Media liked to portray gunslingers and soldiers as gritty, fearless warriors who wouldn’t even think about blinking in the face of a blaster muzzle. Jast knew from personal experience that this was very untrue. His blood ran cold as Jos’rizud leveled the rifle with his face. His hands went up, level with his ears, and he swung an open palm toward Boq. Telsa’s hands had shot up immediately, but the big Soroccoan had not been so easily intimidated by the Hutt’s security team. His hand rested on the grip of his heavy blaster, but he made no move to draw. Jast thanked the Force for that, and tried very hard to pay attention to Val’s voice in his earpiece over the pounding of his heart.

“…on the security camera, seems like we had a stowaway this whole time. Must have been in the access shaft to the left landing strut,” she said quickly. The [i]Raven[/i]’s chief engineer had been on the bridge of the freighter, watching the meeting play out on the landing pad, when she noticed a figure fall out of the landing gear and hit the pad hard.
 
Jast looked over at the prostrate figure; a young girl, it looked like. This was an easy situation to diffuse. Simply hand her over to them, let them take care of it. The security feed on the Raven’s external cameras would corroborate the story if Khulbe even cared to check. There’d be no complications to his business proposal. They’d all get rich and never think about her again.

But what happens to a young girl you hand over to one of the most powerful Hutt kingpins on Nar Shaddaa? Jast would definitely think about her again, that was for sure. He’d fought a war in defense of the Republic’s highest values, its liberty and its democracy. He was not the sort of man who’d easily sell a girl into slavery. 

“She’s ours.” [i]Fuck[/i], he thought, [i]we’re really in the shit now[/i]. "She’s a stowaway we picked up on Ord Mantell, actually," he continued. "She is supposed to be,” and here he shot a pointed look at his chief of security, “safely secured in our brig, not falling out of our undercarriage. Trying to escape, I imagine, before we bring her back to the Ord Mantell Port Authority to face charges. Boq, would you kindly secure our prisoner and escort her back onto the ship?” Boq, nodded, quickly catching onto the game. 

“Yes, Captain. My apologies, I thought she was secure,” he said, and made to move toward the stowaway. The confidence with which he stepped signaled, quite clearly, his absolute assurance that the Hutt’s security team would not shoot him. Jast was not nearly as confident. 

“Are we okay, Jos?" Jast asked. "You know me. I don’t know what kind of stunt you think I’d be trying to play with this move, but I assure you, I’m here in good faith.”