When the lid of the container lifted again, the first thing Kailas saw was Rimon's face, and the second was an anks standing nearby, looking at him with interest.
The light stung his eyes, accustomed to the darkness, and the gaze of the emaciated man immediately "drifted," losing focus – Kailas switched to Force vision. This was undesirable because it consumed his already depleted internal resources. But the time spent in the container was not wasted – he no longer resembled a living corpse in the Force, devoid of the will to live.
"Can I get up?" Kailas asked quietly.
"You must," came the reply from Rimon. He sat on the edge of the table, casually fiddling with a plastic card in his right hand.
The pilot stood up slowly, with visible effort. He wouldn't have let anyone see him so helpless before. Now it didn't matter. He couldn't defend himself anyway.
With difficulty, Kailas reached the nearest chair and almost fell onto it. His gray-green eyes, which had adjusted to the lighting, watched with calm expectation.
"Hmm," the anks drawled, as much as his physiology allowed, "double portion of the complex for number sixteen."
Then he turned to Rimon, awaiting an explanation. Rok waved his hand.
"Listen, why don't you introduce yourself, uncle," he finally said, addressing Kailas.
"I haven't decided what my name is yet," Kailas replied quietly. "You can call me... For example, Tardi."
"Tardi, then Tardi," Rimon nodded towards the anks. "This is Jero, the owner of 'The Last Haven,' where you'll be spending your time until you regain your strength. Jero, this is Tardi. Tardi here has a tendency to overwork, and I owe him a favor, though he doesn't think so himself, so keep an eye on him until he recovers, and then let him figure things out himself."
The anks nodded after a moment's thought. At that moment, there was a knock at the door. Rimon stood up, took the tray from the waiter, and headed towards Kailas, who was now called Tardi.
"Eat," the anks almost commanded. "I don't like corpses in my establishment."
Rimon took his place at the table again, but this time he held a glass of dark liquid in his hands.
The newly named almost-corpse didn't even try to protest. He was completely absorbed in the food, but the reason wasn't hunger – Tardi couldn't afford the luxury of being distracted by anything else.
Rimon winced and drank, drank and winced. He drank because he liked what Jero had put on the table. He had never consumed such a tart abomination. He winced because Tardi exuded such a stench of emotions that it would have been easier to put a bolt through his head.
Purely out of compassion...
"I'll leave money, I have plenty of it now, and I don't have time to linger," the con continued as if nothing had happened. "If he acts up, don't hesitate to use methods of pacification. And, perhaps, that's all for now."
The anks nodded, thinking about something of his own.
"Could you leave us?" Rok said this in a slightly different tone, indicating that the owner here was the alien, and he was just a guest. Jero nodded and left.
A new face and new documents would require much more than a smuggler could leave. Tardi had certain thoughts on this matter. But first...
"Thank you," he pushed the empty plate away.
"Explain why you're doing all this," Rok said with a slight hint of sadness. "If you don't want to live anyway?"
"Are you suggesting I shoot myself?" The grin momentarily resembled a snarl. "I've thought about it. Seriously thought about it... But you know, if I die, nothing will remain of her. Not even her memory."
"Of her?" Rimon raised an eyebrow. He would have suggested a different solution. In general, he never intended to end his own life.
"Of the girl," Tardi explained. "Who was being killed while I... saved you."
And now he wanted to ask whose idea it was to send Rimon on this mission. And hadn't he, Kailas, played a part in the fact that he needed to be saved?! But perhaps the ale was too strong, or Rok had become soft-hearted before his death...
"Shit happens," he stated. Probably the ale, then. "There's just one problem."
Rimon took another sip. Then, squinting, he looked at Tardi.
"The one who helped me on Carida burned up in a star a few hours ago," the con was serious. "And with him, you were supposed to burn everything else. Otherwise... Your past will betray you. You didn't have that girl. And you never saved me. You don't just need to remember this. You need to hammer into your head that everything that happened before was not with you. Do you understand that?"
"I understand," the pilot nodded in agreement. "And I will forget it. Very soon."
No hatred or animosity emanated from him. Rimon, this not-so-young, mortally tired man, blamed him for nothing.
"And when I forget, I'll need to figure out why I should live on."
"While you're forgetting, you can hang out here, Jero is a great guy," Rimon grinned at his own words. "Even if he's an anks. The only thing is – he doesn't have pleasant feelings for the Empire and Imperials."
Rimon placed a bank chip on the table next to him.
"There are ten of them here, I'll give the second ten to Jero when you get stronger – you'll pick up the rest. If you need anything – ask him. He knows the local clientele. The main visitors don't ask questions, they don't peer into faces. But don't draw attention unnecessarily. While I'm still here, do you have any questions for me?"
"Then we're almost in the same position," another grin. "With the difference that you don't have my training... What are you going to do next? When you burn up in your own star?"
Rimon smiled: despite Kailas's training, he had his own advantages.
"I don't know," he said honestly. "Maybe I'll buy a ship and start from the very bottom. Again. Maybe I'll just settle on Naboo and be a petty criminal. Or maybe I'll enroll in the Academy on Carida. I don't make long-term plans. They have a tendency not to come true. What, do you have any suggestions?"
"Those who knew me might not believe it," the pilot closed his eyes, leaning back in his chair. "They'll check... I need to disappear for a long time. For a year, at least. I even know where... You can earn good money there. Enough to buy an auto-surgeon capable of quality plastic surgery, and clean documents... But you can't do it alone there."
"I've thought about the documents," Rok said with a smile. "The galaxy is vast, you can always get clean IDs from some backwater planet. But I'm interested in your offer."
"Once I had to jump out of hyperspace in emergency mode," Tardi didn't open his eyes, but Rimon had a distinct feeling of being looked at. "I felt sick... I saw a planet where something had happened. It's not on the charts, I checked... An entire planet that no one has visited since its population died..."
Rimon shook his head.
"We need people," he weighed all the pros and cons. "A ship. And a ship with good tonnage and a long autonomous mode. In any case, we need a medic, preferably an archaeologist. To do it together there... An entire planet – with an unclear situation on the surface... It's interesting. But there might not be enough money for the expedition. Even with the reserves I have. We need a crew... Although, it can be found right here."
"This needs to be considered anyway," a sense of anticipation hung in the room. "With most diseases, a trained Force user can handle it themselves, and an auto-surgeon can help with the rest... And people and a ship... We'll talk about it when I have more strength, and you're no longer called Rimon Rok."
"Yes," Rimon stood up, then downed the glass in one gulp. "That's all. All the best."
Rimon didn't experiment on the way back to Corellia. Taking the well-trodden trade route, he put the ship on autopilot and focused on what occupied a significant part of his life. Covering his tracks. Calculating the travel time, calculating a "false" course to Nar Shaddaa, forcibly entering jump points into the navigation system, hiding traces of unauthorized interference with the ship's systems, repairing burned-out components, anything that could be fixed without leaving hyperspace.
And sleep.
After 52 hours, he was landing on Corellia, returning once again to that cozy little world he so wanted to be a part of, but something was frightening him, the past that would find him anywhere was frightening him, the fact that he wouldn't fit in was frightening him. He was afraid of getting an answer to his question. To learn that he wasn't meant for this life, that Rimon Rok with his wife and children had died in the flash of a detonator on Coruscant, a decade and a half ago, and what remained of him didn't believe in a happy ending for himself.
All that remained was to wait for the right opportunity and put his plan into action.
And in the meantime, Rok decided to have a good time on a private order from Harrion. One of his old acquaintances, his, not old Lov's, had placed an order to modify a swoop. The old acquaintance was Rimon's constant rival when he participated in street races; the best among them had never been determined, although they were not the best by definition. Both reached the finals twice, both times losing to the same opponent, both blaming the winner's better bike, both comforting each other over a case or two of ale in nature. He was a good acquaintance, now he competed in official races on karts, and this one, apparently, was either for his soul or as a gift.
It was already a remarkable machine, the "Mobkuyat." But that's why it was called "TechMaster," because they could always make it a little bit better. The first thing Rimon started with was digging into the "brains" of this monster. It was always necessary to know what could be squeezed out of the internals, especially since most of the nodes were now tied to it. And then he outlined the scope of work. He couldn't do much here, but he could do something.
First, a test run of the systems, studying the temperature graph, after which he began to carefully increase the power of the repulsors from nominal. This was done in different ways; somewhere he replaced the power units of the device, somewhere the wiring, and somewhere he simply changed the limiters. The main thing in a racing swoop is not so much power as controllability, and it is determined by one thing – the balance of the systems. And the con wasn't going to lose this balance for the sake of power.
Next came the cooling system. First of all, replace the radiator protection with a more open one, but so that no part of the bike could penetrate the radiator itself, which, by the way, could also be replaced. The default model, although good, was not the best. A slightly different cell shape, a different material – and the cooling system began to work almost twice as effectively, and when replacing the coolant, this notorious "almost" could be safely discarded.