Few things were more beautiful than a Coruscant sunset. The expansive cityscape dominated the dusk skies with hundreds of dazzling skyscrapers, multicolored traffic towers, and the steady array of tractor-beam lights above the capital planet's starport.

Kaine Paulsen was a simple man with simple tastes. Despite the grandeur of the Imperial city, he preferred the uncluttered horizon of his homeworld Socorro. But then, he would have preferred any sunset on any planet, so long as the woman resting her head on his shoulder was with him, holding his hand.

"There's nothing quite like it, is there?" Tayri Cordova whispered nostalgically.

"Nope." He took a bite of their remaining Rishi honeystick and offered the rest of the sugary treat to her. "Unless I'm staring into your eyes." He grinned at her as she chewed the last morsel.

"Kaine Paulsen, are all Socorrans such hopeless romantics? Or just silver-tongued rogues?"

He kissed her forehead. "A little bit of both, darling." Kaine glanced down at the R2 unit sitting beside them. The agitated droid lurched from side to side on its leg stabilizers. Chirping and beeping, its insistence aggravated a sprung compressor coil. A staccato pit-pit-pit noise rattled from its heat exhaust.

"Calm down, Pit-Pit. We're way ahead of schedule. Ancher won't be mad at you." He listened intently to the fretful droid and shook his head. "No, he won't wipe your memory. He'll have to shoot me first."

"You're the best slicer in the Outer Rim," Tayri added. "He wouldn't dare."

When the droid persisted, Kaine stood up, offering his arm to Tayri. "Alright, alright, we're going."

A strange man staggered between them, knocking Kaine into the droid and Tayri back onto the bench behind them.

"Watch where you're going!" The Socorran popped the restraint over his heavy blaster and rested his palm on the heel.

"Kaine," Tayri said. She put her hand over his to keep him from drawing. "He's drunk."

Dressed in a gray medical smock, the inebriated man turned to them. His wire-framed glasses were askew across his sweaty face. He held out a datarod to them while clutching a small glowing object against his chest.

Kaine snatched the blaster from its holster. "Drop it or I drop you!"

With a groan, the stranger collapsed. Kaine grabbed him before he could hit the ground and injure himself.

"Lousy Imp can't hold his booze." He looked up at Tayri, alarmed by the solemn expression shadowing her face. "What's wrong?"

"He's not drunk. He's dead," she whispered. "I felt his passing and his terror." Taking the datarod from his hand, she pressed the playback.

"My name is Dr. Mirvin Oscato," said a meek, frightened voice from the recording device. "I am no traitor to the Empire, but I'm not a genocidal murderer either." The recording was interrupted by blaster fire and a desperate gasp before breaking off into static.

"This is what killed him." Tayri knelt down and pulled the bounty hunter dart from the man's back. "Must have punctured a lung."

"A dead Imp? In the middle of Coruscant?" Kaine said, anxiously looking around. "Time to go." He took her hand, but she resisted.

Rolling the dead man on his back, she retrieved the glowing object from his hand. With a smile, she cupped the orb in her palm and stared into the pulsing light.

"What is it?"

"I'm not sure, but it's alive." Tayri handed it to him.

"A portable stasis field? But it's failing," Kaine said. "That's why it's glowing like that. Whatever's inside is destabilizing the containment field."

"Nothing for you to worry about, boy," said a gravelly voice.

Kaine looked up to find a Twi'lek holding Tayri hostage with a vibroblade at her throat. He raised his hands in surrender.

"Put the orb on the ground and step away, or the lovely lady joins the Imp." The scarred, gray-skinned tracer glanced at Tayri and licked her neck. "Would be a shame to kill her. She's tasty."

"Pit-Pit, get back to the ship." Kaine grinned at the bounty hunter and then at Tayri. "You got this?"

Her fingers stretched downward toward a slit in her rijani fighting skirts. "I got this."

Kaine took off at a sprint in the direction of the starport. Behind him he heard the hiss of a lightsaber igniting and the desperate shrieks that followed, as flesh and bone proved no match for the fury of a Jedi's blade.

Out of breath, the Socorran slid onto the observation bay. Pit-Pit sped from the corridor behind him as an alarm went off in the lower starport. Holding onto a fuel dispenser, Kaine swung himself onto the docking berth leading to his YT-1300, the Miss Chance.

Tayri was waiting for him, leaning suggestively against the bulkhead at the top of the ramp. "What took you so long, flyboy? I was getting worried."

"I love you," he said in Socorran, kissing her on the lips,

"I know." She secured the ramp for departure.

"Pit-Pit send an encoded message to Ancher." Kaine hurried to the cockpit for an emergency dust off. "I think we're going to be a little late."

###

"Slather me in bantha grease and roast me on a Tusken's gaffi stick!" Karl Ancher bellowed. The grainy holo-transmission blazed fiercely, as if attuned to his ire. "I send you two on a little delivery mission, and you have half the bounty hunter's guild and the Empire looking for you."

"Translation? Well done, baby girl." Wearing one of Kaine's flight jackets, Tayri shrugged. Too big for her, it hung from one sculpted shoulder. "I'm so proud of you for following in the family tradition. Can you autograph your bounty hunter puck for me?"

"Are you done yet?" Ancher's eyes narrowed, his thick eyebrows knitted together. "Maybe we can use this to our advantage. What the hell is it?"

"Some kind of egg." Kaine scratched at the thick tangle of his dreadlocks. "And it's going to hatch in the next 36 hours."

"Then you better find its mama or you might be the proud parents of a genetically-altered fambaa. Or worse!" Ancher growled. "A Nightsister rancor."

"Pit-Pit says it's a Kadri'Ra," Tayri said.

Her father's jaw went slack, eyes vacant, as if she'd pronounced a death sentence on them.

"Are you sure?" Kaine swiveled in his chair to look at the R2 unit, who affirmed its findings with a chirp. "Petchuk!" he swore. "Only one place we can go. Saadoon-Kauldi."

"The crime lord?" Tayri gasped. "The one who nearly killed Uncle Toob for being a member of the Black Bha'lir?"

"Plenty of bad blood between Saadoon's syndicate and the Bha'lir." Kaine stared at his mentor. "But he's Kadri'Ra."

Ancher nodded solemnly. "Navigate this cluster and you seal your place at the Tribunal table, Kaine. If not," the old man hesitated, "won't be enough of you left to stuff into a blasting cap."

Kaine adjusted his chair, pushing himself back to the helm. "I'm bringing Tayri home before I go."

"If you go, I go," she said, yanking his hand away from the controls. "That's what we promised each other, remember? Socorran pirates keep their word."

Kaine swallowed. He turned to the holo of the man who was his mentor, his colleague, Tayri's father.

"Clear skies... to both of you," Ancher said, and ended the transmission.

###

The Merkel was a bulk frigate that orbited Socorro's only planetary neighbor, Neftali. The forward sections of the cargo ship had been converted to living quarters for the flight crew and security personnel, leaving the vast 70,000 metric ton labyrinth of the cargo compartment to the elusive crime lord, Saadoon-Kauldi.

Measuring time in centuries, the Kadri'Ra were a rare, worm-like species, not unlike the Duinuogwuin. However, unlike the mythic Star Dragons, they continued to grow throughout their lifetimes, spending their lives on the move, in search of their next homes, which included cargo haulers, abandoned mine shafts, or small asteroids.

The interior corridors of the freighter were slicked with a thick gelatinous material, organic in nature, excreted as a milky-white fluid that oozed from reticulated pores. Suspended in the low-gravity and humidity, the semi-solid liquid formed a network of webbing in the narrow passages leading to the main hold.

Kaine used his hand to push through the webbing, sparing Tayri, as they followed a beacon droid deeper into the ship's interior. She cradled the orb to her chest. The glow cast radiant, golden tones against her dark skin. Every few minutes, a metallic noise rattled against the exterior glass. The stasis field was almost gone.

The droid proceeded into the corridor, leading into the inner sanctum of Socorro's most notorious crime boss. Dressed in black robes, a Devoranian with a crown of gnarled horns stood on a raised dais. His skin was as black as the Merkel's reinforced hull. "The inestimable Saaddoon-Kauldi welcomes you." He bowed. "I am Guzald."

With the wet, slippery noise of skin flayed from flesh, the Kadri'Ra slithered from a narrow recess. Its bony headcrest was the size of a TIE Fighter's solar wing. Flattened to fit through the groove, the crime lord straightened its immense body, at least that portion Kaine could see.

Four arachnoid legs beat the deck, leaving deep gouges in the metal as a shrill, high-pitched clicking filled the bay. Six black eyes glared at Kaine, and he stepped in front of Tayri. The entire freighter quaked, but it was not failing inertia dampeners to blame. It was the Kadri'Ra, flailing in a state of agitation.

"The Black Bha'lir are our enemy!" Guzald declared, interpreting the Kadri'Ra's rage. "Name your price for the Tyrk'Na!"

Tyrk'Na? Legacy? Kaine held a hand up in a plea for patience. "You've got it all wrong, Saadoon. The Bha'lir had nothing to do with this."

The quaking grew more violent as the freighter's stabilizers fought to contain the Kadri'Ra's frantic convulsions. "Name your price for the queen!" Guzald demanded.

"I didn't come here to collect a ransom!" Kaine took the stasis orb from Tayri's hand. In the language of the Kadri'Ra, he said, "I came because it was the right thing to do."

The tremors abruptly ceased. "You... speak... my... language?" The words came slowly, in exaggerated Basic, as from a voice long silenced.

"A little," Kaine replied. "I'm not here as a Bha'lir, but as a Socorran, who honors the right of aa'kua. Mutual respect."

"Come... closer," Saadoon said.

Reluctantly, Kaine stepped within range of the giant headcrest. The glass along the top of the orb fractured in his hand. "You might want to take this."

A small pink slug no longer than his little finger peered through the gap. Two bulbous antennae stretched out, straining to the extent of their length for contact.

Kaine raised the orb to face level. The newborn's antennae massaged the stubble on his chin. "Hey, that tickles!" He reached into the orb and picked out the jagged shards of glass.

"Is he imprinting on you?" Tayri stiffened as a much larger pair of antennae slithered from Saadoon's headcrest and gently touched the young Queen's.

Guzald removed a decorative hoop from Saadoon's flattened skull. Diminutive on the Kadri'Ra's carapace, the bangle hung loosely on Kaine's wrist. "It will be best for the child to be among one of its own kind." He took the Queen from Kaine's hand. "But as the first parent, you have rights."

"First parent?" Kaine whispered.

The Devaronian grinned, showing two uneven rows of sharpened teeth. "Though you are a Bha'lir, you are now blood-mate to Saadoon-Kauldi." He waited until the Kadri'Ra had retreated back into the narrow crevasse before bowing reverently to Kaine. "The Merkel is now your home. You are free to come and go as you please." He retreated into the dark tunnel, taking the newborn with him.

"Did you just get married?" Tayri teased. "Because if you did, I am so incredibly jealous."

Kaine exhaled, realizing that he'd been holding his breath. He stared at the gold bangle on his wrist and then met her eyes, reassured by the mischievous glint in them. "Then let's make us official." He kissed her tenderly.

She wrapped her arms around his neck. "What took you so long to ask, flyboy?"