Lilith flipped her bleached blond hair over her shoulder with a casual gesture and raised a dark eyebrow at the Alderaanian customs agent trying to force his way onto her ship. The poor, flustered man was head and shoulders shorter than the Corellian and he had to crane his neck back and squint through his archaic glasses to look her in the eye.

�I assure you, ma�am, that if your papers were as impeccable as you claim, I would not be here to make this inspection,� he told her in scathing tones that didn�t affect the freighter captain in the least. �Now, please stand aside and let me get on with my business so that you can get on with yours.�

His tone and expression told anyone within a 20 meter radius that he felt her business was to stand before a judge and then be locked behind bars, until she died or the Whills themselves came to proclaim her innocence.

Instead of looking properly cowed by Mr. Deputy Inspector Revlaan and his obvious righteousness, Captain Demodae yawned hugely and glanced over her shoulder at the front half of a droid that was protruding from the bulkhead directly opposite the entry ramp. Messy welds held the unfortunate looking mechanical firmly in place. Far from being a badly treated slave, however, M1-CK was the heart and soul of the light freighter Scorpion. He was hardwired directly into the central computer and could monitor anything happening in or around the ship.

�Mick, you got those manifests he wants yet?�

�Yes, Captain.� The metallic sounding reply issued from a speaker set in the bulkhead just over the droid�s domed head. �If the Inspector would care to insert his datapad�s access terminal into the proper port, I shall download to him immediately.�

Lilith extended her hand to Revlaan in a bored gesture, but he batted it out of the way. �I would rather do it myself, Captain, if you don�t mind?� With an impatient grimace, the Corellian let him brush past her to get the download from her computers. It was all a sham of course. As soon as Mick got his electronic hands on that datapad he would wrangle from it everything they needed to make this silly pest go away and leave them to go about their business, both honest and otherwise.

Sure enough, before the �download� was even half way done, the little man�s comlink chirped. With obsequious haste, he snatched it off his belt and answered it.

�Yes?�

Lilith was hard pressed not to snigger maliciously as she listened to half of the comlink conversation. She already knew what the other half was, having scripted it out herself.

�But, sir, I really do think that-�

�Uh, well, I�m right in the middle of-�

�Sir, it just wouldn�t-�

�Yes, sir. Right away sir.� With a resigned sigh, Revlaan�s shoulders slumped and he waved the port guards away. �There�s something else that had come up, Captain,� he half explained to Lilith as he trudged down the ramp. �We�ll be back later to perform the inspection.�

�But I have schedules to keep,� Lilith snarled in mock frustration. �I can�t unload this stuff without a Customs signature, now that you�ve started the process. I can�t afford to keep my buyers waiting.�

�I am quite aware of that, Captain,� the short agent soothed in self-important tones. �I shall hurry back as soon as I may, but this appears to be an emergency and might take a while.� With that said, Revlaan strutted away and Lilith sneered in a satisfied manner at his back.

Her protests that she was in a hurry would insure that it was hours before he came back, even though he was going to get another call, canceling the �emergency�, long before he got where he was going. With a satisfied nod, the amazonian woman strode up the ramp and back toward the airlock.

�Good job, Mick. Remind me next time I meet with Crash to thank her for the wonderful job she did on your honesty sub-routines.�

�It is my pleasure to make worms like that squirm and embarrass themselves, Captain.� A holographic image of a tall, dark-haired man shimmered into being in the airlock doorway as Lilith rummaged through an old box of broken parts and spent energy packs. �Will you be meeting with the buyer now?� he asked politely as she lifted a small package from the bottom of the box. It disappeared into a vest pocket and Lilith stepped through the translucent image of her acting first mate and headed back toward the ramp.

�Yup. Close the ramp when I�ve left and if that clod-hopper gets back before I do, stall him. Pretend to have a glitch or something, but don�t let him on board before I get here. An idiot like that is bound to break something accidentally,� she added in a low mutter.

�Alderaanians,� she shook her head. �The only good things to come from this planet are-�

�The oranges, the silk, and the rum,� M1-CK finished for her as she descended the ramp. �Have fun, Captain. And for sithsake, don�t hit anyone,� he called after her. �It gets awfully boring bailing you out every week or so.�