The last chapter! I haven't decided yet if I will immediately start posting the Interludes, or take a short break. I'm working on some costumes for an upcoming convention so I haven't gotten a good start on the sequel yet and don't want to start posting if I'm going to have to take a break right away because I don't have enough written to keep up with a regular posting schedule. So there may be a (hopefully) short break before I post any more!

I hope people enjoyed this story. Please feel free to leave comments or PM me!

She was still wearing her blasters, as no one went unarmed on Taris, so she was ready for whatever she might find. She let the door close behind her, all her senses on alert as she moved deeper into the ship. Lomning's door was still firmly closed as she passed it, and judging by the faint scuffs of mud that she was still occasionally spotting on the floor, she didn't think the intruder had stopped there. Hopefully they didn't even realize that Lomning was on board. She briefly debated waking the Jedi, but she didn't know yet if this was an emergency or not. It was possible that Corso had invited someone on board, though he probably would have asked her first. But she didn't want to disturb Lomning if it turned out to be something she could deal with herself. He needed his rest.

She headed for the bridge first. As much as she was trying to convince herself that nothing was wrong, the prickle at the back of her neck told her that this was likely to be a worst-case scenario and she wanted to make sure her ship was secure. The bridge was the most defensible part of the ship, thanks to the blast doors, and she could hole up there if she needed to.

When she rounded the ring corridor, she felt a chill go down her spine. The door to the bridge was open, but all the lights were out. She knew that she had left them on. The ship was currently hooked up to ground power at the spaceport, and there was no need to leave the lights off to conserve the ship's power supply, not that she would usually leave the bridge dark anyways. She always kept the lights on during the day and turned them down slightly at night. She never turned them all the way off.

She was wearing soft shoes and had been moving carefully, but the airlock door wasn't exactly quiet. Whoever was here must know she was on board. She carefully drew her pistols and crept closer. She hadn't seen or heard any sign of Corso and Xirra, and she just hoped that they were safe. The converted cargo hold that was Xirra's quarters was further around the ring from her so if the two of them had stayed in there, it was possible the intruder hadn't noticed them. She didn't know where Seetoo was either. She would have to talk to Corso and Xirra about him once this was dealt with. That model of droid was far too easy to disable. She would have to see if the two of them would have any suggestions that might surprise the next would-be attacker.

Rian pressed her back to the wall beside the bridge door and half-closed her eyes to listen. With the ship on-planet, the ever-present noise of the engines was silent. Most of the instrumentation on the bridge was quiet as well, and she didn't hear anything at all at first. It was possible that the intruder wasn't on the bridge and the fact that the lights were off was a coincidence, but she wasn't going to take that chance. She tightened her grip on her blasters and was just about ready to duck around the doorframe when she heard a faint scuff as if someone had shifted position. The sound had definitely come from the bridge.

She led with her blasters as she came around the corner. The bridge was dark, with only the main console lit, providing dramatic underlighting. Skavak was standing beside it, a blaster trained on the doorway and a manic grin on his face. The stark lighting made his face look more angular than usual, and the swirling lines of his tattoo were very dark against his skin.

"Captain," he drawled, gun not wavering. "Fancy meeting you here."

"Skavak," she replied icily. "I'm surprised to see you here. Was I not clear enough in my message when I said you'd better hope I didn't see you again? Because what I was insinuating was that I was planning to shoot you in the face."

The man laughed, the sound a little crazed. As Rian's eyes adjusted she realized that it wasn't just a trick of the light that made Skavak's face look more angular - he had lost weight, and his once well-fitted clothes now sagged on him. "You might want to hold off on that," he told her with a sneer. "I think you'll find that you won't want to do that at all when I'm done talking."

"I'm more than ready to do it now and you haven't even started," she snapped. "You really like the sound of your own voice, don't you?" Still, she didn't pull the trigger. The man had something up his sleeve, or thought he did. She wanted all the information before she started shooting. And if she could stall him long enough, Viggota and Jorgan might make an appearance. She didn't think they would stay talking with Berix long, since the man did have other duties to attend to.

"Oh, Captain," Skavak said with a leer. "So impatient. It's no wonder you lost your ship. I'm actually surprised it's only happened the once." Rian just arched an eyebrow at him, refusing to rise to the bait. Giving Corso the Event Horizon's launch codes on Ord Mantell had made sense at the time. If her ship had been confiscated by the Republic while full of illegal blasters she'd have had to spend months fighting to try to get her back, and that was only if she had managed to avoid jail time and having the Event Horizon sold at auction by the Republic as a confiscated vessel. Moving the ship had been the right choice, but it had unfortunately backfired when Skavak had double-crossed them.

The man eventually got tired of waiting for a response and drew his free hand out from behind his back. He held what looked like a remote detonator, and Rian's hands tightened on her guns. "I told you that you'd want to listen," he told her with a sneer. "The charge won't be enough to bother us too much, not where we're standing, but it'll be more than enough to make this bucket of bolts completely unspaceworthy. And it'll positively ruin the day of anyone who might be in your cargo hold. But really, who'd be in a cargo hold, right? So those hypothetical crew members wouldn't have anything to worry about."

Rian's blood ran cold at the knowing grin that stretched across Skavak's face. He knew that Corso and Xirra were in the small hold, she was sure of it. There was no way he could have missed them, if he'd been in there planting explosive charges. She just hoped that they were all right. She didn't trust Skavak not to have already shot them. He was definitely the sort to try to play games with her. "Well, you've got my attention, which I assume was your goal," she said, keeping her voice as calm as she could. "So what do you want?"

He smiled, the underlighting turning his toothy grin into something sinister. "I'll start with taking the ship back," he said. "I think that would hurt you more than anything I could do to your body."

"You didn't think your timing through very well," she told him. "You know the planet's under a quarantine, right? No one's launching until it's lifted. So even if you manage to take my ship, good luck getting yourself off the planet."

That threw him a little, and Rian wondered just where he had been and how he had gotten here without hearing about the quarantine. "Nice try," he blustered. "They wouldn't quarantine the whole planet."

"There have been some cases of the rakghoul virus on a couple of colonies," she told him, keeping her voice casual. "So, nobody can leave until they've figured out how that happened. They're not risking a full-fledged outbreak."

He shook his head in denial but she saw doubt creeping into his eyes. "I've got friends in high places," he replied haughtily. "I'll manage."

"Skavak, I somehow doubt that you have any friends at all," she said pleasantly, shifting her weight slightly. The detonator he was holding wasn't a dead-man's switch. If she could get off a kill shot before he could hit the trigger, she wouldn't have to worry about the charges going off.

"You're right," he told her. "Friendship is boring. You have to put in all that work and hope you're able to get what you want out of it. I prefer to just take it and move on."

"Wow, you really don't understand friendship at all, do you?" Rian scoffed, though some part of her pointed out the irony of her being the one to say those words.

The sound of the airlock door opening forced her hand. She would have preferred to let Skavak rant a little longer and hopefully let his guard down a bit, but the distraction would have to do. As soon as his head jerked up at the sound, she squeezed both her triggers. One blaster bolt burned across the side of his face and the other hit him square in the middle of his chest. His breath hissed out in a sickly gurgle as he fell, and his finger tightened on the trigger of his pistol. Rian felt the shot punch into her, but she was just glad that his instinct hadn't been to go for the detonator. She lunged forward to grab it out of his hand, in case he wasn't quite dead, but was surprised when her legs went out from under her. She landed in a heap next to Skavak as the detonator slipped out of his lifeless hand and rolled across the decking. She could hear the clatter of running footsteps and Viggota's voice shouting something as blackness dragged her down.

Rian's return to consciousness was accompanied by some steadily beeping piece of machinery and a far-too-bright light overhead. She opened her eyes and immediately squinted them closed again. She tried to lift a hand to shield herself from the light but she was tangled up in blankets and tubes. She made an irritated noise and turned her head to the side to see where she was.

She was unsurprised to find herself in a Republic-standard medbay, presumably still on Taris judging by the fact that the walls looked like pre-fabricated panels that were designed to clip together. Still, all the bright lights and blinking machinery looked new enough. She assumed they hadn't had any problems putting her back together.

Her thoughts were slow and fuzzy but she finally managed to untangle one hand and reached up, looking for a call button or something. She was groping blindly for the wall above her head when someone caught her hand in a gentle grip. "Sorry," rumbled a voice. "I fell asleep."

She turned her head to the other side to see Jorgan yawning widely, showing a mouth full of sharp teeth. He was sprawled in a chair beside her bed, dressed more casually than she could ever remember seeing him. She was so used to seeing him in armour. He steered her hand back down, careful of the wires and tubes, and patted the back of it before releasing her. "How long have I been here?" she asked.

"Most of a week," he said. "You spent the first three days in a kolto tank."

She blinked up at him in confusion. "What?"

"Skavak's shot took out most of your lower abdomen," he told her as he played with the controls of her bed until she was sitting more upright. "You're lucky Viggota and I showed up when we did, and that we were able to wake Lomning up. You just about didn't make it."

That took a moment to sink in through the haze of meds that Rian assumed were keeping her calm. "I didn't know it was that bad," she said, though she should have realized it. She hadn't been wearing her armour, after all, and she knew what a blaster bolt could do to an unprotected body. "Is everyone else all right?"

The Cathar nodded, tapping the controls on his wrist computer. "Yeah. You saved the day again," he said with a chuckle. "That sand rat had pumped some sort of gas into Xirra's quarters to knock her and Corso out. He didn't even have the guts to face them himself. And he shut down your droid again, but he didn't take any damage."

"What about the explosives?" Rian asked. She wondered at how calm Jorgan was being but then again, it had been a few days for him. Everything still felt very immediate to her.

"Xirra dealt with that as soon as she regained consciousness," Jorgan said with a satisfied nod. "She wasn't able to get the doors unlocked, but Skavak was dumb enough to put the bomb where she could get to it. So even if he'd hit that button, nothing was going to happen."

Rian felt a rush of relief and closed her eyes. She had been so worried about Corso and Xirra. She had been pretty sure she remembered Skavak dropping the detonator, but the drugs were making her memories fuzzy.

She opened her eyes again when the door to her room hissed open. Corso barrelled in, relief written plain on his face and Xirra only a step behind him. "Captain!" he said, reaching for her hand and gripping it tightly. She squeezed back hard and had to close her eyes against the tears that threatened. She blamed the meds for that. She didn't usually cry.

Viggota and Lomning showed up a few minutes later, looking like they had dressed hastily. "We were sleeping," the big soldier explained. "We've been staying with you in shifts."

"We were at the mess hall," Corso said, looking around surreptitiously before he pulled a pair of crusty rolls out of his pockets. He broke them apart and handed pieces around to everyone. Rian's mouth watered at the smell of the still-warm bread, but Lomning plucked it from her hand.

"You have just regenerated most of your digestive tract," he told her firmly. "No solid foods until you see the doctors." Corso looked apologetic, but Rian noticed that it didn't stop him from eating her share.

"What happened?" she asked, looking up at her crew. "Fill me in."

"Well, I think we managed to piece together most of it," Viggota said, rubbing a hand over his head. He needed a shave again, and his palm rasped over the stubble. "It looks like Rogun's bounty hunters had been closing in on your friend Skavak, and he was running out of options."

"We think that he was cut off from all his caches and his contacts," Corso interjected, brushing crumbs off the front of his shirt. "He musta been getting desperate."

"From what we have been able to determine, he appears to have had some contacts among the pirates that have been scavenging on Taris," Lomning added. "And likely at the spaceport as well. We believe that is how he found out that you had landed here."

"Torve's been cleaning house," Jorgan said with a vicious grin. "There have been a few people rotated out from their cushy jobs here onto the recovery teams. They aren't very happy, but haven't dared to complain."

"We've had the body taken off the ship, and dealt with all the paperwork," Viggota told her. "You won't have to worry about that, though you'll need to read through and sign the incident report."

"I've also contacted Rogun," Corso said, and Rian jerked her head around quickly.

"What?" she said. "You shouldn't have done that." She hated the idea of Corso getting involved with someone like Rogun. She was thankful she had managed to clear up her debt to the gangster, but she still wanted to keep her crew out of that business.

"Well..." her first mate drawled, ignoring her angry glare. "Someone had to tell him that the bounty on Skavak had been collected."

She blinked up at him and then started to laugh. "Okay, even I can see the humour in that."

"We're pretty set, between the bounty and the credits we got from the Republic for helping to find the rakghoul cure," Corso told her, reaching out and squeezing her hand again. "We can probably take some time off."

"A vacation?" Xirra asked, sounding hopeful. Rian felt for the poor girl. She'd joined the crew at a bad time, given everything that had happened since.

"Maybe," Rian said, though she wasn't exactly the type for vacations. She preferred to be busy. But her crew had definitely earned some downtime after this. "Anything else?"

"Well..." Viggota was trying unsuccessfully to hide his grin. "The quarantine's been lifted. So we're free to go, as soon as you get the okay from the medics."

"What are we waiting for, then?" Rian asked, making shooing motions at them. "Get me out of here!"

Her crew laughed but obligingly scattered to find the doctors. In short order, Rian was unhooked from all the machines and run through a battery of tests by the medical team. The treatments had gone well, and she was pronounced fit to be discharged.

The others were waiting for her right outside, and Rian smiled at them as she approached. She'd been thinking about what she had said to Skavak, about friendship. She wasn't usually the introspective type, but nearly dying three times in the course of a week had left her with a lot to think about. She reluctantly admitted to herself that she might be growing attached to this strange crew she had picked up, and was really hoping they might stick around. She slipped into the middle of the group and let Corso drape an arm over her shoulders. She wrapped hers around his waist and gave him a squeeze, and clapped Viggota on the shoulder. "Are we ready to leave, then?"

"I'm more than ready," Corso said fervently.

"Torve did ask if we'd stay for dinner," Jorgan said from the other side of Viggota.

Rian glanced at her crew and shrugged. "I guess we can stay a bit longer," she said. She could tell by the angle of the sun that it was nearing nightfall anyways. She didn't want to leave without thanking the base commander for his help - and possibly trying to pump him for a few stories about Jorgan.

She let herself be carried along with her crew as they headed for the Republic Command building. Corso and Xirra were talking quietly as they walked along with her, Corso a warm, solid presence at her side. Viggota gave her a smile, bumping his shoulder against hers. Jorgan actually looked content, the harsh angles of his face softened somewhat. Lomning was as serene as ever, and Rian followed his gaze upwards to where a flock of birds was soaring up into the darkening sky. The first few stars would be coming out shortly. Rian knew that she'd be back up there soon, out of the atmosphere and into the black, back on the ship that she called home with this strange new family she had made for herself.