At the end of a short alleyway was a doorway into a two-story apartment barely wider than the alley itself. The metal of the door lay in a crumpled pile kicked to the side; blackened craters and holes indicated it had come under a barrage of blasterfire. From what Yathros could see of the interior, the apartment was a ruin of shattered furniture and smashed glass.
Mizz stumbled forward, disappearing inside. Yathros did not pursue, and heard the sound of ashes crunching and heavy objects tossed aside. Then silence. Then heavy breathing.
Then, for a while, nothing.
Eventually Mizz emerged, touching his fingertips to the alley wall as he found his footing. “All right,” he said, standing before Yathros. He was very nearly steady. “Let’s go.”
Yathros rested a grimy hand on Mizz’s shoulder. “You aren’t surprised,” he said.
“No.”
“You were braced for what you saw,” Yathros said.
“Got a call earlier on the comm,” Mizz said, not looking at Yathros. His voice was barely audible.
“You came for me instead of them?”
“You were closer, is all.”
Yathros considered this awhile, and squeezed Mizz’s shoulder. “What you said before? About me and my—and my royal blood?”
Mizz waited, saying nothing.
“I forgive you for doubting.”
Mizz pressed his palms to his face; wiped his mien clean till no expression remained save a red tinge to his eyes; and they started toward the docks again.
* * *
—
Mizz seemed to have aged during the night, and Yathros had been timeworn as long as anyone in Cloud City could remember. But some hours before dawn, upon mounting the marble steps leading to the Caretaker’s Bridge, they came within view of the docks. Both men halted at the zenith and sat to rest.
“End of the road,” Mizz said. “End of Bespin, too. We’ll be out of here soon.” It was the first he’d spoken in some time.
Yathros squinted at his companion as if examining a speck on the man’s forehead. Eventually he smiled thinly and turned to the docks again. “Perhaps it’s not the end at all. Perhaps it’s merely the darkest moment of a triumphant tale—when all is presumed lost, so that victory can be sweeter.”
“Sure,” Mizz said. “Maybe.”
Yathros observed Mizz out of the corner of his eye. The man’s grief, he thought, was familiar enough without requiring great study.
With a grunt, Yathros rose to his feet, steadying himself on Mizz’s shoulder. He leisurely surveyed the city from above; and though he saw the panicked masses and the stormtrooper blockades, the towers glittered no less brightly. The clouds were no less magnificent as they washed like tides against the edges of the platforms, and from afar even the darkened houses looked like royal palaces.
Cloud City had treated him well, he thought, and he had taken responsibility for her and her people. Here he had become something more than himself. Outside he would be reduced in stature, and he would care for Bespin’s citizens no longer.
This was a truth that was not his alone.
“You ready to leave?” Mizz asked.
“Are you leaving with me?” Yathros returned.
“Lando’s orders,” Mizz said. “He wants you safe.”
“But Lando is not king.”
“Yathros—”
“Landonis Calrissian is not king!” Yathros bellowed, much too loudly—for surely the stormtroopers would hear. “The choice is ours, Darbus Mizz. Our fates are ours to choose, not the regent’s.”
“We should go,” Mizz said, shuffling upright.
But Yathros’s grip was steely, and the old man turned Mizz to face him. As Yathros spoke, flecks of spittle dappled Mizz’s face; the king’s eyes were wide but his voice was controlled. “If we leave, we become refugees. If we stay, we stay with the people we have long guarded, as you guarded me this very night—people lacking the money or fortune to escape.
“We could shelter with the Ugnaughts who have been friends to me. We could stand against the stormtroopers, as we’ve done once before. We could remind our people that the Empire will fall, as all tyrannies fall. We could fight evil, Darbus Mizz.”
Mizz smiled ruefully. It was clear he couldn’t escape the appeal of Yathros’s words, no matter his obvious doubt. But he said, “An old vagrant and a security guard can’t do a lot of good here. Not anymore.”
Yathros released a huff of breath and dropped his chin. “Yes. Yes, I’m afraid you’re right. And yet—” His chin snapped back up. His grin was sly, and vanished quickly to be replaced by a more sober expression. “—a mighty king and a deadly assassin trained by the sinister Kouhun order? An assassin once a servant of the treacherous Calrissian, now seeking redemption as a royal agent? They could do a great deal.”
Mizz swallowed, paused, and spoke carefully, as if any wrong word might disrupt the strange energy in the air. “Fantasies are a luxury for peaceful times. In darker days, they can get a person killed.”
“Truth lights the way in darkness, and the story you’ve lived to date goes nowhere worth seeing. Trust in an old king’s wisdom, my friend. Accept a hidden truth—illuminate secret paths—and take the gift I offer you.”
Mizz didn’t answer. After a silence, Yathros shook him briskly. “Admit it! Admit who you are!”
The words spilled from him at last. “Darbus Mizz, Prince of Assassins?”
“I knew it!” Yathros cried joyously. “You knew it. Now we shout it in the face of the world.”
Mizz began to laugh. Yathros grinned again. The laughter was a manic sound, and it soon blended into the sound of sobbing from one or both of them as they recalled griefs recent and ancient. They held each other atop the stairs and looked out to the city, Yathros to the docks and Mizz to the glittering towers, until they began to cough.
A bright streak crossed the sky as a ship jumped to lightspeed. “A promising sign,” Yathros murmured, and he wiped his mouth on his coat sleeve.
“Lando won’t be happy,” Mizz said.
“Let him be unhappy. It will help him learn. Perhaps it will give him reason to return.”
Mizz nodded. His eyes followed the streets below, and his body straightened almost imperceptibly.
“You really think there’s some good we can do?” he asked.
Yathros Condorius the First swung an arm around Mizz’s shoulders, and they descended the stairs together. “What do you think would happen,” the king said to his assassin prince, “if the royal ruler of Cloud City were to proclaim a treaty with the Rebel Alliance? Now, that would be a pact to shake the universe…”
* * *
—
Nowadays most people have forgotten the king and the Kouhun assassin. But they were the subject of many stories in the days of oppression—stories told by the people who needed them.
If you don’t believe it, look around in the plazas. You’ll find a bench over a marble slab inscribed by the famed artist Or’toona Fleenk. Read the tribute there, and see the faces of the men who saved Cloud City.
(Or at least who saved their own small part.)
THE BACKUP BACKUP PLAN
Anne Toole
“Lay down your weapons!”
Tal Veridian slid her blaster under the table, then held up her hands. She was sitting with her back to the entrance, the mirror in her alcove providing a covert view of the entire saloon. Stormtroopers poured in, their armor oddly tinged lavender by the evening light still streaming from the high windows. She had been waiting with a few fellow drunks, waiting to hear the outcome of Lando’s latest plan regarding the princess and her guard. Obviously, it hadn’t gone quite as planned.
“Go, go,” she said under her breath.
A few of her companions ducked behind the bar. She watched out of the corner of her eye as
their cloaked forms slunk out the back. The rest of the denizens behind her would not be so lucky. Two stormtroopers guarded the door as another two hassled a few Cloud City miners sharing a drink at the bar. Tal recognized them as Rajin—who’d been waiting to hear about the birth of his child—and his friend, whom they’d once caught gambling on tip-yip races. Already administrators from the mine, one an avid but terrible Twi’lek musician, the other prone to droning on about organizational minutiae, had been relieved of their weapons and ushered out the door.
“You there.”
Tal didn’t dare turn around. The mirror reflected her dark skin, hair framing her face and matching brown eyes. Unlike the light, flowing garb favored in Cloud City, she wore a vest over dark leather pants and a loose chambray shirt. Right now she looked every bit the foreign trader she wanted to portray. “Your burlap fashion,” Lando would endlessly tease her. She would counter that with a cape like his, she expected to see him fly off a platform one day. She supposed he finally had.
One stormtrooper loomed by her side. “You work with Cloud City mine? Lando Calrissian?”
Ever since the day he’d plucked her from that rickety merchant vessel. Happy to find someone who looked like him who wasn’t family, he always said. Her family…well, let’s just say she’d been in the market for a new one. And that’s what she found working with Lando on Cloud City. She considered herself his second-in-command, but good luck getting him to admit it. They weren’t perfect, but they had each other’s backs.
* * *
—
But that’s not what this lavender-hued stormtrooper needed to hear. Instead, she launched into her best Mando’a.“Meg cuyir gar—?”
His E-11 blaster inched closer to her eye. “Lando Calrissian.”
“Londo?” she mispronounced.
Lavender boy yanked her to her feet, gave her a once-over. His companion called to him. “What have you got?”
“Nothing.” He released her arm and headed over to fish out an Ugnaught trying to disappear behind a chair.
Tal didn’t dare breathe a sigh of relief. Lando’s decision to liberate the princess hadn’t included the Imps capturing their people. She needed information, she needed help, and, most of all, she needed a plan.
* * *
—
“Baudu, Kiren—I need you.”
The following day, Tal strode across the platform toward the two mechanics, working atop a ship set to depart from Dock 3. The brilliant white city pods punctuated the morning sky. They hosted vessels of all shapes and sizes on docks and platforms evident well into the distance.
Kiren’s fur fluttered in the wind as they grunted in her direction, but their gaze stayed focused on a side panel a story above her.
Beside them, Baudu looked down from his wire panel and squinted at her. His gray eyes matched his graying hair, though his face was still so young. A peculiarity of his family, the one he’d come to Cloud City to get far, far away from, he’d once told her. As for his personality, he had no excuse. “You got eyes. The Imps got us working—”
Tal gestured impatiently for them to come down as she slowed to a stop by the docking ramp. “That’s the point! While you’re here doing your job, they’re kidnapping the rest of us.” Tal shaded her eyes and looked toward Dock 4, the bleak gray of a U-33 loadlifter, its inverted wings typical except for its contents. “You heard Lando hightailed it out of here, right? The Imps are taking over the mines from us and targeting workers. Retaliating.”
“Why?” Baudu had twisted up his face, trying to think it through.
“To punish Cloud City for what Lando did. I can’t stand by and watch this!” She gestured angrily in the direction of the U-33. “I knew what he was planning. I’m just as much…the fool.”
Kiren held out their arms, their brown jumpsuit already soiled by grease.
“Yes, I know,” said Tal. “We’re going to fix that. Come on. Lando’s left a real mess.”
Kiren shrugged and started to climb down, but Baudu reached out his hand to catch Kiren’s arm, earning him a snarl from their snout. “Heyyy, come on now!” Baudu protested, then turned back to Tal. “Why not get the Wing Guard? They know you work for Lando.”
“They’re being watched.”
Even Kiren had to snort at that.
“Okay, yeah, and Lando didn’t give me any authority over them, what’s your point?”
“Why should we listen to you?”
“Don’t listen to me. Listen to Lando.” Tal tapped her chin. “Oh, wait, that’s right. He betrayed the Empire and took off.” She grinned.
“Listen—forget Dock 4 for a second. You can see Lower Dock from up there?”
Baudu, suspicious, squinted down at the lower pods, where they loaded and unloaded the particularly ripe goods, far from the pristine noses of Cloud City’s upper crust. “Yeah…?”
“Second dock from the bottom. See anything?”
“Nothing special.”
“Because it’s an Imperial secret.” From her vantage point, Tal couldn’t make out more than the edge of the dock below. “The perfect location. Minimal security. Empire doesn’t want anyone to know what they’re doing down there, and wouldn’t you know, the Mining Guild has caught wind of it. So you team up with me, and we put them on a collision course with each other…the Imps’ll forget all about us.”
Kiren grunted quizzically, a noise that never failed to make Tal smile. She hid it well this time.
“Let’s just say I pumped my Imperial source for information last night. The intel is good.”
“No.” Baudu, thoughtful, tapped his tool on the ship. “Kiren wants to know how you know they’ll forget all about us.”
“Trust me!” Tal held out her hands, confident. When they still hesitated, she tried a different tack. “It’s all I got, kids. Come on. You don’t really want to end up one of the Empire’s bootlickers, do you?”
Kiren was already sliding down the side of the ship. “I just don’t want to end up under the Empire’s boot,” said Baudu.
“Clever. You think that one up yourself?” Tal teased. Baudu responded with a gesture, a side effect of spending too much time with Kiren. “Come. You’ll see what I thought up.”
* * *
—
The Mining Guild was not supposed to know about the mining operation on Bespin—certainly not now. Lando’s negotiation with the Empire was supposed to keep the mines independent from the Imperials and secret from the Mining Guild. But that didn’t seem to bother the three in the market one bit. They met in the open, directly under the glowing lights in the market district, their signature yellow-striped uniforms shining under the bright market lights.
The clean white stalls were starting to bustle with activity. The citizens of Cloud City would soon be bringing their children for an early-morning stroll through the market for fresh fruits and greens. The aromas of savory and sweet blended in the air, and even Baudu lingered for a moment over an unreasonably large papple fruit. Its bored seller looked up from whatever he was viewing behind his kiosk and began reaching for a bag.
“Not now!” said Tal. Kiren slapped Baudu’s hand away from the fruit, and Tal nodded appreciatively at them. The seller settled back behind his console.
Tal pulled Baudu into the entrance of a narrow hallway that led from the fresh marketplace to the verandas, as Kiren did their best to follow suit. Few bothered with the verandas in the morning, so Tal didn’t have to worry too much about foot traffic walking by and blocking their view of the market.
“What is the Mining Guild doing here?” Baudu whispered.
“I miiiight have invited them.”
Kiren grunted, surprised and confused.
“Just three of them. Relax.”
“If you say that one more ti—” started Baudu.
“Shh!” said
Tal as she strained to listen. They clung close to the wall and kept a trained eye on the Mining Guild operatives.
One of them, a Rodian whose antennae seemed constantly in motion, nudged his colleague, who looked more like a slug than anything. “We shouldn’t be here. If we want the workers we’re promised, we better leave before the Empire gets wise.”
The slug shook his head. “The Empire’s not gonna enforce this deal for long. Vader’s gone. The Cloud City guy that made it is gone. We’ll have the run of this city in a handful of months. You’ll see.”
“Yeah, as long as we don’t get on the Empire’s bad side in the meantime.”
“Brougg, we are the Empire’s bad side.” He stood up taller, undulating slightly. “Cloud City here needs to know it.”
As much as Tal would’ve loved to glean more information from their riveting conversation, her mind kept returning to the miners on board the U-33 loadlifter back on the platform. She hadn’t anticipated this part of the plan taking quite so long—the Imperial ships were scheduled to leave that morning. The operatives appeared to be in no hurry, and Tal only now realized that was intentional. They had no agenda. The entire purpose of the meeting was to be seen. To mark their new territory. Just as she was about to scrap her plan in favor of the backup plan—or was it the backup backup plan? she’d lost track—one of the members received an alert.
The three operatives headed toward where Tal and her companions were waiting. Tal definitely was feeling her luck change.
“Comrades!” Tal stepped forward, putting on her best sales pitch. “I have quite an offer for you—you want three months of Tibanna gas?”
He shoved her aside. “Out of the way, mucks.”
Guess she couldn’t complain about that dig since she’d been calling him the slug. “But wait—Sir!” The slug ignored her. “Idiot!” None of them were listening. “Slug?”
No use. She was forced to watch all three of them pass her into the otherwise empty hallway.
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