Hyperspace. A couple of minutes before exiting above the planet Nimban.
It was said that great stories often had rough beginnings.
Whoever said that was a complete scumbag.
Dhari Rast reclined in her captain's chair, gazing at blue-white rods through the stained viewport, listening to the ominous rattling of a ship that shouldn't be spending this much time in hyperspace. Small jumps, yes, she would have preferred that, Blacklight's hull would have preferred that, even the kriffing Hutts would have preferred that. Because, although speed and efficiency made her employers drool - well, more than usual - it seemed like they had swept that criterium aside in exchange for the guarantee of their shipments' eventual arrival. A recent development which, coincidentally, made Dhari's travels across Hutt Space a little easier.
It was... debatable, however, whether the Hutts were still her employers or not. She had been contacted by her regular Cartel contact through secure transmission, and yes, the shipment of ryll which rested in large crates in the Blacklight's cargo hold had been picked up at a secret location on Klatooine that the Hutts seemed to use more often lately. But Dhari hadn't seen an actual Hutt in many standard months. The fact that the traditional underworld overlords had fallen from their pinnacle still baffled the smuggler. An underworld without a Hutt in charge? Now, that was a unsettling thought.
Still, the jobs kept coming, even if they arrived to her by proxy. Never really had a lot of contact with those slimeballs anyway, she thought. But I kinda miss 'em. So much more grease with them around. Everyone loves some good grease.
Light's flashed on the navicomp's display in the cockpit. Soon, the Blacklight would be exitting hyperspace - above the planet Nimban, if the ship's navicomp hadn't gone faulty again. Then again, if the navicomp was faulty, total obliteration from impacting a floating space object was more likely than arriving in the wrong place. Another reason to get this shipment to its destination. I need a kriffing upgrade.
Dhari sat up straight in the captain's seat and clasped the stick with her hands. That peculiar feeling of being vacuumed out of hyperspace took hold, and the blue-white rods retracted into little bright dots as the Blacklight came out over a terrestrial planet. Nimban was... kind of backwater. It wasn't Dhari's final destination, but she was meant to pick up a small shipment of glitterstim from a Cartel location on-planet before heading to the Mid Rim. She didn't expect trouble, but these days - with the Cartel reeling and the other Syndicates picking at them like carrion birds - you couldn't be too careful. With her senses on alert and her mind open to the ripples of the Force, she banked the Blacklight around and down towards Nimban.
@Catbert @Rhogar