“I’ve reached the location. You got that surveillance ready, Kellaro?”
“Yep,” Kellaro’s voice was fuzzy when heard over the commlink, but not impossible to understand. “I got a couple drones in the air, and there’s the one that’s piggy-backed off your bodycam, too. You got the bug?”
Brant turned the quartz shell, with its hidden speaker inside, over in his hands. “Why do they call them bugs, anyway?”
“No clue! Because I guess bugs get everywhere. Like a fly on the wall! You ever heard that saying?”
“Never.”
“Huh. You must have never been to Klatooine. Anyway, are you ready?”
Brant slid the “bug” up into his gauntlet. “Ready.”
“Signal is good, cameras are recording… and go!”
Brant started the walk towards the building. On the outside it looked like any other Lorrdian residence — low to the ground and rounded, like a stone igloo — but inside, Kellaro had had a hunch that the real Lorrdian lightsaber crystals were being stockpiled. Rather than storm the place, as Brant would have done, Kellaro suggested they instead rig the place with hidden cameras and other recording devices, to better to root out the rest of the smuggling ring.
So now Brant strode towards it, not in his Lord Commander armor, but in the cast-off equipment of a mercenary. Kellaro was set up in an apartment complex down the way, seeing what Brant saw through his bodycam, and communicating through the ridiculous-looking hoop earring clipped onto the Sith’s ear.
“Okay, one more time, Kellaro. I’m just going to walk in there and offer my services…”
“Yeah. But put some swagger into it. And shoot one of the crystal boxes.”
“Shoot one of the…??”
“Trust me.”
Brant blew a breath as he entered the little house. There was no front office here, only a tiny mudroom with a doorless opening that led further in. A couple of smugglers came out of it, one hefting a box on his shoulders. The other stopped and pulled a blaster on Brant.
“Who the kriff’re you?”
“Ren Lok,” said Brant, leaning into his old Mandalorian accent. “Heard you guys had a pretty good setup down here, and I wanna help. Can’t let the Empire keep getting away with slavery when we chased the slaver kriffers off this planet a century ago, now can we?” Then in his commlink, he muttered, “Like that, ‘Ro?”
“Yeah, yeah. Now shoot the box when I tell you to.”
“And what makes you think–” started the smuggler, as his buddy carrying the box edged out to the side…
“Now!” said Kellaro.
Brant shot the box. It broke open and the lightsaber crystals tumbled all over the floor and under their feet.
“Because that–” prompted Kellaro while Brant and the smugglers stared at each other.
“Because that…” repeated Brant.
“–is why–”
“…is why!” Brant ended, then launched into an improvisation. “What kind of locks you got on these things? Just one bounce like that on the truck, and the whole gig is up. I can show ya how to rig those up proper, so tight even an IAB inspector will think you’re just transporting coal, not valuables like these.”
“Okay, not what I would have said, but it works,” said Kellaro in his ear.
“Huh,” said the smuggler, eyeing Brant with new respect. “Perhaps I’ll put a word in with the boss, then. How long would it take ya to outfit 300 hogshead of them things?”
“For the crystals?” muttered Kellaro. “Tell him… two weeks. No, wait, one. I can get it done in one.”
“…one week,” said Brant. “But think of how much trouble you’ll save with the extra time spent on it, eh?”
“Fine,” grunted the smuggler. “You can start by picking all this up. And if you nick even one, I’ll know, and I’ll blast your brains out on that wall behind you.”
“Oops,” said Brant, and he slid the bug out of his gauntlet. He tossed it casually onto the floor, with the lightsaber crystals that looked just like it, and grinned until the smuggler slowly lowered his blaster and started guffawing at his audacity.
“See?” said Kellaro. “A little tomfoolery goes a long way in the underworld.”
“Yeah, fine, you were right,” Brant muttered. “What’s next?”
“What’s next,” said the smuggler, and Brant jumped until he realized the smuggler hadn’t heard them, “is you go back and get a box from the back. You rig it here and now like you said you would with the rest, and if I like it, I won’t blow out your brains or your crotch for that little trick.”
“Yep. No problem,” said Brant, pumping a fist as he pushed past the smuggler for a new box. “All o’ this for Lorrd, eh?”
“For Lorrd!” answered the two smugglers.
“Perfect,” whispered Kellaro. “Now I’ll just walk you through the steps to rig it, and in one week, you’ll have your eyes on the entire smuggling network. Beats me flying off the back of a speeder any day, yeah?”
“Yeah. Maybe. Don’t get cocky until it’s all done, vod.”
“Of course!” Kellaro chortled. “All for the aliit, not for our pride.”
Brant made sure he was well out of the line of sight of the two smugglers, before he lifted a second crystal from his gauntlet and waved it upfront of the camera for Kellaro to see. “This is for you, by the way. Had to take one, or our bug would come up as an extra on their ledgers,” he explained.
“Oh, I… guess that makes sense. But for me…? It’s a lightsaber crystal. I’m not going to go sticking it in my gun again, Brant.”
Brant laughed. “So I misspoke a little. It’s not for you specifically. It’s for you… to give to another… so you can do your part in helping the aliit.”
“But you already have a crystal from the Emperor…” Kellaro was quiet for a long moment, as a realization tickled the corners of his brain. “You mean… the War Cabinet…?”
Brant just smiled as he pulled a box down and headed back up front to clean up the mess he’d made.