#ikuchi market

[spxcefarer]

[airi-of-hearts]

✨🪐💫 A Field of Stars ✨🪐💫

A story set in a galaxy far, far away…well, many of them. Written for the aib server prompt: Sci-Fi AU

The view from her penthouse in Imperial City was breathtaking. Airi had lived there for a few years and she was still overwhelmed by the vastness of it. Coruscant, the Jewel of the Core Worlds; trillions of citizens, human and alien alike. The city-planet had become the hub of galactic culture, education, finance, fine arts, politics and technology.

But Airi hadn’t moved there to flaunt wealth or mingle with high society, her reason was more pragmatic: Coruscant was home to the Senate Building, if she took her Diplomat career seriously, this is where she had to be. She wouldn’t be heard anywhere else.

So far, it hasn’t been exactly easy to earn her spot. Well-established–and frankly, old–Senators are always ready to tell her she’s too young, too inexperienced, her ideas too harsh, too radical, too alienating.

Kovacs had warned her this would happen. Takeshi Kovacs, a former Protectorate Envoy turned bounty hunter, the man she once believed would be the love of her life. Even then, he had been just another man telling her what she couldn’t do.

Well, fuck him. Fuck them all.

Airi paced from the living space to her bedroom and back again, reciting her next speech under her breath. She would speak at the Senate the next day and there was no room for error.

She raised her voice when he reached her main idea. ‘Just because the elites have made Neon City into their playground where anything goes, that doesn’t mean illegal activities should be tolerated. Crimes related to the drug known as Aurora don’t affect these rich tourists as much as they affect the lives and livelihoods of the most vulnerable sections of the population, and this has to stop.’ She would have to modulate her voice some more, she was almost yelling by the end of it.

People–other diplomats, even Senators–usually asked her why she cared that much about a random city many galaxies away. Well, she would tell them, for one thing she was not going to stand for injustice anywhere. And for another, that was her hometown.

The pleasure city of Neon was a tourist trap that catered to the extravagant tastes of those who could afford all that the city had to offer. And for the locals? Not a lot of options outside fishing for Chasmbass, the source for the hallucinogenic drug Aurora.

Airi might still live there, working for Xenofresh Fisheries if she was lucky, if it hadn’t been for her parents. Her mother wanted her to have a real education, so she’d sent Airi off-world under the care of the Protectorate to study.

It wasn’t as if her life in Neon was too bad, Airi’s father worked for a ship manufacturing company and slowly but steadily managed to rise through their ranks. Meanwhile, as a young girl, Airi spent her days roaming the mean streets of Neon, befriending (or bothering) the hardworking denizens at Ikuchi market, mapping the Ebbside, even venturing into the Underbelly on occasion… and picking up useful skills on the way; she still had a knack for picking locks and hacking into terminals.

A soft beep made her turn around, bringing her back from her memories.

BB-8, the astromech droid that had adopted her (Airi was convinced of this, she hadn’t chosen the little round droid, he had chosen her), had stopped rolling around after her when he realized the pacing would take hours, but he still seemed to be complaining.

‘I know, I know. I won’t be too harsh tomorrow. Well, I will try,’ Airi said, patting the robot.

She hoped she could keep her promise. Her outspokenness had attracted attention from the moment she started speaking up. It earned her many supporters, but many enemies as well. Important ones, the kind who could hire someone to kill her, they had already tried. Why? Well, rich people don’t like it when their source of income is threatened. But as Airi saw it, getting that reaction meant she was going the right way.

Besides, the United Colonies backed her up. They had even sent some of their best Vanguard members to protect her. Which reminded her…

‘Cheer up, BB. We’ll go on a little adventure soon enough.’

After the Senate session, Airi would travel to Neon. She knew some Senators would demand tangible proof of the illegal activities that Airi was denouncing, they wouldn’t ask her to go to Neon City outright but they would heavily imply it, so she had beaten them to the punch, by making travel arrangements. They surely hoped she would suffer some terrible accident over there, but Airi had already contacted the UC.

‘You will meet a member of the Vanguard there,’ the UC contact told her. They hadn’t said who it was. She hoped it was Andrómeda.

Incoming message, the androgynous voice of her penthouse’s AI announced. Airi let the first few words play over the speakers before deleting it. An invitation to a fancy dinner. A date.

She had much to do and… Who had time for love anyway?