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Ton swung around in the pilot’s seat to face Darillian. “Huh?”

Darillian was entering the cockpit of the REALNiCE ship. He took a seat beside Phanan in the co-pilot’s chair. “This ship needs a name. I say we call it The Mish.”

“Why would we call it that?”

“Why wouldn’t we?”

“It’s my ship and I don’t want to call it that. Let’s name it The Phanan. Or better yet, The Kat.”

“No.”

“The Feline?”

“No.”

“The Kat’s Meow?”

“What about The Skir-Mish?” Darillian asked after a flash of insight. Mish’s name was much more difficult to pun than Kat’s.

“How about we don’t name it?” Phanan suggested.

“Fine.” Darillian was silent for a moment. “So where are we going, anyway?” he asked after the boredom of silence got to him.

“I thought we’d go to Chandrila. It’s Kether’s homeplanet, you know,” Ton explained. “So we’ll go there, ask around, you know the drill.”

“Why Chandrila?” Darillian wanted to know.

Ton shrugged. “Got any better ideas?”

Darillian shrugged too. “Not really.”

Meanwhile, on the Millennium-Falcon-esque ship. . .

“Hoth?” Claire demanded. “We’re going to Hoth?” She looked down at her red dress. “I’m going to need some new clothes.”

“Good thing I got Corran’s tailor’s number,” Kat said, waving around the business card Corran had given her.

Mish snatched it away from Kat. “What’s this on the back?” she asked. “Why’d Corran give you his home number?”

“Probably so we could contact him if something comes up about Ran,” Kat said logically, not knowing it was because Corran (like most males in the TPC) had a thing for her and Mish.

"Oh, right," said Mish, "Yeah, that makes sense. Plus we get to go to his tailors." She could only imagine the froodiness of owning a completely green/brown/black wardrobe . . . oh, wait, she practically did have a completely green/brown/black wardrobe already.

“So where is this tailor guy anyway?” Claire asked.

“It’s a girl,” Kat corrected her. “Jari'Kyn.”

“Why does that sound familiar?” Mish mused.

"I have no idea," Claire answered.

Kat sighed. “Don’t you people keep up with the news? She was the designer who created Mara Jade’s wedding dress.”

Mish gasped slightly. "Mara Jade is married?! To whom?"

“We’re not going to go there,” Kat said quickly.

"Must have been someone pretty bad then," Mish muttered.

“Suffice it to say, it’s not a pilot. Well, not a pilot who counts,” Kat told her.

"Oh," Mish finished. "So where's this tailors? I nicked Darillian's credit card..."

“It’s… umm…” Kat shrugged. “I don’t know my way around here yet. Here, Claire, you find it for us.”

Claire took the card and led them out of the M.F.esque ship and to the tailor's, a fifteen minute walk, what with Mish stopping because she thought she saw a Stargate and then Kat and Mish getting excited, and then disappointment when the 'Stargate' was actually a doughnut advertisement...

This made Kat especially mad, for the ad was for a place where she used to work before she was a nurse and secret agent.

But ANYWAY, finally they made it to the tailors. . .

Only to find that it was closed for a long weekend. This made them really mad, as it was Wednesday.

"So NOW what are we going to do?" Mish asked. "And I was really looking forward to having a nice new green outfit too."

“We could just go to Hoth,” Kat suggested.

“Can I ask why we’re going to Hoth?” Claire asked. “Ran’s evil, but he’s not stupid! Or, at least, he wasn’t the last time I saw him.”

"He was the last time I saw hi--Oof!" Mish got elbowed by Kat.

"Because Corran said he had a lead. And Hoth it is." Kat wasn't going to mention Darillian's supposed part in all this.

“Why couldn’t Corran tell you about Hoth with me there?” Mish raised an eyebrow. “Kat, you didn’t do anything that Ton wouldn’t like, did you?”

"Of course not," Kat said, a little too quickly.

"Kat?" Mish asked, suspicion growing. "My bestest best friend in the whole Star Wars galaxy isn't lying to me, is she?"

“Of course not,” Kat said, slower this time. “I think he’s just kind of scared of you. Lots of people are, you know.”

"Scared? Of . . .  me?" Mish looked very, very, very surprised. "Why would anyone be scared of me?!"

“Well, because I’m the good cop and you’re the bad cop. I’m so nice to people and in comparison you seem mean,” Kat explained. She shrugged. “I’d offer to be the bad cop next time, but let’s face it. You find a good thing, you stick with it.”

"Haven't we done this conversation already? And that makes me Cal and you Simon." Mish grinned. "And in that case I happen to be your boss..." Her smile grew eviler.

Kat glared. “And what, Claire is Kat?” She indicated the other woman, who seemed to have been forgotten about.

"Okay, parallels getting a bit too weird now. Shall we just go back to the ship and find some clothes for Claire to wear on Hoth?"

"Sounds like a plan," Kat agreed.

Ton stepped off of the Unnamed Ship, went down the hatch, then turned and gave an FBT to Darillian, who was still on the ship. “Welcome to Chandrila,” he said in a grandiose voice that was almost completely affected.

“Gee, thanks,” Darillian said with sarcasm that Ton either didn’t pick up on or chose to ignore. “So, where do we go from here?”

Ton shrugged. “The old Kether farmhouse?”

“There’s an old Kether farmhouse?”

“There could be.”

Darillian shook his head and went down the hatch. It was just like Phanan to be so… well, like Phanan. Him and his ‘Superior Intellect’…

If Darillian hadn’t been right there, Ton would have shaken his head with exasperation. The other man was such a realist sometimes. Why hadn’t he learned that the Authors would always fix it so nothing bad happened to them? That was the purpose of Authors, after all.

They walked out of the Docking Bay only to find a familiar-looking Dathomirian witch and an oily-looking man with black hair that Ton figured must be Lievel, judging by conversations he had “happened to overhear” back when they’d gone to Dathomir.

“Nanaph and Kriag, is it not?” the witch asked with an arched brow.

“Umm… no,” Phanan replied.

“Aren’t you the Necromancer of Rudrig?” the oily man asked.

“Umm… no,” Phanan repeated.

“What are you doing here?” Darillian asked, ignoring Ton.

“Looking for Aliah and Taryn.. I need their help to find someone,” Becca told them. (Authors’ Note: For those who are lost at this point, you might want to go back and read the Dathomir bit in chapters 8 and 9 of the first TPC.)

“Who are you–“ Darillian was cut off by Phanan’s elbow in his stomach.

“They’re not travelling with us right now,” Phanan said smoothly, trying to disguise the fact that he’d blatantly elbowed Darillian only seconds before.

“Who are Aliah and Taryn?” Darillian hissed in Phanan’s ear.

“I’ll explain later,” Ton hissed back. He turned back to Becca, who wore an amused grin. “Perhaps we can help you. Who are you looking for?”

“Ran Kether.”
 

Claire followed Kat and Mish out of the M.F.-esque ship onto a plain of ice on Hoth. She shivered despite the fact that she had nicked a navy-blue down coat from the ship’s clothes locker. Mish, wearing a ski suit of dark green, didn’t look much happier, but Kat didn’t seem too cold in her red parka (with matching fleece gloves).

There was nothing but snow-covered glacier in most directions, but immediately to the right of the ship was the old Echo Base, where the Rebel forces lived while on Hoth.

“Could someone remind me why we’re here again?” Claire asked, teeth chattering.

“Because Corran told us to come here,” Kat said patiently, explaining for the seventeenth time.

Claire’s eyes narrowed at the mention of the diminutive Jedi. “If Corran told you to jump off a bridge, would you?” she muttered.

Kat sighed. “Can we just check the base out and then go? Mish’s lips are already blue.”

“You’d think they could be green at least, but no…” Mish mumbled.

They made it to the base in very good time, considering that they were trudging through a couple feet of snow.

“The Rebellion stayed here HOW long?” Claire asked when they’d gotten inside the base, which was a couple of degrees warmer than it had been outside – in other words, freaking cold.

“Should we split up to look, or stay together?” Kat asked, ignoring Claire’s question.

“If we split up, how will you know when I die of hypothermia?” Mish asked. She had almost stopped shivering.

“Fine, we’ll stay together,” Kat replied with a sigh.

They had searched for about 10 minutes, and Claire’s and Mish’s complaints had become louder and even more frequent, when Kat yelled, “Got it!”

“What?” Mish asked crankily.

“We’re going back to Storinal,” Kat said triumphantly.

She handed a slip of flimsy to Mish, who read it and growled.

“What, what is it?” Claire asked. She snatched the flimsy out of Mish’s hand. On it was the name “Vitrum Cimex” and a comm frequency.