Project Boussh: Coda
by Policrat' and Nick Coghlan

Nothing Personal

In the cold grey light of a South Pacific dawn, a man in dark, unseasonal 
clothes stood on the pale beach beneath the towering pinacles of an 
incongruous Barvarian schloss. In one hand, almost at arm's length, he held 
a black, boxy device.

The man did not want to offer an explanation. That in itself, he felt, 
should be explanation enough. He had simply taken everything that tied him 
to Terra Group, and thrown it into the cockpit of the TIE-Avenger. In the 
end, there had not been much, just a crumpled, ozone-tainted Imperial 
uniform, a blaster-carbine and a few grenades, a well-meant bottle of 
foul-tasting whiskey.

And it was not as if he was cutting himself off. Terra Group knew where to 
find him. But he hoped they would take the hint.

The man smiled sadly.

Time to finish it.

He tapped a soft plastic button on the device he held in his hand, and 
waited.

After a few moments, there was a sharp, electric scream from the direction 
of the palace, and a black blur shot overhead, howling towards the horizon. 
As it straightened out over the Pacific, whipping the water in its wake into 
white spume, he had a last glimpse of the fighter's familiar silhouette. And 
then it was gone into the darkness.

When the last echo of the engines had died away, the man glanced at the 
device in his hand, a blocky, black thing studded with buttons.

Shaking his head, he cranked back his arm, and threw it out to sea. It was 
not a good throw.

The black device landed in the surf where the last swell of the sea rolled 
in over the wet sand of the beach, and the man took a step and a half 
towards it, before he saw that the sea was drawing it away from him on the 
retreating tide.

The man laughed quietly at that, and paused, then walked to the water's edge 
- but only to wash his hands in the clean salt water.

Then, he turned, and walked away along the tide-line, the waves washing over 
his footprints as he went.

And then, there was nothing at all.
--------------------------
The freighter reverted to real space at a point far from 
anywhere on the standard galactic star charts. The crew, who 
had made this trip several times before, sometimes amused 
themselves by speculating as to just where the odd 
coordinates required for the trip were taking them. The chief 
pilot, who held the book, was only offering odds-on for a 
remote corner of the Unknown Regions. A couple of the cargo 
handlers, though, had taken him up on the long odds for 
actually travelling to another galaxy.

Not that it mattered - they hadn't been able to work out 
where they were on previous trips, so why would this, or any 
future, one be any different? Like every other time, the 
pilot opened up a communications channel on a specific 
frequency, and waited for the automated course they always 
received from the nearby data beacon. When executed, the 
downloaded program would lay a series of coordinates into the 
ship's navicomp, as well as data for a planetary approach. 
The various times they'd tried to slice in and access the 
real data the program contained, it had aborted and erased 
all trace it had ever existed. On each of those occasions, 
they'd had to redownload the program, and start from the 
beginning. Only when they allowed the program to run without 
interference were they able to find their way to their 
destination.

The navigation program the pilot was expecting never 
appeared. Instead, the communications console indicated the 
presence of a human voice signal on that channel. Curious, 
the pilot reached over and keyed the audio output.

"available for purchase. Message ends. " *hiss* "Message 
starts. The management of ET Enterprises regretfully informs 
all clients that the product is not available at this time. 
Every effort will be made to restore supply, but recreation 
of the entire product range will not be possible. Samples of 
the product with item numbers commencing with EST-, EBM- or 
EBF- will no longer be available for purchase. Message ends."

Switching to the ship's internal comms system, the pilot 
said, "Captain, I need to speak with you."

***

A short time later, the only thing keeping the interstellar 
hydrogen company was the automatic beacon, forlornly 
broadcasting its message into the void.

In hyperspace, the freighter's captain was trying to figure 
out how best to phrase her report to her employers. If she 
was careful, she could ensure that their ire was 
appropriately targeted - not at her, but at that unreliable 
sack of bantha fodder who had just cut off their most 
profitable market.