“So, what do we—” started Baudu.
Tal smashed the last one on the back of the neck with the butt of her blaster, dropping him and her weapon in the process.
“Oh.”
Kiren needed no further instruction and sent the one closest to them crashing down with a well-placed blow from their wrench.
The third, finding his companions collapsed on the floor around him, tried to run back into the marketplace, ducking Baudu’s lunge. Tal rushed ahead of him, having nothing to stop him but her own slight frame. She cast around for something she could use as he tried to move past her. She grabbed the papple from its display with both hands and cracked it over his head. He collapsed in a rain of red pulp and black seeds. The seller looked up, gaped at the prone Rodian and the remains of his papple, then quietly turned around and walked away.
Baudu and Kiren ran up to her, and both gave her the same look. “It worked,” Tal said with a shrug.
Kiren and Baudu helped her drag the unconscious operatives back behind the now abandoned stall. If anyone had witnessed what went down, they had the same wisdom as the papple seller and minded their own business. They began to relieve the operatives of their signature jackets and weapons.
Tal holstered a blaster and hefted the helmet the slug had been wearing at her side. “Put these on. We’re going to hit the Empire where it hurts.”
Kiren struggled with their jacket, a size too small, while Baudu tested the weight of his new Mining Guild blaster. “Was this part of the plan?”
Tal smiled slyly. She swept the Mining Guild jacket around her shoulders with a flair that would’ve made Lando proud.
“It is now.”
* * *
—
Lieutenant Ela Radodan typed her authorization code into the datapad and passed it off to Fool #203. His gray uniform indicated his ensign rank, but she didn’t have time or interest in learning his name. He was just the latest in a long line of interchangeable, clean-shaven faces. Faces that Commander Kelos routinely dismissed for their incompetence. That Ela often made sure Kelos did so was lost on him. Which made Kelos Fool #1, she supposed.
From the center of the circular platform, she could see the sky brightening. A light freighter could have easily landed where she stood, but they needed something bigger for this operation. Instead, Ela had ordered a bulk freighter, its immensity forcing it to hover off the edge. Its two rectangular canisters guzzled Tibanna gas through an attached pump guarded by a handful of stormtroopers and fools.
To her left, on the far side of the platform, the entrance to the large white city pod beckoned to more docks as well as the pleasures of Cloud City. She had learned that quite a few secret passages led off from certain platforms, hiding a multitude of sins from prying eyes, both Imperial and mercantile. She suspected Cloud City was built on this very premise.
But neither the pod nor the freighter held her attention. From the lower dock, she couldn’t quite see the U-33 loadlifter that was holding the miners captive, but that didn’t stop her from looking up with concern to the dock where she knew they were waiting.
She caught Fool #204’s attention. “Make sure there’s also Tibanna gas on the U-33.”
“Ma’am, we have filled the ship with miners. There isn’t room for freight.”
“Then put Tibanna canisters in the extra fuel pods if you have to. You have your orders.”
Fool #204 obviously thought these orders were foolish, but he had served the Empire long enough not to ask questions. Off he went. She looked above her again, as if this time she would be able to see the ship with the miners aboard.
Behind her, a voice spoke. “Something of interest in the sky?”
“Cloud City miners prepared for transport to the labor colonies, Commander.” She didn’t bother turning around to face Kelos, having heard his peculiar loping step approaching her. “As well as mines on Cynda, Raxus Prime…”
Kelos reached her side and turned his unblinking gaze toward her. “Most of those mines are controlled by the Mining Guild. We are sure that the Guild won’t find out about Cloud City’s mines?”
“The Guild won’t exactly be having a chat before putting the prisoners to work, and misguided loyalty to Cloud City would hold their tongues. Regardless, now with the city’s output in our possession, the Empire will hold a superior position in any future negotiations with the Guild.”
Kelos moved next to her, the light catching the medals on his uniform as he held his hands behind his back. “And without hundreds of their workers, the citizens of Cloud City will know the price of betraying The Empire.”
“Of course. Commander, will you be making an address to those—”
The sound of blasterfire drowned out the rest of her thought. The shots came from three figures in helmets and gold-striped uniforms who had emerged from the abbreviated Cloud City pod that hosted the docking platform. She immediately crouched, pulling her side blaster, and scanned desperately for cover. Finding none, she hit the cold steel of the platform, lying prone with her weapon pointed toward the shooters. Fortunately, the three uniformed figures were focused on the freighter. Fool #203 went down with a zap, and several other uniformed fools fled up the boarding ramps. A few actually did their jobs and fired from partial cover at the freighter entrance.
“Commander, get down!”
Kelos, clearly the original fool, widened his stance, took careful aim at the largest of the figures, and fired. To his credit, his shot found its target. They reeled, then returned fire. Ela thought they shot wildly, until Kelos crumbled to the ground, inches from her. Despite the danger of sharing his fate, she couldn’t suppress a slight smile. As a bonus, his still form provided her a degree of cover.
Stormtroopers finally descended from the freighter and returned fire, and the Mining Guild operatives—as their uniforms indicated them to be—began to pull back. But not before throwing something toward the center of the platform.
“Grenade!” Shouts echoed up through the stormtrooper corps.
Ela believed she’d been forgotten since she hadn’t fired. She rose to a crouch, careful to keep her weight on the balls of her feet lest the clicking of her boot heels give her away. She ran along the side of the platform after the retreating figures.
“Take cover!”
An explosion rattled the platform, lighting up Ela’s path. She ignored its heat as she pursued her prey. The shooters’ escape was slowed by their injured comrade, and Ela caught up to them just as the sliding door to the pod was about to close behind them.
“Halt!” Ela commanded.
The last enemy half turned around, and Ela managed to grab their arm. She pulled it back across the threshold, temporarily halting the door. She managed to keep hold of only a handful of fabric as her attacker wriggled free of her grasp, but lost their helmet. Ela saw her unmasked: a woman with brown eyes, her hair tightly framing her face.
Tal half-smiled at her with a shrug as the door slid shut between them. Ela hesitated for only a moment. She slammed in the code to open the door, but it was jammed. She tried an override code, but discovered they had not yet been aligned with the Imperial codes.
“Open this door!” she yelled to a fool, but found herself momentarily without one. She turned and carried the jacket toward the prone body of the commander.
Who slowly rose to his feet, a blaster wound in his side, not serious. She did not need to mask her disappointment. She had been told that her natural expression was one of cold disdain, and it served her well in this moment.
“Mining Guild operatives. They must have detected our presence on Bespin. If we can’t buy their silence, let’s see how their Guild behaves when we refuse them our prize and keep the Cloud City captives.”
He clasped his wound and stared her down. “They must have detected. They must have detected? You were in charge of this mission
. If the Mining Guild detected anything, you are responsible. You will be relieved of duty and sent down to join the miners for deportation!”
“Your injury makes you speak in haste.” Ela felt stormtroopers draw close behind her. “My security protocol with regard to the Mining Guild was unassailable. However.” She looked at the jacket on the ground. She had no choice. “It is possible…it was a ruse.”
* * *
—
Tal was desperately trying to stanch the flow of blood from Kiren’s shoulder. The three had jumped through a secret hatch just as the Imps had cleared the block Tal had put on the door. The emergency accessway offered enough space for Baudu and Tal to flank Kiren, and the bare fixtures gave them all the light they needed.
Kiren’s subtle growls indicated they were doing their best to suppress the pain. “Least you got a real good shot on that officer. Went down like an empty suit of stormtrooper armor.” Tal paused. “Or even one that was full.”
“Kiren got lucky. This shot could’ve killed them.” Baudu’s voice cracked.
Tal touched his shoulder. “I get it. I do. But this’ll work. You’ll see. The Empire will be too pissed at the Mining Guild to hand over our miners—”
A sound behind her made her turn around. The click of boots on the cold metal floor heralded the arrival of an Imperial officer. A severe bun held her dark hair back under her cap. Her cold expression did not falter as she adjusted her stance, put her hands behind her back, and stared down.
Tal lost her train of thought seeing her, remembering many stolen nights, last night most of all. She loved watching her lover pull down that bun, letting the hair cascade around her as Tal pulled her close.
“How did she get in here?” Baudu reached for his blaster.
“Wait.” Tal held up her hand. “This is—”
“You are under the authority of the Galactic Empire. Surrender now and you may be spared.”
“Ela?” Tal blinked, confused. Ela’s expression was always inscrutable.
“Damnit, Tal! That’s your Imperial source?” Baudu grabbed his blaster, but Ela pulled hers first.
“Careful,” she said.
Another set of boots approached behind her. Ela hadn’t come through the secret hatch alone. The commander, his wound sporting a rudimentary bandage, came abreast of Ela. “Here the attackers are, just as you predicted. You may redeem yourself yet.” The commander stepped forward and elbowed Kiren in their wound, earning a ferocious snarl. Baudu lunged, but the commander trained his weapon on him.
Tal helped Kiren to their feet, but she was focused on Ela. “Don’t do this. Please.”
Ela, as always, maintained her cold expression. “You betrayed the Empire.”
“The Empire. Right,” said Tal.
The commander wisely kept his blaster leveled at Baudu and returned to his position beside Ela. “A betrayal for a betrayal. Very good. You put your Emperor before your lover.”
Ela let slip her first hint of emotion as she glanced at her superior with surprise.
“Yes, I make it my duty to monitor my reports, in all aspects.” The commander turned on his heel. “Put them with the other prisoners.”
* * *
—
Everything started happening very quickly for Tal. Stormtroopers shoved her into the U-33 loadlifter behind Baudu and Kiren. Baudu wasn’t looking at her as he kicked a few miners off a bench to make sure Kiren could sit down. Baudu was mad, but Kiren understood. She hoped.
The U-33 was packed, including its mess hall where Tal found herself. The miner who’d taught Tal a ditty from her homeland with incredibly questionable lyrics. The admin who’d fled a dying planet and a dead relationship. Rajin, the Twi’lek, they were all there, crammed together. Most found it easier to stand, for even the tabletops had been overrun with seated miners. And now Tal had to include herself…the orphan who’d wandered the galaxy till she found a family to take her in. And now that family was being shipped off who knows where. Almost immediately, the transport engines fired up, and they lurched forward on their journey.
“Do you know where we’re going?” asked a miner Tal didn’t know. This one looked like she’d been kidnapped in the night, as she was dressed for bed.
“Wherever the Mining Guild sends us,” said Rajin, morose, no doubt thinking of his child.
“Nah, these are stormtroopers. They loaded up a ton of Tibanna in here with us, too. We’re in Imperial custody.”
“For now.”
Tal remained quiet.
Another miner noticed. “Tal, you don’t even work for the mine.” He’d clearly been taken midshift, as he still wore his brown work smock. “You’re up to something. You gotta have a plan.”
“Yeah, same as what yours should be. Mind my business.” Tal knew this one. If she told him anything, everyone would hear about it.
Tal gestured for Kiren and Baudu to come talk to her. Kiren managed to stand up, almost convincing Tal that their wound wasn’t killing them. Baudu tried to gently push them back down. “No—I just had to kick two people outta your seat. No.” Kiren growled and waved him off. Kiren was all-in. Good.
“Can you fly this thing?”
Kiren gave her a look like that was the most insulting question they’d ever heard.
“Okay, okay. Can I fly this thing?”
Kiren nodded their head side to side. A solid maybe.
“It’ll have to do. Let’s go.”
Baudu nearly climbed over two people to get in front of her. “You pull us from our duty—perfectly safe duty—and con us into taking out some really overdressed idiots in the market, and then you get us shot at, captured, and sent off to mine some offworld— No. You can’t say this was part of the plan.”
“It was…a possibility.” Tal rubbed her arm, hedging. “But it’s not going to get better if we don’t do anything.”
Baudu gestured toward Kiren’s wound. “If you think I’m letting you get them into another fight—”
“Oh, Kiren’s not fighting.” Tal tapped him on the shoulder. “We are. I always have a backup plan, you know that. But we better hurry.”
“I’m not getting talked into— Wait a second. Why do we have to hurry…?”
* * *
—
For the first time in her life, Ela struggled to maintain her expression. She had reported to her station on the bridge in the Star Destroyer in orbit. The cool darkness, the blinking control lights, and the soft hum of the ship normally calmed her nerves. But she could feel Kelos’s eyes on her, monitoring her, as he had been since the beginning apparently. She guessed she was Fool #1 all along.
She focused on the task at hand: ensuring the U-33 with its prisoner cargo joined them in orbit over Bespin. It came into view on the command screen, in front of several ensigns seated at their posts on the bridge, likewise preparing for the journey. She went over her checklist. She tagged the U-33 for tracking, cataloged the last of the Tibanna canisters on board her Star Destroyer, adjusted the weapons systems and the comms, locked them behind her security code.
“All is ready, Commander.” She paused for a moment, choosing her words carefully. “Representatives of the Mining Guild are requesting custody of the U-33, since it is destined for mines they control. However, I’m noting this particular communication is coming from Bespin airspace, which is off limits to them. Exactly what we wished to avoid at the dock. What are your orders?”
He turned toward her, arms behind his back. “What do you recommend, Lieutenant?”
It was a test.
Ela continued, carefully. “They came to Bespin against Imperial edict. They must be taught a lesson.”
Kelos smiled. “I agree. Permit them to board the U-33. I accept your earlier suggestion.”
“Sir?”
“We refuse them their prize. By elimin
ating them all.”
* * *
—
Tal led her reluctant comrades toward the head—the only area minimally guarded by stormtroopers. The stench of urine explained why. They hadn’t gotten around to wiping down the ship before it had been commandeered with its new cargo.
The three squeezed past the troopers in the hallway, then as a unit entered the stalls and closed the flaps for privacy. Tal had made quite a show of running water while she spurred Kiren and Baudu to unfix the back of the stalls. They’d been in and around these ships long enough—they knew the crawl spaces that would lead to the bridge.
* * *
—
Kelos puffed up his chest as he turned toward the controllers at the command screen. “Ensign, target the U-33 transport with the turbolaser cannons.”
“Yes, sir.” The ensign turned toward him. “The Mining Guild representatives have boarded, and I’ve relayed the usual five-minute warning for our officers to evacuate.”
“Make it two minutes. The rest are an acceptable loss.” Kelos surveyed the rest of the people on the bridge, then settled on Ela. “Any objections?”
Ela remained silent.
* * *
—
Tal squeezed into the crawl space. Kiren had been forced to stay behind—they truly couldn’t fit, even without a shoulder wound. They’d nodded and patted her on the head, then helped her climb in. She felt Baudu climb in behind her, and the two clambered beside pipes and wires. She grabbed his glow rod so she could find her way as he coached her toward the bridge.
“The two of us can’t take the entire ship, Tal. We don’t even have a weapon.”
“Then we get a weapon. Once we take the bridge, it doesn’t matter how many stormtroopers are aboard. We have the ship.” She took the last turn and found herself with nowhere to go. “Damnit, dead end.”
“This is it. This is the bridge,” he said. “You should be lying on a hatch.”
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