CHAPTER 4: WHERE THE HEART IS

Okha returns toward her ship confused, angry and in need of some reflection on what just happened. Although her face shows these emotions, none are visible through the dark polarized visor of her mandalorian helmet. As she makes her way to the ship, her custom R5 astromech droid fights to keep up. TIC-R5, affectionately called Tic took quite the beating on their last mission. Emitting smoke, sparking and dropping parts, it was barely keeping itself together. The loading ramp to the ship lowers and both begin to work their way up. The TIC-R5 droid whirrs, produces a big puff of smoke with a popping sound, struggling to make it up. When it finally makes it in, Okha crouches in front of the droid at sensor level, “can you start repairs on yourself, Tic?”

The droid’s beeps were less than enthusiastic.

“Good, I'll fix you up once we're home”, Okha reassured him with a nod and a wink as she patted Tic’s dome lightly, then continued to walk her way to the cockpit.
Tic turns his dome towards her in hopes of more attention and waits. Turning his dome back, a barely audible low level hum speaks of his disappointment. Not many droids required much attention, but Tic was an exception. A former Imperial strategic calculation droid, Okha’s reprogramming also helped him realize his worth.

Okha makes her way to the cockpit, looked in and found her droid-pilot for the mission, Tac, already prepping the vessel for takeoff. “Tac, what would I do without you?”

The droid’s head looked over and paused. He remained silent for a second or two, looked back at the instrumentation and continued readying for takeoff. Okha lightly smiled to herself, took the copilot seat and proceeded to prepare the shields and weapon systems.

Silent, and with little need for words, TAC-15, or Tac, resembled an antique Clone Wars Super Battle Droid. Same rugged build for battle, but reprogrammed and customized by Okha to take care of tough situations and the smoothest of flights.

Okha reaches to the instrument panel and turns a switch. A low-level hum can be heard as the communications jamming device comes on. Slowly, she leans over to Tac, and speaks softly, “scan the hull for tracking devices, and make sure no one follows as we clear the skyline." She pauses, looks at the instrumentation display and continues, "once in orbit, execute random jump pattern delta before we head home.” She reaches over to the same switch and turns it in the opposite direction. The humming stops, and there is silence, but her heart is now racing.
She knew that in these cases of critical information, Tac’s silence meant that he acknowledged. Both knew that at the end of every mission, they made sure of one thing:  that there was no one tracking or following. The random jump patterns would make it seem as if they were going elsewhere in the galaxy. If for some reason, someone was following, they would be confronted at that location. Or, they would basically follow them there and find nothing. Home was a place that needed to remain a secret at all costs.

Suddenly, the silence is pounded as the ship's engines roar to life. Lifting off the landing pad on Coruscant, dust, debris and imperial propaganda gets blown around in all directions. Clearing the building's skyline and traffic patterns, the ship revs up and shoots through the clouds into the upper atmosphere. Once in high orbit, Tac begins to execute the 1st decoy jump into lightspeed. The hum of the hyperdrive gives way to the stars turning to infinitely long rods of light. Suddenly, they are in hyperspace. As the blue hues reflected off her visor, Okha cleared her thoughts. She looked forward to returning to her base of operations, continue her search for answers, and potentially find her next job.

The place Okha affectionately called home, was her only connection to her past. Although she could not remember how she acquired it, she believed it must have been a special place for her parents. It was a place she could find refuge in any storm of life.

A few moments later, the ship drops out of lightspeed and the lush planet of Takodana fills their view. A fertile world teeming with water and landmass covered in greenery. Mountains, forests and lakes at every corner. As an added convenience, it was also the house of one of the Galaxy’s revered safe havens for bounty hunters everywhere. Maz Kanata’s castle. An ancient, yet wonderful place for sharing stories, learning of new jobs and sharing a good meal. Although Maz had never revealed anything, Okha had a feeling Maz knew something about her past and what happened to her parents.

The ship cleared the atmosphere and got through several cloud formations to an endless array of beautiful mountain tops. The tree-filled green skirts hid many secrets. One such secret was home. Not  only was Okha’s home/base difficult to find, the approach was nearly impossible to maneuver. Approaching a mountain range, the ship must turn straight into one of the mountains and angle the ship in such a way that it would clear the tree-line and dive into the rock-face. Tac had it down to a science. Okha taught him each step, each turn into the deep mountain. She could have programmed him to do it flawlessly, but there was more to it. She needed to feel like she could trust someone with it.

As the ship dives into the mountainside, there is nothing but darkness. The only light sources were from the engines and two projection beams from the front. Tic maneuvers and brings the ship to a stop.

We are home, she thinks to herself with a smile.

The loading ramp lowers. Tic, still emitting sparks and smoke, starts his way down in a jagged, stop-start motion. As the smoke clears, Okha removes her helmet as she walks her way onto the base’s landing pad. Her face shows a sense of relief and yearning. She yearns for a time when life was simpler. A time she cannot remember, but feels exists. Also forgotten, the scar that runs from the top left of her forehead down to her right cheek - speaks of a time when a lesson was learned the hard way. Her short, brown hair compliments her brown eyes and lightly tanned complexion. Although Okha believed in not drawing attention, she kept some color on her eyes, cheeks and lips.

Closely behind Okha, Tac, the 2-meter tall former Super Battle Droid, clunking and clanking his way down the ramp. Before Okha could get too far, an imperial mouse droid squeaks and squeals out of nowhere and runs up right in front of her. Okha feigns a surprised look and draws her right WESTAR-34 Pistol at it.

“HA! Got you!” Okha exclaims.

The diminutive droid on wheels begins to wail and drive in circles non-stop.

“I think he got you this time..” growls Tac in his deep, tin metallic voice.

The mouse droid chirps and squeals in what would almost appear to be taunting.

“Fine, you got me good Tow”, Okha smiles and shrugs. The TO-MSE-6 droid does a victory lap around Okha, it squeaks some more and runs along his merry away.

Mouse droids were about 25 cm high, and were programmed for simple tasks like cleaning and simple repair duties. When Okha captured this one, she had to quickly deactivated the imperial melt-down subroutine. and reprogrammed it to do more than just simple repairs and cleaning. One such example was a simple surprise subroutine to test her senses through a form of an unsuspecting attack. After the first few attempts, she was well attuned with the sound of the droid’s drive motors, wheels and powersource hum.

“So... When was the last time Tow actually managed to get that close?”

Tac shrugged, “Yesterday?” and continued to clank along into the main hatch.

Okha could not hide her smile, and shook her head as she continued to walk into the base interior. Although he squeaky TO-MSE-6 droid kept Okha on alert, she was more than prepared for every attack once she learned Tow’s sounds, nuances and patterns. However, she enjoyed playing along as if she was caught. Seeing the droid’s reaction, attitude and spontaneity was well worth it. A side effect she did not expect from a droid that small.

The base entrance was simple. Nothing on the walls but gray on steel panels arranged in a checkered pattern. Several power conduits and environmental ducts ran along the wall’s surface. The main entrance gave way to a larger corridor that would seem to wrap around a large center area that was not visible. Around the corner, there were several glass panels overlooking a poorly-lit area where that center would be. Some plant leaves became visible through the glass panels due to the leave’s proximity to the window.

Okha makes her way to the left-most area in the base. Approaching a control panel, she enters her securitytube into the reader and punches in a code. As the hydraulics hiss, a large sliding door opens. She enters what she’s arranged to be her living quarters and shuts the door behind her. She proceeds to unbuckling the larger parts of her armor, closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. Exhaling slowly, she opened her eyes  and proceeds to removing the rest of the armor. Not only does it appear as if a physical weight was removed from her, but her face showed a larger sense of relief - as if a much larger weight had been removed off her shoulders. As she sat on her bed, she proceeded to remove her flight suit. In her most intimate garbs, she stands up and walks over in front of a mirror.  Her softly toned and defined body was a testament of her goal to have functional strength. Although there are very few bruises and scars on her body, a very prominent one on her left side of her navel calls to her. What would appear to be a potentially deep cut or burn marks from cauterizing, it ran eight to nine centimeters in length. Almost resembling a two-pronged pitchfork, there was a long, jagged line leading to two shorter ones below.  She looks at it and caressed it lightly. Sadness, confusion and even anger becomes visible on her face.

"If you was going for the heart, you missed", she softly speaks to herself as she gently glides her fingers from the scar up to her breast bone. Looking away, Okha tries to keep composure.

“Maz,” she whispered as she closed her eyes,”I know you have answers for me.”

After a moment, she opened her big brown eyes revealing some redness and tears which began to well. One tear streamed down the corner of her right eye as she continued to look around the room. Suddenly, the sounds of clanking and buzzing took over. She knew Tic had now began to work on himself in the room down the hall.
"Right, coming to help you buddy..."
Then, she remembered there was a scheduled communication with Emaneld. Something about The job you always dreamed of…  "Wait, need to clean up first." She tried to shake off the previous moment as she made her way to her personal cleaning area.

A few moments later, she returns to the main part of her room wearing a simple robe. Her hair was still damp, however, she enjoyed leaving it that way after a cleaning. She took a look at her holographic communication center and noticed that she missed an incoming transmission, and that there was now a recorded message.

“Looks like he could not wait to tell me all about it,” Okha shook her head and sat at the console and started the message. A half meter tall 3D holographic projection of Emaneld appears. His face is riddled with excitement, “Okha, as you know, this is it. Your dream job!” Okha smiles and rolls her eyes as the bluish glow from the hologram reflects off her face.

The small, holographic message continues, “You will be meeting with their representative in the cantina on Mos Eisley spaceport.”

Okha did not seem to thrilled as she whispered to herself “Mos Eisley?... why?... of all places…”

“The stipulations are: no weapons, and you must go alone.”

“WHAT?!” Okha exclaimed, “Talk about paranoid,” Okha chuckled , “I may not be armed the way I’d like, but I am not going unarmed to that place.”

“The rest of the details will be discussed at the meeting, but from what I can tell, this hit will be big.” Okha’s eyes widened, as the message continued, “this will make headlines and you will definitely have enough for your freighter.”

The freighter, Okha thought to herself, the one thing I have truly been dreaming of for so long.

The message continued, “I know how much it would mean to you. To finally afford it. To have a real crew.”

“A REAL crew?” she smiled and almost laughed to herself, “what's wrong with the one I have now?”

Okha continued to smile. Then, her thoughts shifted to memories of why she really wanted a freighter, why she really needed a crew. Her face changed to one of sorrow and anger. However, she did not want to dwell on them. Instead, she half-listened to the rest of the message as she got up, removed her robe and began looking for her casual attire through her closet.

Before she turned off the message system, she listened in on Emaneld’s hologram, “the contact will be there today for the next few hours, I called a little earlier than the agreed upon time just in case..” Okha smiled and interrupted, “.. in case I hadn’t gotten my robe on yet,” she shook her head as she wondered if Emaneld had any interest in her personally, or if all he wanted was trust. Her thoughts dwelled on the fact that he had never asked for a cut. All he ever wanted was a good meal at Maz’s and spend time together.

What’s his endgame? She wondered.

In the background, the message continued,

“Best of luck! And may the force be with you.”

With that, the message ended.

In the silence that remained, Okha began to look at her array of weapons. She knew she could conceal a few under her garbs. Others, in plain sight.

“I may go unarmed but definitely not alone,” she said to herself just as she yelled, “Tac!”

Within a few moments, there was a knock at her door. She opens, and her customized Super-battledroid, Tac stood there, silent, towering past the top of door opening. Okha gave a pensive look at the towering metal beast, standing there without a sound.

“Well, if you thought you were having a boring day, Tac, it’s about to get worst.”

Expressionless, Tac stood and waited for an order. Okha looked around the room. “Right, you need to spend more time with Tow.” Just as she said that, the diminutive mouse droid ran past Tac in the hallway whistling and squeaking in an almost taunting fashion. “Only as much time as you need,” Okha concluded as she walked past Tac, over to the main entrance. As she walked by the R5, Tic, she stopped. Realizing she never addressed his injuries, she slowly approached, crouched to sensor-level, “How are those repairs?”

Tic did a few spirited beeps and chirps. Okha smiled, “great. I am sorry I do not have time to help you with the internals and finish up the exterior. Can you run a self-diagnostics and report to me when complete?” Tic chirped and whistled with enthusiasm, Okha smiled, turned to find Tac, again, standing in silence and waiting.

“I think I know what your self-diagnostics would say.”

Tic chirped in a fashion that resembles laughter. In his huge, towering demeanor,Tac pretended to ignore the droid and followed Okha to the main door. Okha signaled toward the landing pad, “Ready the ship Tac, but before we go, we need to get you something”, Okha made a fist and leaned it against her chin, “That place does not allow droids…” If Tac had a face, it would look confused. However, it was still emotionless. Waiting.

“Ah ha!” Okha raised her finger and ran back to her room. “Oh, don’t wait for me - start the ship!” If Tac had a face, it would still be one of confusion. Regardless, Tac worked his way to the ship. Before the door closed, a slight shrug and head shake was visible as he continued up the ship’s loading ramp.