Star Wars - Tales From The Mos Eisley Cantina

by Kevin J. Anderson

  hiding in his propulsion wake-the same two he had faced before.

  For whatever reason, perhaps to avenge the death of their wingman,

  Sivrak was still at least a worthy target to them.

  The Wolfman felt relieved the choice had been taken from him.

  There was now no need to plan, no need to decide. There was only

  the fight. The balance. The reassuring enormity of now.

  Unable to change his fighter's course in space, he threw it

  into a spiraling roll, releasing all his decoys and mines in an

  expanding cloud of sensor-opaque, carbon-fiber chaff. Then he

  locked his rear sights onto the cloud's dark center, daring one or

  both of the TIE fighters to survive the cloud's perils. Sivrak

  calculated he would have time for at least two shots before the

  Imperial pilots could target him. Perhaps those shots would be

  enough. Perhaps they wouldn't. Sivrak did not care either way.

  He glanced ahead a t the rushing disk of the moon, colors

  smearing as he wildly spun. At last, he felt the first tremors of

  atmospheric resistance fight his craft's roll. With fierce

  satisfaction, he pictured his X-wing tearing itself into pieces,

  raining down on the moon like a comet come to die. It was a good

  image. A fitting image. A hunter's death.

  The tactical display flashed as the mines he had deployed

  erupted behind him. At least one of the fighters had vanished. But

  then the display glowed as a piercing beam of brilliant energy

  shot from the defensive carbon cloud, blinding his rear sensors

  with a wash of static-filled white that enveloped Sivrak like a

  smothering snowdrift-

  -carved by the icy winds of Hoth.

  Sivrak dove for the trench before him as an energy bolt from an

  Imperial walker obliterated a nearby gun emplacement. Echo

  Station-the Rebel base's lone outpost on the north ridge-was a

  charnel house. The awkward dead lay all around him as he pushed

  himself to his feet and shook the snow and ice from his matted

  fur. It was so achingly cold he could not even scent the blood of

  the dying. But then he caught the scent of her.

  The ground shook with the thunder of approaching walkers and

  the constant firing of the ion cannon as desperate Rebels tried to

  clear the way for the retreating transports. But Sivrak was aware

  of only one sensation-she was close.

  He ran to her, dodging the other troops in the slippery, ice-

  lined trench, his brilliant orange flight suit startling amongst

  their white Hoth camouflage. The main communicator channel

  crackled with the call to evacuate all ground crew. The command

  center had been hit. All troops in Sector 12 were to report to the

  south post to protect the fighters. But Sivrak was beyond the

  reach of orders now. He collapsed in the snow at Dice's side.

  It was stained with the rich purple of her blood.

  Sivrak spoke her name and touched her face, afraid to disturb

  the ragged shard of metal that had sliced through her insulated

  suit and cut deeply into her upper thorax. Purple drops of frozen

  blood shone there, as if, for her, time had stopped.

  Her eye sensors trembled and stiffened and she looked up at

  him.

  "Go," she said.

  "How can I?" he answered. "I have sworn allegiance to the

  Princess and the return of the Republic."

  The lamproid's teeth shifted in amusement, even as her gasp of

  pain formed mist in the icy air.

  "You never meant to wear the uniform of a Rebel. That day in

  the cantina, when we first met, you only accepted my offer to join

  the Alliance as a way to wrap yourself in my coils."

  She was right, of course. The first time in the cantina -the

  real first time-he had made much of his Rebel sympathies, sensing

  it might make him a more acceptable companion to her. But in time,

  he had come to believe in what the Alliance stood for. He had

  become a proud and willing warrior in its cause. But now Dice was

  dying and the past no longer mattered.

  "What is the past?" Dice asked, reading his mind again.

  Sivrak tore the med-kit from his belt, somehow knowing that

  another battle was being fought above a world of forests. He

  stared blankly at the contents of the kit. Most of its salves and

  ointments were for his species. He had no idea how they would

  react with Horn biology. But he had to do something.

  "You have done something," Dice said soothingly. Her voice was

  calm, almost peaceful. She fixed her light sensors on the clear

  blue sky.

  "We are alike," she continued, "as you have always known. The

  hunter and the killer know the sick and diseased must be culled

  from the herd-and the Empire is rotten with corruption. That is

  why you must leave me, to continue our fight until its end."

  The vials and tubes from the med-kit spilled into the snow from

  Sivfak's rigid paws. "Dice, no. I can't."

  "I know you can't. In time, I know you won't. But for now, my

  love, you must. Alliance and Empire. Predator and prey."

  Sivrak's communicator sounded the evacuation code sound. A

  terse voice announced that Imperial troops had entered the base.

  "I.will die with you here," Sivrak said.

  He cradled her head close against his warm body.

  "What is death compared to love?" Dice asked, her voice fading.

  Sivrak could not move. He was losing her.

  "What you must do," she whispered, "is believe in the Force."

  "If you wish me to," Sivrak said thickly, unwilling to argue

  with the old religion if that is what brought her peace at this

  time. He felt the mourning cry rise in his chest.

  "Not because I wish you to, but because there is no other

  choice you can make."

  Before Sivrak could answer, the lamproid's body shivered, then

  quietened. He stared down at Dice as one by one her light sensors

  drooped, losing focus, losing contact. And then, amid the sounds

  of battle light-years removed from the moment that they shared,

  Dice blessed him with the Force, willing it to remain with him,

  forever.

  Sivrak held her body until a walker destroyed the main

  generator and the fall-back lines finally fell. Energy beams cut

  through the air like falling stars. Sivrak's communicator relayed

  a final evacuation alert. The roar of departing transports, now

  launching two at a time, was continuous.

  But as if he were on a different world, one that knew no war or

  conflict, Sivrak arose and moved with a slowness and surety that

  set him apart from the chaos around him.

  He heard no explosions as he laid Dice upon the snow,

  sheltering her in an alcove of the trench. He felt no walker's

  footfall as he arranged her fur-trimmed hood around her serene,

  unmoving face, and caressed her ringed teeth that were never again

  to know the bliss of shredded flesh.

  A human Rebel slipped to a near halt in the trench and pulled

  on Sivrak's arm to urge him to the evacuation point. But Sivrak's

  snarl sent the human on alone.

  Then Sivrak stood over his beloved and took his blaster from

  his holster. He had he
ard the stories of what the Imperial

  biogeneticists did with the bodies of the Rebel dead. How parts

  could be cloned and kept alive for unspeakable research, or

  Imperial sport. He set the blaster for full immolation.

  "May your Force be with you," he said in the most intimate

  inflection of the predator's tongue, and his breath swirled into

  the frozen air to join with hers.

  He would make it to the evacuation point or he would not. There

  was no reason to hurry.

  Sivrak activated the blaster.

  Dice's body shimmered with the disassociative energy of the

  beam. She became fiery, incandescent, and somehow, Sivrak thought,

  she might have appreciated diat transformation. And then the fire

  that consumed her reached out for Sivrak, engulfing him too as-

  -a single TIE fighter emerged from the carbon cloud with all

  weapons firing blindly. Blinking with surprise, Sivrak felt the

  chill of Hoth still pulsing through him as he instinctively

  switched from his etheric rudder to full atmospheric controls, and

  dodged the killing strands of the TIE fighter's beams until his

  rear sights locked and he fired.

  The TIE fighter flew apart as Sivrak's beam tore open its skin

  and the moon of Endor's atmosphere instantly ripped the Imperial

  craft to dust-sized fragments. The hunt was over.

  But now the Endor moon filled his canopy. Sivrak, slammed at

  the atmospheric controls, fighting to reduce the X-wing's roll.

  The navigation display showed his two possible courses. One to

  safety. One to the gen-; erator. The rear display showed the Death

  Star firing at i will. The X-wing shook as it tore through the

  thickening atmosphere. Sivrak's claws dug into the yoke. He was

  less than thirty heartbeats from the point of no return. Again, he

  had to decide. He couldn't decide. The atmosphere sang to him.

  Like music. Like music from-

  -the cantina. Sivrak leaned against the wall inside the

  doorway, trying to understand what he heard outside on the streets

  of Mos Eisley. Fighting. Rioting. Speeders rushing. Detonations

  from the direction of the spaceport.

  He stumbled down the stairs to the bar, breathless, feeling the

  panic of time running out.

  It was night. The cantina was deserted. The music was recorded.

  Something was wrong.

  Sivrak slumped against the bar, feeling it shudder as if it

  coursed through atmosphere.

  "Jabba is dead," Dice said.

  Sivrak looked up from the bar to find the lamproid close beside

  him, studying the reflections in her snifter of clarified blood.

  "How...?" Sivrak rasped. His question took in everything that

  had happened but Dice heard it in only one way.

  "Strangled on his sand ship," Dice said. "A human slave girl,

  of all things. Used her own chains."

  From somewhere outside, there was an explosion, much closer

  than the spaceport. The bottles and glasses stacked up behind the

  bar rattled.

  Dice picked up her snifter. "Mos Eisley is in flames. No one

  knows who is in control." She unrolled her drinking tongue into

  the blood and ingested.

  Sivrak smoothed the fur around his muzzle in agitation. He knew

  there was something he had to do, but he couldn't work it out. He

  had to discover what was out of place here.

  "If Jabba is dead," he began uncertainly, "then Hoth . . . Hoth

  has already been evacuated."

  Dice put the snifter back on the bar top. "That's right," she

  said.

  Sivrak felt the fur lift along his spine. "But then," he said,

  "you're dead."

  Dice slid the tip of her tail across Sivrak's forearm. "Do I

  feel dead?" she asked.

  The Wolfman closed his claws o ver the tail tip, focusing only

  on the magic of her improbable presence. He heard other sounds

  now. Shuffling. Voices. Boots grinding sand into the floor. He

  looked up at Dice. They were sitting at the table in the corner,

  the horned Devaronian nodding to the music behind them. Now the

  cantina was full, bustling. As it had been, long ago.

  "The golden droid will come in soon," Sivrak said. He wasn't

  sure how, but he was beginning to understand what was happening,

  the choice he must make. "And then the golden droid will leave

  again."

  Dice's light sensors Were unfathomable, as deep as a gravity

  well. "And what of you, this time?" she asked, as if she had read

  his mind. "Will you choose to leave as well?"

  "The Force," Sivrak said with wonder as understanding finally

  welled within him. "The Force is with me, isn't it?"

  Dice smiled, an irksome habit in those who knew the Force so

  well. "The Force is within everything," she said.

  "But here and now, in this cantina" - Sivrak's voice rose as

  all that had happened, all that would happen, all that might

  happen, converged on him at once - "in the trenches of Hoth, or

  falling toward some nameless moon of Endor - the Force binds it

  all."

  His pulse hammered, his lungs strained for air. A flicker of

  light by the entrance showed that someone had entered the cantina.

  The Devaronian glanced over to see who it was.

  "Of course," Dice said, as if she had heard every word he had

  spoken uncounted lifetimes ago.

  The farm boy appeared on the stairs as the old man hurried

  ahead. The Artoo unit and the golden droid followed behind.

  "This time, when the golden droid leaves, I can leave too,

  can't I?" Sivrak asked.

  "That choice was yours when we first met," Dice said. "Nothing

  has changed."

  Sivrak felt the worldlines converge, then pull apart, not on

  this one place and time, but on this one feeling, this one

  experience that transcended all else.

  He now knew that through some trick of the Force, he could

  follow the golden droid back onto the streets of Mos Eisley, and

  all would be as it had been before he had met Dice Ibegon.

  The same choice but a second chance.

  In love, Dice had given him this way out.

  "Hey," the bartender growled from behind the bar. "We don't

  serve their kind here."

  Sivrak watched intently. The farm boy talked with his droids.

  Only heartbeats remained. The time between one decision and

  another. One direction or the other.

  "I don't want to leave you," Sivrak said to Dice.

  "Knowing all that you know?" she asked. "Knowing with certainty

  what lies ahead?"

  Sivrak didn't answer. He simply reached out to her, to gather

  her coils close around him for one timeless moment that would

  last, had lasted, forever.

  The golden droid left the cantina. The music played. Sivrak

  waited for the hum of the old man's lightsaber to drown out all

  other noise.

  "Sometimes choice is an illusion," Sivrak said, at last knowing

  that all choices were the same choice, and had been from the

  instant he had set foot into this cantina and seen Dice Ibegon,

  waiting as she had always waited to join him.

  He forced his eyes shut, knowing all that would happen. The old

&n
bsp; man reached into his cloak and pulled out his antique lightsaber.

  The glow of its beam sparkled from the glasses on the bar. The

  Aqualish pirate screamed. The cantina shuddered-

  -under the withering assault of the Endor moon's atmosphere.

  Sivrak bayed at that moon as he lifted the nose of the X-wing

  to make it skip through the turbulence, riding his own sonic

  compression wave, shedding just enough speed to bring his velocity

  below the X-wing's critical stress load. This time he reached the

  point of no return and knew at once he had always lived his life

  precisely at this moment. The enormity of now. His movements were

  instinctual, no thought required, no decision possible. He pulled

  on the control yoke to bring his course around to intersect with

  the ground generator's coordinates.

  His X-wing screamed through the atmosphere, the forward

  deflector shields blazing red like a dying star. His tactical

  display remained silent - no Imperial ground defenses tracked him.

  Standard defenses were unbreachable, but perhaps, with the space

  battle in progress above, these weren't standard times.

  The navigation display confirmed his trajectory. Over-the-

  horizon scanners locked him onto the generator's transmission

  antenna. The X-wing bucked like a crazed tauntaun. Everything

  Sivrak saw blurred before him, blending in with the cacophony of

  his communicator a burst of static, then Ackbar's exultant voice

  - "The shield is down! Commence attack on the Death Star's main

  reactor!"

  The moon's forest streaked below Sivrak's X-wing as he saw a

  plume of smoke and fire rush for him, the remains of the

  transmission antenna already destroyed. Solo's strike team had

  succeeded after all.

  General Calrissian's voice broke up with static. "We're on our

  way!" Raw cheering voices. Human and Bothan. Mon Calamari and

  Bith. Even a droid who announced it had always wanted to do this.

  It was the frenzy of a successful hunt, Sivrak knew, even as he

  understood that no power in the universe could stay the streaking

  course of his fighter, because it had already been set by the

  strongest power.

  The flaming ruins of the Imperial base came at him with the

  speed of destiny. Calmly, Sivrak took his claws from the controls

  -

  -and walked the forest of Endor's moon.

  It was night. The breeze was cool. His nostrils were aflame