Star Wars - A Servant of the Empire - Unpublished

by James L. Cambias

  Mace knew he was in trouble when the shooting started.

  When the Imperial Customs cruiser had hailed his ship, Mace had tried desperately to stall for time. He’d used the old “communications malfunction” routine, followed by the “how do I know you’re not pirates?” ploy. He was just going into the “reactor leak” number when the cruiser opened fire.

  Either the first barrage was just a warning, or else the Imperial gunners were terrible shots. Mace threw the engine controls to maximum and switched off the safety Interlocks. The Ordinary Trader leapt away from the cruiser like a frightened tauntaun.

  Thump! The cabin shook as a laser blast struck the ship’s flimsy shields. Two more shots followed. The shield status panel was all red.

  Okay, so they’re not bad shots, thought Mace. But how’s their piloting?

  He began jinking and veering the Ordinary Trader. Give them a minute to get used to it, and then—the hull groaned as Mace pulled the ship into a tight corkscrew turn, sending it hurtling down toward the system’s largest gas giant.

  On the bridge of the patrol cruiser Sentinel, Commander Panatic was deceptively relaxed. Normally a very upright, spit-and-polish officer, in combat he slumped immobile in his seat. Only his eyes remained alert, glued to the tracking display.

  When the fugitive changed course, Panatic barely blinked. “Ensign Monidda, change to vector ten by two-ninety. Maintain speed.”

  “He’s going into the planet’s ring system!” Ensign Av, the astrogator, called out.

  “Follow him.”

  As the view of the rings ahead changed from a shimmering silvery arch to a barrage of tumbling icebergs, Ensign Monidda began to earn his pay. The fugitive freighter looped and dodged among them, and the Sentinel hung grimly on its tail.

  “All stop!” The helmsman shut down the engines with a sigh of relief.

  “You’re letting him get away, sir?” Av looked puzzled.

  “Take us out. Vector zero by ninety.” Panatic glanced over at the astrogator. “I’m not going to play his game. Once we’re clear of the rings, switch to silent running. Engines off, sensors to passive mode. We’ll let him find us.”

  “Ha!” Mace allowed himself a little chuckle when his scanner no longer showed the Imperial cruiser. “Serves them right for trying to follow a master pilot through an ice ring.”

  He slowed the Ordinary Trader to a safe speed, and scanned. No sign of the Imperial ship anywhere. Had they hit an ice chunk? He felt a momentary twinge of sympathy as he steered cautiously out of the rings and set a course for open space. He was just setting the hyperdrive when everything went wrong.

  The cruiser was dead ahead, blazing away with all four lasers. Before Mace could react or adjust the shields, the Ordinary Trader was hit three times. Mace’s control board lit up red, showing maneuvering thrusters out, shields gone, and the laser cannon disabled.

  “Surrender or be destroyed!” the comm speaker blared.

  “Okay, okay. You’ve got me.”

  Commander Panatic led the boarding party himself. Sergeant Ivlik and Private Kamlok kept the prisoner at gunpoint while Ensign Av and the other two troopers searched the ship. Panatic sat in the pilot’s seat, asking questions.

  “Name? Occupation?”

  “My name’s Rav Mace. I’m a freelance trader registered out of Dovuli.” That much was true. Of course, he had registration documents for half a dozen other systems, too.

  “You’re a long way from home, then. Cargo and destination?”

  “I’m carrying medical supplies to the Moldar system.”

  “Your drive’s set for the Shkali system.”

  Mace tried to keep his face blank. “Must’ve made a mistake setting it. You were shooting at me.”

  “Yes. Why did you try to run, by the way?”

  “I thought you were pirates. My comm system’s been acting up, like I told you.” Mace glanced nervously at the two black-clad troopers flanking him.

  Panatic swivelled his seat around to the comm panel, and flipped a switch. “Panatic here. Do you read me, Sentinel?.”

  “Sentinel here. Loud and clear, sir,” said Lieutenant Sukal’s voice from the speaker.

  Panatic raised an eyebrow. Mace said nothing.

  “Your ship has pretty good drives for a simple trading vessel.”

  “I like to tinker. Besides, speed is money.”

  Ensign Av returned. “I’ve checked the cargo hold. Four cases of medical supplies—no contraband.”

  Mace broke into a big smile. “See? I told you! This is all just a terrible misunderstanding. Now if you’ll just let me be on my way…”

  Panatic got to his feet. “Bring him.”

  Urged by Sergeant Ivlik’s blaster, Mace followed the captain aft, to the cargo section. Panatic looked impassively at the crates. “Ensign! Did you look inside the cases?”

  “Yes, sir. Clear down to the bottom.”

  “Mm.” Panatic turned and glared at Mace. “Mm,” he repeated.

  Slowly, like a trackbeast on a scent, he went forward again, stopping to look into each compartment. Crew quarters, galley, passenger stateroom…

  “Are your life pods in order?”

  “Sure! I’ve got the latest inspection logged in the computer. I’ll just call it up for you and then—”

  “Check the life pods,” Panatic ordered Sergeant Ivlik.

  The Ordinary Trader carried two life pods. Ivlik opened the hatch on the starboard pod and looked in. “Looks all right, sir.”

  “See? Everything’s perfectly all right. I’m sure you’ve got a busy schedule, so there’s no point in wasting any more time here.” Mace fell silent as Ivlik opened the second pod.

  “Captain! There must be a hundred blasters packed in here.” Ivlik squinted at the serial numbers on the wrappings. “Looks like Imperial Army issue.”

  “Look, I had no idea—” began Mace, but Panatic cut him off.

  “Lock him in the brig.” As Ivlik and Kamlok led Mace away, Panatic got out his comlink and called the bridge. “Lieutenant Sukal, I’m putting you in charge of the prisoner’s ship. Tell Monidda to plot a course to Shkali system. We’re going to find out what this smuggler was up to.”

  The Sentinel entered the Shkali system ten hours later, on full battle alert. Lieutenant Sukal, followed close behind in the Ordinary Trader. But repeated scans showed no other ships in the system.

  “Still nothing, sir,” Ensign Monidda reported for the ninth time.

  “All right. Cancel alert. Disarm weapons. Take us into orbit and do a sweep of the planet’s surface.”

  He called up the astrogation database. Shkali, the main world of the system, was a cool, watery world with wide forests and some dry grassland. The natives were stone-age saurians with no planet-wide political system. Orbital scans had found no useful resources, and the system was far from any trade routes. Panatic frowned at the screen. Why would anyone want to smuggle blasters to such a backwater? An adventurer might arm some natives and carve out an empire, but for what? The glory of lording it over a pack of scaly primitives?

  There must be something else on Shkali. Something missing from the database. A Rebel outpost, perhaps? Panatic’s pulse quickened at the thought.

  Ensign Monidda interrupted his ruminations. “Sir! I’m picking up a comm signal. It’s just the carrier wave, not a message.”

  “Pinpoint it and scan the area. Any ships down there?”

  “No power sources, no energy discharge, no large metal masses. Just the one comm signal.”

  “What’s the surface like there?”

  “Low hills, with dense forest. Hmm—jus
t west of the signal source is a large burned area.”

  “All right, take us down.”

  The Sentinel set down in the center of the burned area just after dawn. Panatic and the ship’s troops fanned out In search of the source of the signal.

  The fire had scorched a section of forest half a kilometer across. The ground underfoot still smoldered in places, and the air was hazy with smoke and ash. Soot and gray mud choked a small stream. Panatic’s normally immaculate boots were soon filthy.

  About a hundred meters from the ship they found the charred remains of a dozen crude huts. The wood walls and roofs were burned away completely, but the stone foundations and some clay pots had survived the blaze. A couple of Shkali bodies lay face down in the ash.

  “Captain! I’ve found something!” Sergeant Ivlik called out.

  Panatic hurried over to the edge of the burned area, where Ivlik was kneeling by a rock outcropping.

  “Down here.”

  In a hollow formed by two large boulders a Shkali child huddled, staring out at the two humans with terrified eyes. It clutched a comlink with both hands.

  “Come on out, there’s a good little one. The fire’s out now. It’s all right. Come on. There, I’ve got you. What’s this you’re holding? May I see it?” Ivlik was a family man, and had little trouble coaxing the frightened little alien out of the crevice. He gently pried the comlink from its grasp and handed it to Panatic. The captain examined it while the sergeant stood by, nonchalantly jiggling the Shkali child and making baby talk.

  The unit was an expensive commercial model, with a built-in recorder. Panatic pressed ‘replay.’”

  A woman’s voice, tense and breathless, almost drowned out by the sound of shouts and blaster fire in the background. “Mace, I hope you find this soon. The slavers are back—two ships this time. They’re using speeder bikes and nets. Warn the other villages.” A long pause, then some rustling sounds, then a man’s shout, and finally a whispered, “go!” Then the message cut off.

  The little Shkali wailed.

  “Slavers.”

  “Lot of that going on nowadays, Captain. Even legal some places.”

  “That doesn’t make it right.”

  “What about this little tyke?” The Shkali child was shivering in Ivlik’s grip.

  Panatic sighed. “It looks like there’s another village a couple of kilometers north of here. Leave the child there. Take Kamlok and Lancer with you. The natives will probably be nervous about strangers right now. Set your blasters on stun; we don’t want an incident.”

  The Sentinel’s brig was designed to be cheerless. The walls and floor were gray metal, and a pair of cameras watched from the corners. Mace lay on one of the hard bunks and stared at the flickering glow panel in the ceiling. He was counting the flickers. When the door opened he was up to eight thousand.

  The Imperial captain stepped in. followed by a guard. He took a comlink from his belt and pressed a button. “Mace, I hope you find this soon…”

  Mace’s elation turned to horror as the message played out. “Did you find her?” he asked, knowing the answer already.

  “I think you’d better tell me everything,” said Panatic.

  “It can’t make things any worse. That’s Nadria’s comlink; she’s my business partner. Knows a lot about primitive cultures, art, things like that. We’ve traded a fair bit with the Shkali in the past, but on our last visit they were all spooked. It took us a while to get the full story. Seems about a month ago some strangers showed up in a ship. They rounded a couple dozen Shkali up at gunpoint and took them away.”

  “Why didn’t you report it to the authorities?”

  Mace laughed derisively. “As if that would do any good. Half the slavers in this sector are on some Moff’s payroll.”

  “You’ve been listening to too much Rebel propaganda.”

  Mace stared at the captain for a moment. “You Imperials are such kidders; for a second I thought you were serious. Anyway, we decided to do something about it. Nadria stayed here to try and organize the tribes, so they could help each other against raiders in the future. I went off to get some blasters so the Shkali would be able to shoot back.”

  “You got the blasters from the Rebel Alliance?”

  “I… got them. Anyway, I was bringing them here when you stopped me.”

  “Do you know anything else about these slavers? Where they might be based?”

  Mace looked genuinely puzzled for a moment. “You mean you’re actually going after them?”

  “They have broken the law. I checked—the Shkali haven’t been declared a slave species yet.”

  “Well I’ll be a one-legged nerf herder. Sure I know where to find them! The boss is Worruga Yab, a Rodian. He operates out of a place called Zahir. Know where that is?”

  “Too well.” Panatic turned to go, then paused. “Thank you, Mace. I’ll be sure to mention how cooperative you’ve been in my report. It might mean a reduced sentence for you.” The armored door hissed open and the Imperial officer strode out.

  Mace resumed counting.

  Panatic’s cabin was as severe and tidy as his uniform. The only personal touch was a holo of the dreadnaught his grandfather had commanded in the Clone Wars. Everything else was strictly Navy issue.

  He sat at his desk and called up the file on Zahir. He knew most of the information by heart, but it never hurt to review the facts. The place was the remnant of a failed development project. One tiny asteroid moon of an outer planet had been domed over and surrounded with a docking ring, to serve as the commercial hub for a new sector. But the nearby systems turned out to be worthless, the colonists and prospectors had never showed up, and eventually the promoters went bankrupt.

  Years later the smuggler Worruga Yab had bought Zahir and turned it into a wide-open free port, a haven for smugglers, pirates and all manner of unsavory characters. Panatic and other patrol captains had begged Sector Command for a Star Destroyer or two to shut Zahir down for good, but somehow their requests never got heard.

  Panatic found himself wishing the Sentinel was more than just a customs vessel. It would take at least a strike cruiser to capture the place In a straight fight.

  Or… his eyes lit up as an idea struck him. Maybe he did have the right ship for the job.

  “Are you sure this is a good idea, sir? You’re putting yourself at a terrible risk.”

  Panatic glared at Sukal. “Your opinion is noted. Lieutenant. You’ll be in command while I’m gone. Run silent until you get my signal. Then I want you to come in fast and hit that place with everything we’ve got. Target ships docked on the ring, and the communications array. Do not engage any other ships in space— there’s too many of them, and they could easily box the Sentinel in and destroy her.”

  He turned to regard his travelling companions. Sergeant Ivlik looked remarkably uncomfortable in a cheap civilian suit. Mace wore the same scruffy-looking clothes he had been captured in. Panatic had to drape himself in a huge prospector’s poncho to conceal his uniform. Thus attired, the three of them boarded the Ordinary Trader and parted company with the Sentinel in the dim outskirts of the system.

  Panatic seated himself in the copilot’s chair and sat for a moment watching the stars before speaking. “I want to make a deal with you, Mace.”

  “Music to my ears, Captain.”

  “At Zahir we’ll be in your element, not mine. You know the smugglers and prospectors who do business there. I’m sure it would be tempting for you to reveal my identity and escape.”

  “I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “But I can get those slaves released. You can’t. And I think you want your partner back. So here’s my offer: if you cooperate with me, I’ll see to it that she goes free. Your arrest is already logged, so I can’t let you go, but I won’t charge her.”

  “Mighty generous of you.”

  “I should add that I haven’t contacted Systems Command to see if either of you are wanted for treas
onous activities. As far as I’m concerned, you’re an ordinary smuggler. Now will you give me your word that you’ll help me?”

  Mace regarded Panatic silently for a moment. “You’ve got a deal.”

  “Good. Sergeant, I think you can put away your weapon now.”

  The ringed rock of Zahir grew large in the cockpit window as Mace brought the ship in. There were a dozen vessels docked at the ring or floating nearby. Most were scout ships or small freighters like the Ordinary Trader, but there were a few that stood out. Panatic eyed a bulky Corellian corvette nervously. In a stand-up fight the bigger ship could pound Sentinel to scrap.

  A fancy yacht with gold-alloy plating on the hull was clamped to the docking ring. It looked familiar, but Panatic couldn’t place it and Mace’s computer was no help at all. Probably stolen, he decided.

  The traffic controller sounded as if he was overdue for a lung bath. “Welcome to Zahir, crossroads of the sector. All docking fees must be paid in advance. You can dock at Lock 23.”

  Beyond the airlock, Zahir was a dingy place. The broad corridor of the docking ring was full of dust and litter, and half the glow panels were dark. The walls were marked with graffiti and blaster burns. Twice they had to step over people sprawled on the floor, either drunk or dead.

  At the entrance to one of the three tubes linking the docking ring to the central asteroid, they met what passed for customs on Zahir. A wrinkled old Twi’lek with a missing tentacle stopped them at the door while a couple of Gamorrean thugs stood by with blasters.

  “Docking fee. Twenty credits.”

  Mace paid him. Panatic tried to look bored and tough under the gaze of the Gamorreans. One of them snorted and turned away.

  They rode the slideway down one of the tubes linking the docking ring to the main body of Zahir. The center of the complex was a huge domed garden, which time and neglect were turning Into a tangled jungle. A cleared area held an open-air bazaar, where vendors at a dozen crude stalls sold everything from glow-wine to protocol droids.