The Lesson by a Guest
By Fido

He winced a second time as alarms went off around him. He wasn't very good at breaking into ships, but he was getting better all the time.

He took a small green wire in his  massive hairy hand and connected it to a slicertool that had a blank security card fitted into the top of it. With the wire attached, he punched in some random numbers to replace the assault frigates old entry code. This time it worked and Fido the Wookiee gave an excited "woot!", which coming from a wookiee, sounded more like a fly by from a star destroyer.

Fido couldn't fly a paper airplane, but breaking into ships and nicking a spare blaster or two provided him with a decent enough income. He hit the ships code lock and lowered the ramp.

The foyer into the ship was standard enough. Some beat up backpacks were hung on the wall, but a quick search proved them to be empty. Up above him, Fido located the main power conduit in a tangle of pipes and wire. If he followed this it would lead him to the power station next to the bridge and if the crew was out on shore leave, Fido would hack into the ship's computer, transfer the title into his name, then pay some bum pilot 100 creds to fly to the dock where the Fido could get a decent price for it. If the crew was on the bridge well, he'd deal with that when he came to it.

He took two steps into the next corridor and froze. It isn't usually easy to surprise a wookiee, but Fido wasn't espescially careful or alert, so he wasn't completly surprised to find a young twi'lek and a small but fierce looking noghri looking at him blankly from across the room. With neither grace or bravdo, Fido chortled a big "Ha!" at the pair then quickly turned and bolted from the ship. He ran down the ramp, tripped over his own toolbox and fell flat on his face.

He wasn't surprised either when, not three seconds after hitting the ground, an eighty pound ball of muscles and fur landed on his back and deftly applied an assassin's dagger to the back of his neck. It didn't hurt much, but being taken down by a house cat sort of ruffled his pelt.

"What the Fang do you think you're doing?" the twi'lek asked while leisurely walking down the ramp.

Fido gave an intimidating bark in his best impression of a fierce warrior and smiled inwardly when the kitten flinched a bit. He wasn't really afraid of these two, they couldn't do much to him.

Fido was pretty well relegated to taking shuttles and other transports because of his flying handicap. Usually while waiting for a flight or during a long trip he'd flip through the information networks and absorb all he could. Whenever he wasn't drinking at the bar or losing horribly at a sabacc table, he would browse through public records and also check personnel and duty rosters for both the Imperial and Rebel armies often. He knew who these two jokers were.

The twi'lek pulled a small metal cylinder from his pocket and held it out in front of the wookiee's face. "I asked you a question mutt."

Fido bellowed his reply.

"I'll give your *psssht pssh shh* of a *fhhhzzzt pft shzzzz* an answer."

Fido blinked in disbelief.

"Like that?" asked the twi'lek, tossing the cylinder up in his hand. Fido knew this one as Warren by the sickly green boil on his neck and that crazy glass eye. "These pocket translators come in handy when you come across inferior species."

Fido muttered something in his native language.

"We will see who is inferior when I take this *pffft psshhh* cat of yours and *ffzzt pfft sshh* him up your *ffff shhhh pft*," chirped the little cylinder.

"Pity it doesn't translate Everything," Warren said with a snicker. "Please cooperate, the value of wookiee pelts these days would make killing you both worthless and time consuming."

Fido couldn't afford to ignore that threat.

Warren was an imperial assassin of no small fame, and his friend, the noghri who called himself Oxygen, was nothing to be trifled with either. Fortunately for Fido, these clowns were enlisted and wouldn't risk their careers pasting his flanks on the sidewalk. Still, it was best to avoid trouble.

"I was just checking out your ship," Fido answered honetly through the translator, "I checked the ships' records and saw that it wasn't registered to anybody." This was also the truth. Fido had hacked into the planets docking register and saw that nobody owned the ship. Fido relaxed as that memory came back to him. If the ship wasn't registered with the planet's main computer, that probably meant these two had stolen it from some back water planet with a Mickey Rukh security force. They didn't want any trouble with Soleada's Volunteer Heavily Armed and Dangerous Defense Force. The SVHAaDDF were known galaxy wide for their animal like brutality and midieval cruelty.

Warren hid his surprise well at the mention of the missing records, but Fido read twi'leks well enough to notice the subtleties of a twitching headtail.

Not one to let opportunity pass, Fido pressed the conversation in a more profitable direction.

"I can get you the title of this ship if you let me out of here," offered Fido and then winced as the translator chirped for him. It was just at the edge of his hearing like some unholy whistle.

"How?" mewed Oxygen with a controlled edge to his voice, "No one can hack the title from a public ship."

Fido smiled, baring his teeth just enough to remind his new pals that he was no small foe. Then, with a movement quicker then either assassin could react to, Fido had sprung to his feet with an E-11 magically appearing in his hands. The rifle looked small in his massive paws but he held it with ease. Say what you want about him, but Fido was a wookiee and a mercenary first and foremost. He knew how to use a blaster. He liked to smash things.

"I guess I'll be going now," the menace lost in the relayed chirp. Fido winced again. He took one paw off the muzzle of his E-11, his sights never waivering, and tapped on the slicertool strapped to his other wrist. The little translator shrieked and burst into sparks in Warren's hand making the twi'lek throw it to the permacrete in pain. Fido winked mischeviously and backed away slowly.

When he was far enough away to be satisfied they wouldn't chase him, he lowered his weapon and stalked off towards the nearest exit.

"You want to try and get that title for us?" Warren asked after him.

Fido stopped in his tracks and grinned evilly. Suckers. He tapped at his slicertool again bringing up his own translating program.

"Alright sure." Now the voice translating was deep and strong with a natural tone to it rather than a machine's voice. He strode back over to the frigate, right past the two assassins, and confidently up the ramp into the ship. "Where's the bridge?" shouted the translator behind the wookiee. The two assassins smiled at each other and followed the mercenary up the ramp.

When they arrived on the bridge they found that Fido had already found the proper terminals and had leads running from them into the slicer on his wrist. With a few attempts Fido managed to neutralize port security and pop his way into the proper register. He made all the necessary changes quickly, made a few unnecessary changes quietly, and was disconnected from the network in 42.2 seconds. He snickered at himself, "I must be getting slow."

He pulled a datacard from the terminal and tossed it to the noghri. The assassin caught the card and slipped it into a pocket on his vest with a flashy show of finesse. Fido ignored it.

"Well there you go guys," he told them, "Give me a call if you need anything."

Fido showed himself out and bent to pick up his toolbox at the bottom of the ramp. He was slipping it into his pack when an idea struck him. He walked over to the access panel he'd exposed to bypass the ships security and gave it an expiramental prod.

"What are you doing?"

Fido turned around to see Oxygen standing close behind, his dagger in hand.

"I have to change the code on your access card to match the record I forged. I'll be quick I promise."

Oxygen watched as Fido pulled a blank datacard from his pack and swiped it through his slicer. Fido tossed Oxygen the card and put the terminal leads into his pack. Fido nodded to the noghri and started off towards the exit again, which was a small hole (small for a wookiee) he'd cut in the fence with a vibroblade. Once on the other side and safely out of visual range of the frigate, Fido pulled up the comm program on his slicer and called up his mother's cousin, a rebel pilot and mercenary that was stationed in the area.

"You have who in a frigate? I owe Warren a little something," Smilinbob replied back, "I'll be there in 20 minutes."

"I'm getting out of here," Fido said fingering the duplicate access card he had hidden from the noghri in his massive hands, "I'm leaving a present for you with our friend Kimbak at the hunters guild."

"Thanks mate."

"Good luck." Fido had no love for the rebellion or the empire, and he could give a womp rat's keister who won or lost. You just don't sit on a wookiee.