strength of someone who had done this sort of thing most of her life, didn’t even look up.
“Freighter.”
Gerry nodded slowly.
“Freighter slash smuggler.”
“Freighter.”
“Freighter slash smuggler slash mobile felony.”
Barb shoved the crate into a cargo clamp and snapped the locking lever down with a satisfying clang.
“Freighter.”
Gerry accepted this answer with the calm resignation of someone who had already expected it. Lucky stood at the central workbench with the datapad open in front of her. The payment record still glowed on the screen.
Six million credits. Imperial treasury ghost authorization. Cleared.
She had looked at it enough times now that the numbers had stopped being surprising and started being unsettling. Ace noticed.
“You’re still thinking about it.”
Lucky didn’t look up.
“Yes.”
Barb crossed the bay and began tossing large snack packs into a storage bin beside the ladder to the cockpit.
“What’s there to think about,” she said. “Some rich lunatic paid a pile of money for plumbing repairs.”
Lucky turned the screen toward them.
“This is not how maintenance contracts work.”
Gerry hopped up onto a crate and swung her legs.
“I’m beginning to suspect that none of this works the way maintenance contracts normally work.”
Ace reached into his jacket and placed the wafer on the workbench. The small disc of dark metal rolled once before settling beside the datapad. Barb squinted at it.
“What’s that there?”
Ace didn’t answer immediately. Lucky looked at the wafer. Then at Ace.
“That’s imperial. Where did you get that.”
Ace folded his arms.
“The drunk at the cantina. It’s my contract.”
The cargo bay went quiet except for the steady hum of Ol’ Scumpy’s engines.
Barb blinked.
“You’re gonna need to elaborate.”
Ace met Lucky’s eyes.
“He hired me.”
Lucky stared at him.
“The drunk?”
Ace shook his head.
“No. Not the drunk. When I took the gig it was a standard imperial bounty contract, anonymous client. That’s normal. But this wafer…it has the source file…the original RFP…and the original requestor…Emperor Jamie.”
The ship was silent.
“I was hired to find Lucy Von Schmidt. And bring her home.”
The words hung in the air like a dropped wrench. Lucky’s expression changed slightly. Not shock exactly—more like the sudden rearranging of puzzle pieces that had already been on the table. Barb leaned against the cargo rack and crossed her arms, clearly enjoying the direction the day was taking.
“Well that’s spicy.”
Lucky looked back at the datapad. The most powerful man in the galaxy funded her contract and her bounty. The final realization slid slowly into place.
“This wasn’t random. This was engineered. Even for you Gerry.”
Gerry tapped her chin thoughtfully.
“Well my honeymoon guide contract was issued through the Imperial Diplomatic Travel Bureau. It’s one of those cultural exchange programs they use for visiting dignitaries and academic delegations.”
Silence settled over the cargo bay.
Ace slowly turned his head toward her.
“…the honeymoon.”
“Yes.”
“…was booked through an Imperial diplomatic office.”
“Yes.”
Barb burst out laughing.
“Oh this just keeps gettin’ better.”
Lucky stared at Gerry.
“You never mentioned that.”
Gerry shrugged.
“I assumed it was a very normal bureaucratic quirk. Governments love paperwork.”
Ace leaned against the workbench and looked between them.
“The transport that crashed.”
Lucky nodded slowly.
“Imperial charter.”
Gerry blinked.
Then she blinked again.
“…oh.”
The realization finally caught up with her.
“Oh that’s… actually quite a lot of imperial involvement, isn’t it.”
The realization spread through the cargo bay like heat through metal.
Emperor Jamie funded Lucy’s contract.
Emperor Jamie placed Ace.
Emperor Jamie arranged Gerry’s travel.
Three separate threads.
One destination.
Lucy looked from the wafer to Ace, then to Gerry, and finally to the humming bulkheads of Ol’ Scumpy, the realization settling into place with the quiet finality of a bolt tightening.
“…we were all booked on the same itinerary.”
Barb pushed herself off the cargo rack, grinning like someone who had just discovered a treasure map taped to the underside of her favorite bar stool.
“Well hell.”
She grabbed the ladder to the cockpit and started climbing.
“Sounds like the Emperor wanted a road trip.”
Gerry looked down at the crate she was sitting on.
“I am beginning to feel slightly manipulated.”
Barb’s voice drifted down from above.
“Too late now!”
The engines deepened into a stronger vibration as the startup sequence completed.
Ace slid the wafer back into his pocket.
Lucky closed the datapad.
Neither of them spoke for a moment.
Above them the cockpit canopy opened slightly as Barb ran through preflight checks.
The desert wind moved softly across the hull of Ol’ Scumpy.
Ace finally broke the silence.
“Well.”
Lucky looked at him.
“Well what.”
Ace glanced toward the cockpit ladder.
“If the Emperor went through all this trouble to put us on the same ship…”
He shrugged slightly.
“…we should probably go ask him why.”
From above them Barb shouted:
“Strap in, sugar lumps! Scump’s about to hump sand!”
Gerry hopped down from the crate.
“I was hoping for a quiet honeymoon.”
The engines roared to life.