We had been in orbit around Tatooine for less than thirty minutes before somebody on the surface sent us a message.
"Atreus. Coordinates: 320,125. 125,45. Come alone and unarmed." Qui-Gon Jinn said with a small frown as he crossed his arms, reading the message on the screen "No hello?"
I simply shook my head and entered the coordinates into the computer "That is a spot in the middle of the deep dunes. Good meeting spot, if you don't want anyone to see it. Is the package ready?"
Dooku nodded, completely ignoring the two security drones that had been following him around at all times "Yes. Three million credits in Aurodium bars, with a special surprise."
"Are you sure the tracer is undetectable?" I asked, tilting my head as I looked down at the Jedi Knight.
He nodded after a moment "Yes. As sure as I can be...It is of a model that has been used in the past and neither of your engineers was able to detect it either. It is time delayed by several days, and transmits on a very narrow frequency. It should not be possible to detect it. If possible, it will even use an already existing frequency that is in use at the time."
I slowly nodded. I really had no choice but to trust that he knew what he was doing. And I did trust my engineers. If they were unable to locate it, I don't think some smuggler scum will be able to either.
"Very well." I finally said "I'm heading down there then." as I moved to leave the bridge. My second in command moved to follow me.
"This is a bad idea from start to beginning." Swan said as soon as the door closed behind us.
"We have three choices, commander. We pay them, we don't pay them, or we take them down. Which would you prefer, commander?" I asked, as I stopped to look at her through my armor.
The human scowled "They're all bad."
"Which is why I pick the one that make us permanently rid of them." I told her "It have the greatest short term risk, but if we do it right we do not end up with a crimelord after our feathers."
"And if it goes wrong?" She asked as she crossed her arms.
I shook my head and continued down the corridor "Then we are no worse off than if we didn't pay."
XXXXXXXXXXXX
The box of the precious metal was held tightly in my front claws, as I felt the first wisps of atmosphere lick across the surface of my armor. I didn't bother to activate the shield, controlling my decent on aerodynamics instead of counter grav.
Closing my eyes I simply enjoyed the feeling of flying, controlling the flight on feeling alone. Plasma shock made the air outside my armor glow and I shifted my wings into half folded position to keep control without trying to slow down too fast.
As the plasma shock faded away I opened my eyes again, spreading my wings wider as I started to scan the surface far beneath me. There was a small freighter at the coordinates. We were on the day side so thermal scans was useless so I was unable to detect any individual lifeforms. But I was also unable to detect any traps.
Banking around I started to lose altitude; time to see exactly what is going to try to bite my tail this time. I passed across the landed freighter once more, this time much lower. The top turret was active, but not tracking me.
As I banked once more and went in for landing I curved my wings, flapping once as I touched the sand, activating the thrusters only at the last moment to slow me down.
I dropped the box of metals on the sand and simply waited as I folded my wings. I didn't need to wait long before three humans left the freighter. They were all wearing hardsuits, none of them wearing helmets. The middle one had a blaster in a holster on his side but the two that flanked him was carrying heavy blaster carbines. They all looked rough, the middle one being the least scruffy looking.
"You Atreus?" their leader asked as they stopped ten meters away, the two guards keeping their weapons at the ready but not quite pointed at me.
"I am. And who are you?" I asked as I tilted my head, keeping my shield at the ready. I tried to feel the force for any sign of danger, but this was not something I had ever managed to do.
"Don't matter. We are Glass Hand. Where is our money?" he said as he crossed his arms.
I picked up the box with my right front foot by the handle, flicking it over to them "Three million in Aurodium bars."
The human motioned for one of his guards who put his weapon away and pulled out a scanner, running it across the box. I simply waited. If something went wrong...well, even unarmed, I was in my armor and I had The Force. And four drones attached to the back of my armor. Those would help as well.
There was a couple of moments before the guard gave his boss a nod before he opened the box "Looks like this is all of it, Boss."
"Well, Well...Look like you followed through." The leader of the small group said with a grin "I guess we're done here."
"We are." I said, simply watching them pick up the box, starting to back away towards their ship.
As they lifted off, I activated my shield in case they decided to fire on their way out. They didn't, they simply accelerated towards orbit.
I slowly nodded before I shrugged my wing before spreading them, reactivating the thrusters and taking into the air once more. There was one more reason for this that I didn't tell Swan. If the transmitter was not effective and was not detected...
Well, I just had the Jedi pay of my debt. It was their Aurodium we used.
Now it was just the waiting left. The wait to see which of the three options that will play out.