With a flash of sparks, the cockpit of The One-Eyed Womprat started to light up, alarms rang, some of the few remaining metal panels came crashing to the floor as alerts flashed across the screens. To the untrained eye, it would have looked as if the ship was about to come crashing down to the nearest planet, causing a crater large enough to level a small village.
"What is it this time?" Vex sighed, frustrated as she took her feet off the dashboard and sat up in the pilot's seat. "No hostiles nearby... engines are normal... cooling is... well it's there..." she hummed to herself as she mentally crossed off each of the many issues this ship could have come into. "Are you kidding me?" she let out an exasperated sigh, pressing the accept button on her holo-call.
Within a few seconds all lights returned to normal, alarms were off, and a hologram of a rather fed-up Hutt appeared in the common area of the ship. Not having time to discipline her ship, Vex skipped over to the call. "Jabba!" she called out, feigning excitement, "Hope you've got a job for me, the ship could do with a lil' sprucing up." She chuckled, scratching the back of her right lekku.
Vex was a Twi'lek, born and raised on the lower decks of Coruscaunt during the Clone Wars. Of course, it wasn't her parents who raised her, after thirty plus years she still didn't even know their names. No, it was the streets themselves that raised her, if you can call throwing every danger imaginable at her raising. When opportunity struck, she found herself alone in a ship hangar one day with an unsupervised YT-2400 Freighter. Fast forward many years and now she finds herself a rather prolific smuggler aboard The One-Eyed Womprat, a ship that she so desperately hopes blows up so she can buy a new one without the guilt of knowing she still had this one at home.
The Hutt spoke deeply in his own tongue, Vex didn't understand this so was most appreciative when his Twi'lek assistant poked his head onto the hologram. "His excellency wishes you to know that you must answer all his calls in a much more urgent fashion next time. He also requests a task of you," The Twi'lek spoke quickly as if the Hutt despised listening to him, "On Nar Shaddaa, a crate has been left near one of the markets. It is quite unassuming but holds a great treasure that his magnificence requires. We ask that you bring this to us, post haste." And with a shout from the Hutt the call was closed.
The captain heard a ping on her ship monitor, likely the co-ordinates having been sent her way. "Nar Shaddaa it is." Vex sighed, strolling back to the cockpit and locking in the destination. With the ship on course, she leant her head back and shut her eyes.
A few hours later she was swiftly awoken by the blaring alarms and flashing lights of the cockpit once more. "Why do you do this?" she cried out, having fallen from the pilot's chair this time. She looked out the window and saw the lights of Nar Shadda getting closer. "We're at our destination... is that what you wanted to tell me?" she asked, exasperated as she poked a button to turn off the GPS and was welcomed back to silence. "I swear when I learn how ships work or I find someone who does, I am so going to strip you down to the bare minimum. Just a button that says go, no alarms, nothing!" After venting her anger, she poked her tongue out at the cockpit and walked back to her quarters to get ready.
When flying solo, Vex tended to keep it as casual as she could. Strolling past her mirror she saw her tired face atop her toned green body, dressed in a tee shirt she'd won in a Bantha riding contest on Tatooine and some shorts that barely covered her behind, her lack of socks was something she started to question with how rough the metal flooring of the ship had become from her lack of care. Stripping down to her skin-tight briefs, she grabbed her tan, slim cargo pants, white vest, dark brown leather jacket, waist holster and her boots. She looked like a typical smuggler, and in a business where you needed clients to find you, it certainly helped.
Returning to the cockpit she prepared to dock, "This is the YT-2400 requesting permission to dock." She spoke through the communicator in her best professional tone as a grumpy male voice responded.
"Any unaccounted-for cargo?"
"Nope, just lil' ol' me,"
A few moments passed before the communicator lit up once more, "Alright... docking bay 14." And with that she brought the ship down to ground, the landing gear dropped into place just late enough that she was bounced in her seat and a large thud was heard in the other hangars.
"I will find an engineer, just you wait." She threatened the ship, somewhat jokingly, as she headed for the ramp. Vex strolled out of the hangar, making sure it was locked so she didn't lose it the same way she found it.
She entered onto the streets of Nar Shaddaa, it was filled with the kind of crowd that had been banned from Coruscaunt and the other city planets. Even on this high level, the criminals seemed to roam free and acted as if the planet was theirs. Considering it was under Hutt ruling, they weren't wrong in that assumption.