Edge of the Empire — Chapter II Finale
Chapter II | Episode VII | The conclusion to the Jewel of Yavin, and current chapter in the adventures of the Outer Rim’s most prominent crew.
Kaltho the Hutt raises his short, fatty arms in triumph. His booming voice echos around the museum as he celebrates his new acquisition — the Jewel of Yavin. His deep, booming cheers gurgle and echo through the museum as the Hutt’s entourage slathers him with gluttonous praise.
Across the room, the old woman, Elaiza stares in disgust at the overzealous Hutt; disdain in her eyes. Most of the guests join in the praise, some more genuine than others. As she watches the patrons file out of the museum, she slinks into the shadows and begins to execute the next steps of her plan.
Twil’s crew quickly come to the realization that they’ve not won the bidding, the reality of the situation dawns on them — they have to act fast or the gem will soon be in the possession of Kaltho the Hutt.
Twil, immediately reiterates his objection to the morally objectionable tactic, and heads back to the Sovereign, contemplating how he’ll deal with his promise to his contact. Idozzi, Zanroy, and Rath quickly gather to discuss their next steps, Grayson refusing to take his gaze off of the disguised Idozzi who looks like the recently deceased Empire spy Tirisa Lek (psuedonym “Zekra Fol”). Grayson’s seething rage is evident, and can only match his confusion.
While the rest of the group huddles together, Draven turns to Grayson again, rushing up within inches of the man’s face. Immediately he demands answers. Not many things could pull Grayson’s gaze away from the disguised Idozzi, but this does. He grabs Draven with a cold, steely grip, and shoves him back into the kitchen area, holding him tightly by the collar.
“Listen, homeless desert scum. That ‘scientist’ you talked about was a good friend of mine. He may died before his work was done, but frankly, I don’t owe you anything.” He pushes Draven further, sliding him along a slick wall. He glances back at Idozzi, his teeth clenched. “Nor, I don’t have the patience right now.”
Draven’s eyes scan the room, ensuring he is out of sight of anyone else. He can only hear the distant murmurs of the crowd and hum of the mechanical cameras. Knowing he is cleared from being seen by the now rerouted cameras, Draven throws his arms upwards in full force, breaking Grayson’s grapple with blistering power. In a beat he brings his left arm back, then thrusting it forward into Grayson’s soft, fleshy midsection with a flat palm. As he does so, he simultaneously brings his right leg behind Grayson’s left, and slams the unsuspecting auctioneer to the ground with a sickening crack. In his moment of confusion, Grayson doesn’t notice the drawn blade at his throat until he attempts to move and feels the cold metal dig into his neck.
“Move another inch and you’ll never enjoy the credits from your sale.” grunts Draven now straddling the downed Grayson. “Tell me who I am, and you live. So much as hesitate, and no one will ever find your corpse”. Beads of sweat appear on the floored man’s clammy forehead as he begins to make sense of his new situation. “SPEAK!” screams the masked Draven. Grayson now feeling hot breath on his face forces out a pained “…Okaaa…..O……OKAY! All I know is that you were a cog in a machine. A piece of a bigger whole. You were born an experiment and it was never intended that you’d leave.” Draven’s eyes widen, “…but the Empire shut down that program, it was never…” Grayson is cut off by a fit of coughs forced out of his chest by the pressure of Draven bearing down on his chest. He continues after regaining his breath, Draven doesn’t budge. “…he’s on the wheel…a droid named IT-3P0…” Bright flashing lights erupt in Grayson’s head as he is cut off by a hot, concussive blow to the side of the head from back of Draven’s blade. From what Draven understands, the wheel is a space station, infamous for being one of the most dangerous and lawless hubs in the entire outer rim.
Back in the other room the group notices Draven as he emerges from the kitchen area of the museum. His comrades have concocted some sort of plan. Rath speaks up first, “We need to get out of here now. Where were you?”. Draven glares at him and only utters “It’s fine. Lets go. I have somewhere to be once we grab this gem”. As the group turns to leave the museum, they notice an alerted group of guards looking panicked, surely looking for the now-missing auctioneer.
They emerge out into the busy and bustling street. Although its approaching midnight, they notice a large crowd just outside of the museum entrance. In the middle of the crowd, hints of pink flash through the gaps. Upon closer inspection, they notice a very content Twil in his flashy coat signing autographs and taking pictures. The Zeltron couldn’t be more at home. After rolling his eyes, Rath says his goodbyes to Zanroy and Draven and gestures for Idozzi to follow him. Just like the group had discussed earlier, Idozzi breaks from the other two and wishes them luck, following Rath closely behind. They both slowly disappear into the shadow of the cavernous city, heading straight for the Cloud City Central Bank.
As they vanish into the darkness of the Cloud City night, Zanroy and Draven turn and head to the Central Wind Corridor, the large open space that enables the repulsorlift technology that keeps the city afloat. They weave through the upper crust of the metropolitan city and eventually find themselves in wet, bland back walkways and maintenance alleys. Sensing something behind him, but unable to confirm with any visual evidence, Zanroy heightens his defenses as the duo near the Wind Cooridor access tunnel.
Back at the cloud city bank, they notice one of the cities banking droids making its way back for routine maintenance just as they had planned. Right on queue the droid turns to enter the maintenance tunnel, but before it does Rath pulls a wild-looking bundle of wires from his back, and runs over to the droid. Slamming the wired device down onto the back of the droid, the unit immediately freezes from the powerful ion blast, and powers down. With Idozzi watching their backs, Rath grabs the deftly crafted computer dataspike from his bag and begins to adjust some settings on it. After a few tense moments, he jams the spike into a spare dataport on the side of the droid, which causes it to beep back to life. “Follow us! Quickly!” shouts Rath to the overridden droid.
Obviously combating an internal mess of subroutines and foreign code, the droid hesitates before ultimately complying with the Chiss’s command. Jogging over to a predetermined abandoned alley, the two immediately get to work on the droid out of sight of any passersby. Rath connects to the overridden droid easily with his newfound implant. The G-100 droid’s programming is immensely tamper proof, but will only take a short time for Rath to deal with. Immediately he disconnects the droid from the bank’s network, severing any connection it might have had with Lobot, the city’s computer network administrator. Next, Rath draws upon his freshly crafted cracking algorithm to do his work. Moving his hands in the air for gestures, he navigates the complex banking droids programming.
After a few tense moments, the Chiss is able to track down the account they’re looking for — Marus Grayson. To his delight, the Hutt’s funds have already been transferred into Grayson’s account and are ripe for the picking. Coming out to an equal 300,000 credits when rounded for fees and compliance charges for the auction, Rath realizes this is the most money he’s ever seen in one place. The cold hard credits stare back at the Chiss begging him to take them.
Rath activates the screen implanted in the droid’s chest to make its interface accessible to non-cybernetic-wearing friends. Idozzi trades her post to Rath at the entrance of the Alleyway. She runs over to the droid, typing away furiously at the unlocked funds, and she begins depositing the stash into shell accounts and holding companies around the entire galaxy, effectively leaving no traceable evidence for any furious accounts holders that might go looking for their funds.
Meanwhile at the front of the alley it’s obvious that the missing droid has caused some chaos in front of the bank. Rath, now wearing his stealth equipment, counts more than 10 security guards and bank employees that have converged on the spot the droid had last reported from — the spot they stole it. It’s only a matter of time before they’re tracked down.
Tense moments pass as the party of enforcers begins to move outwards in their search for what they assume is a malfunctioning droid. Rath alerts Idozzi that her time may be running out. “Hurry! Cover your tracks. They’re coming!” She continues to makes her final batch of transfers over what seems like an eternity.
Footsteps emanate from the alley perpendicular to the alley in which the duo are holding the banking droid. Rath stands at a 90 degree angle to the sound and waits patiently at the corner, back pressed hard against the wall. The sound draws near. 20 feet. 15 feet. 10 feet. The footsteps splash in a small puddle and keep moving. 5 feet. Rath hears the sound of a weapon unsheathing and blasts forward in instinct, reaching wide around the corner. He takes his best guess at where to grab the figure and guesses low — the hulking guard is at least a foot taller than the Chiss, forcing Rath’s awkward grapple to dig into the figure’s chest and shoulder. Digging into the muscled flesh with his strong fingers, Rath clenches then heaves backwards, pulling the Goliath around the corner. Had the guard been expecting anything, Rath wouldn’t have stood a chance.
Thanks to a powerful centripetal force, Rath is able to whip the guard around slamming him shoulder first into the dark alley wall with a sickening crunch. A gun goes flying, clattering down the alleyway. The guard groans in pain as Rath unsheathes his own holdout blaster, and fires a point blank stun round into the guard’s spine, instantly forcing the giant of a man into an awkward prone position as the bolt quickly spreads through the man’s nervous system.
“We have to go. NOW!” screams the chiss in a harsh yell to Idozzi. She quickly begins closing accounts, windows, traces, and logs. “You’re going to have to wipe the local logs unless you have a way of getting rid of this droid!” says the Twi’lek as she wraps up her transfers. Grunting impatiently, Rath takes a quick look for other guards before sprinting back to the decommissioned droid. He looks down at Idozzi and says “I’ve got something better”. She finishes up, passing the droid off to Rath. With a few quick keystrokes on the droid’s interface, a small counter lights up with the number 15, which immediately turns to 14, then 13…before it hits 10, Rath has grabbed idozzi’s forearm and is dragging her full sprint down the alley.
“This one is for you, little Janos!” says Twil as a flash pops up from a holocamera selfie. The wide-smiling Zeltron is mid photo as a large blast rocks the floor. The muffled sound comes from what seems a few dozen levels below, but he thinks he knows what that signals. “I’m sorry, folks. That’s going to have to be all for tonight, I have somewhere I need to be, but I’ll be back soon, I promise!” A wave of sighs and an audible “awwww” can be heard washing over the mostly female crowd as Twil’s attitude changes from playful to stern. He cuts off his impromptu fan moment, breaking through the crowd at a brisk pace, doing his best to delicately shovel his way through the anxious entourage. As he finally emerges from the pile of endless fans, he pulls up a frantic R5 on his wrist communicator.
A cutting wind rips and pulls at Zanroy’s clothing as he continues up another ladder inside of the Central Wind Cooridor. Close behind him, a masked Draven follows behind, slowly pushing against the gale-force winds. The wind not only berates them from the top, but seemingly from every direction as the repuslorlifts adjust constantly to eliminate vibrations in the floating city, and keep it aloft without inducing sea sickness in its inhabitants.
The stark and plan cavern has little adornment other than a handful of maintenance hatches, utility shafts, and sleeping Rawwks. The carnivorous, hawk sized mammals enjoy making their nests in the solid gantries interspersed throughout the cavern, and are not pleasant to deal with. Carefully avoiding a few lazy motion sensors isn’t much of a task for the two. The ladders themselves have no monitoring system associated with them, only the cooling and heating ducts maintain any kind of active security, and as long as they don’t go poking in the wrong hatches, they won’t encounter any problems.
After nearly 30 minutes of climbing vertically, the pair come to a dripping maintenance grate. The smell quickly confirms what the the pair sees on Zanroy’s wrist communicator’s map readout — they’ve reached the Museum’s garbage chute. But, the dripping isn’t water…The sewage dribbling out of the bottom of the maintenance tube has slowly eaten away at the grating, leaving a rotted trail indicating the path the garbage takes on its way down to the atmosphere of Bespin. The thick brown paste slowly crawls down the pipe, bubbling out its horrendous gasses.
Holding his nose, Zanroy mutters under his breath about his fate to forever crawl in horrific, enclosed spaces for the sake of his goals. Choking back tears from the thick stench, Draven approaches the grate and clasps it with both arms. Violently ripping sideways, the grate comes off much easier than expected, thanks to the disintegrated welds which had been eaten away by the endless brown sludge. In an effort to maintain his balance, he lets the grate fly out of his hands and into the abyss of the tunnel below.
As the grating disappears into the blackness of the tunnel, a muffled rumble shakes the entire foundation of the city, knocking both of the two climbers off-balance. Grabbing tightly onto the sides of the sewage pipe, both are able to maintain their balance, but just barely. “Right on queue” says Zanroy with a simple smile. Draven, however is not as optimistic, unclipping his blaster pistols from his holsters.
In the darkness, the flapping of thick, leathery wings combine into an arrhythmic torrent in the distance. The cacophony of sounds is built on itself over and over as Rawwks wake other Rawwks. Before long, the Rawwks have formed a loose-knit writhing tornado within the tunnel. Wasting no time, Draven shoves Zanroy up into the stench-filled pipe, and he begins scaling vertically. Draven tucks his chin in an effor to better cover his mouth and nose and begins to follow, pulling in his legs just as he hears repeated thuds of the hungry Rawwks flinging themselves at what they believe are large rats, or dinner. Needle-like teeth nearly pierce the pipe as the rawwks’ open maws pound against the garbage chute, but the pair continue to scale upwards through the foul-smelling pipe.
The climb takes about 15 minutes and save for the gut-wrenching smell, is much easier than anticipated. Finally, Zanroy notices a familiar cleaning room he had spied in his earlier inspection of the museum, this time, however, his perspective is from the floor. He jumps up excitedly, motioning for Draven to catch up from behind him. Setting foot on the cold hard ground of the museum he had been inside earlier gives him a strange sense of deja-vu. This time, however, he hadn’t accounted for the cleaning droids treating him as a hostile. A small, rotund cleaning droid and its companion instantly light up in alarm at the sight of two unauthorized persons. Before the droids can set off an alarm, they’re shorted out by stun blasts from both Draven and Zanroy via perfectly paired shots, rendering the round droids completely useless, as their plating has not been built to resist blaster stun bolts.
Inside the museum, Zanroy’s stealth tactics are put to the test. To the feeling of sweet satisfaction, he instantly spots 4 guards on patrol following the route he had scouted earlier. Motioning to Draven to move to a parallel wall on his count. Mouthing a countdown, the two move with abrupt, hushed footsteps, sliding across the glossy museum floor. Draven is the first to act. Kicking with full force, he throws the first guard’s feet forward with enough force to flatten him on his back, immediately coming down with a forceful elbow to the solar plexus, quickly knocking the guard unconscious with little effort, and even less sound.
As Draven glances over, Zanroy has dispatched an equally unfortunate guard, but he acted so quickly that Draven didn’t even see how he took the guard out. Just two more remain. As Zanroy launches forward to his next victim, Draven’s target begins to cough up blood all over, alerting the guards to his situation. As his target turns to the downed guard, Zanroy puts his shoulder down, ramming the flat-footed guard, shoving him hard into the holodisplay behind him. Glass and fragments of the display explode outwards in a horrific glass shower of sharp shards.
To Zanroy’s pleasant surprise, the hit was forceful enough to knock the guard unconscious. He checks to be sure before getting up. He turns to ensure that Draven had heard his queue to take out the other guard, but can’t see him. To his surprise, Zanroy’s consciousness is brought to a vsion of sorts that depicts Draven on the opposite side of a divider wall, in the clasp of a guard. He also sees himself approach the figure from behind, with a shiny piece of debris in his left hand. With a sharp jolt, he’s brought back to reality, staring at the blank wall. He doesn’t know what he has just seen, but he decides to trust whatever instinct he just had.
Slowly approaching the wall from what would be the back of the guard, he hears the frantic huffing of stressed breathing. Peeking around the corner, he spots a guard gripping Draven’s head, clutching to his jaw and mouth shut with one hand and shoving a holdout blaster to the nape of his neck with the other, thus making Draven unable to move in his unfortunate position. Focusing himself, Zanroy slowly approaches the guard until he comes within a few feet. He feels the guard’s mind in a frazzled state of panic and confusion. Lobbing the piece of debris to the opposite side of the room causes it to clatter against the far marble floor, instantly drawing the guard’s attention. In the split second, he feels out to Draven, shouting “Now!” trigging a forceful kick against the guard’s foot, just as draven palms his hand against the guard’s head propelling the guard awkwardly sideways, nearly breaking his neck in the process.
To Zanroy’s surprise, the guard doesn’t just topple to the ground awkwardly, but is rather, nearly 25 feet across the room, cartwheeling across the glossy marble museum floor until he comes to a sickening crunch as his body is stopped by a holodisplay’s footing. The guard doesn’t move, but neither of the pair can take their eyes off of him. “What did you just do?” asks Draven. “I…I have no idea. I’ve never done anything like that.” Zanroy stutters back, “It was the strangest thing, I knew you were there, but I never heard you coming. Whatever that was, I knew that I was supposed to act once you shouted.”
“I just kept thinking it through in my mind, and it went exactly how I expected it to go. It’s like I could see what was going to happen…” After a few beats, the pair re calibrate their thoughts, and move to quickly move across the museum to the entry of the display room where the gem is being kept, waiting while the funds clear from the auction and before being delivered to its new master. They each take a side of the entrance to the Gem’s holding room. Inside, displays line the walls, giving information in several languages on the history and uses of corusca gems. Images and replicas of jewels and clothing incorporating the gems are also displayed in cabinets, though the imitations fail utterly to match the fiery shimmer of the real thing. On a small table to one side of the room is a black marble plinth upon which sits the Jewel of Yavin, and even in the murky half-light of the darkened museum, it shimmers with a fierce inner light. Zanroy pulls up his wrist-mounted holo communicator and whispers “We’re ready”.
“What do you mean it’s not down yet? Why do we even keep you here!” shouts Rath to R5. The droid bites back with an aggressive array of beeps. “We rescued you, remember? Make sure you’re pulling your weight around here….Oh don’t even think about it, I could go back to Tatooine and find your old restraining bolt in the amount of time its taking you to…Well great, that took you long enough…Yeah well, I like you too, but I know you can do better next time. They’re in there right now!”
The bickering between the droid and the Chiss is interrupted by a soking wet Twil emerging from the Sovereign’s glowing hot tub. “What’s going on here? Do you two need a chaperone? Play nice, or I’ll send Vex in here to teach you all about his new protocols.” The suggestion is met with immediate panicked responses from both parties, and a promise to behave better. “Did you get them access yet?” continues Twil. “We did, no thanks to this bucket of bolts. I sometimes think that my implant gives me faster processing than what you’re capable of.” R5 rumbles a low displeased beep as the comms open up with the voice of Draven, “Would you both just shut up and turn off these security sensors?” “I’d really like to get out of this place before someone realizes we just wounded four guards, and destroyed some really nice maintenance droids.” chimes in Zanroy.
The half-nude, toweled Zeltron decides he’s heard enough of the whole operation and decides to head to his quarters, offering his help if anything happens, “…but don’t wake me up unless it’s serious.” he adds. Rath gets a smile on his face, and responds to the anxious Draven, “Ask nicely now…” A chirpy R5 jokes on comms and the response from Zanroy and Draven are almost immediate, “R5 are you flashing the lights on and off for fun?!”
Back in the museum, Draven and Zanroy are being treated to the greatest light show Cloud City has seen since the night before when Twil had been entertaining half the city. The droid has mischievously turned the museum into a disco-hall of sorts, turning on and off the dramatic lighting patterns of the exhibits in rhythmic patterns. After a brief chance to get over its droid humor, Rath locks the railings and system down, opening up room for the entrance of the two intruders.
Inside the room, the exhibits about the gem focus on its history, markings, importance, value, and uses. The pair glance over the exhibit, only mildly amused by the gem. Zanroy approaches the gem with a particular anxiety, knowing the human lives that have been involved in getting this far. As he reaches out to the gem, time seems to slow, and the gem begins to vibrate mildly and calmly. “Is this really happening?” thinks Zanroy to himself. Glancing over, he notices no change in the onlooking Draven. “Have I lost it? What am I seeing?” He reaches out, clutching the gem with both hands, sending lightening bolts running up his forearms and hitting both shoulders simultaneously. A tingling sensation first grips him at his core, then releases as it dissipates through his chest, soothing and calming throughout his nervous system.
Just as Zanroy pockets the gem, a gentle voice pierces the scene, coming from the entrance to the room. “Please stop now. Turn around and listen to me — there need be no violence between us. I’m sure that the gem you carry will bring you a rich haul of credits, and I cannot compensate you for that loss, but I must ask that you hand it over to me. ”
Zanroy and Draven quickly turn to see the silhouette of a figure in the doorway. Immediately Zanroy recognizes the face and the voice, “You. Why? What do you want with this?” The figure steps confidently from the shadows, poised to strike, hand gripping a weapon of some kind. The stark white flowing hair of Elaiza bobs up and down behind her confident stride as she stops just outside of striking distance of Draven and Zanroy. In a hushed tone she begins, “I am dedicated to bringing the values of truth and peace to the galaxy once more, but I cannot stand against my enemies unarmed. That gem will enable me to confront those who would see to enslave the galaxy using hatred and fear. ”
Draven, feeling a sudden sense of calm, confronts the woman, “Listen, lady. Whoever you are, and however you got in here, we don’t simply don’t need to find out. We have nothing against you, and I promise that if you’re able to get this far, you’re probably better off robbing something or someone more valuable…” Draven’s words trail off as he stares into the cool, confident eyes of Elaiza. She responds calmly, “You don’t understand. This isn’t about value. There are far greater things at stake than credits. Trust me.” She is almost wispering now.
She slowly approaches Zanroy and reaches out a hand. “Please, Zanroy. Search your feelings. You know what I’m telling you is true.” Inside of Zanroy’s mind, he can he can almost feel the woman reach out and calm his mind. A blanket of calm washes over him. Draven looks over, both Zanroy and Elaiza’s eyes are now closed, almost peacefully.
As Zanroy begins to lift the gem from his pocket, the silence is ripped apart. A scream explodes from the entrance to the chamber, and Elaiza twirls violently, spinning as her brown robes erupt into the air in a dance of fabric and waves. A shrieking power erupts from her hand, and a flash of light blurs in front of her, the reflection bouncing around the dimly lit room. She comes down hard 180 degrees behind her, throwing her full weight forward into a swing of her arm and shoulder, all within less than a second.
Behind her one of the wounded guards from earlier drops to his knees, and then slumps forward on his face, making a short, muffled gurgling noise as his blaster rifle clatters out of his hand and onto the ground. The light from Elaiza’s hand begins to flicker and ultimately flashes into nothingness, the woman still standing in an attacking stance holding some kind of hilt. She slowly rises, keeping her head bowed, and her eyes closes. She pulls a hand to her head as though she’s concentrating, reaching for something. “There’s more of them coming. If you want to live, follow me.”
Her eyes shoot open, she turns and begins to run back to the atrium, cloak flowing and rippling behind her. Draven looks to Zanroy with a shrug. Before his shoulders even have time to slump from the elevated shrug, a chunk of his shoulder plating explodes into violent shrapnel pieces from a slicing blaster bolt. Screaming out in pain, he turns towards the sound, looking down the glinting barrel of a blaster rifle trained on his head. He’s thrust upwards onto his feet before he can even think, and before he can blink he’s heading toward the atrium, just steps behind Zanroy and Elaiza.
A rope elegantly hangs from the ceiling of the atrium, ascending upwards into the darkness. By the time Zanroy and Draven arrive in the room, the woman is already nearly 30 feet up, and just feet from the dark rafters. A burst of air is unleashed from the front entrance of the museum where piercing beams of lasers kaleidoscope around the darkened interior from the barrels of security guard blasters.
Zanroy looks back, to Draven and then jumps to the hanging rope left by the Elaiza, and he begins to climb faster than he’s ever climbed in his life.
“That seems like a stupid idea, R5, very stupid indeed. There’s no way Master Twill will allow for this” says 41-Vex as he waddles down the loading ramp of the sovereign, following R5. “Hey, where do you think you two are going?!” shouts an angry Twil. The Zeltron wearing a robe of the most refined, soft fibers this side of the the core worlds looks up from a panel, wonder why the two droids are leaving the ship without permission. “R5 insists on showing me something, he claims he has information that is vital to this crew’s well being.” Twil, now very intrigued walks over to what seems to be an uncharacteristically embarrassed R5. He bends down and address the droid’s optical sensor directly. In a fatherly tone he questions the droid, “What’s this all about, buddy? If there’s something that might affect us, I’d like to know about it”. The droid looks around nervously, but says nothing. “He wouldn’t tell me either, Master Twil. He simply told me it was of great importance and to not tell anyone.” chimes in Vex. R5 abruptly turns its swivel head and extends its electric charge arm, jolting the unaware medical droid with a powerful zap to the calf, accompanied with a series of loud, angry beeps. After a few chuckles Twil points back to the ship and tells the droids to power down inside the Sovereign. R5 slowly rolls up the ramp, Vex following closely behind. “Of course I don’t have a restraining bolt, why would you think…What? How rude! What a fowl mouthed little droid you are. At least I’m not some junkyard helper that…I what!?! You can clean your own servos next time!” The two bickering droids head back into the ship, Twil shaking his head on the way up.
Back inside, Twil opens up the Sovereign’s comms. “Everything ok in there, you two?” asks the captain. He waits patiently for a response from Draven and Zanroy, but gets nothing but static. “Hey, can you two hear me?”. Silence. A third time he begins to speak, when a transmission on the ship’s main computer pops up on the terminal screens, originating from the dock controller and preempting his attempt.
“This message is intended for Captain Twil Pin, and the crew of the Sovereign. The forfeiture of your ship for investigation is required. Please remove yourself, any cargo, and crew members. If you do not comply, you will be removed with force, and arrested. You have 15 minutes to comply”. Twil immediately returns a message to dock control, “What are you, crazy? I’m Twil! The Twil! What could be so important that you would kick me off of my own legally owned ship after giving your city the biggest economic boost in its history? Don’t you know who I am? On top of that, I’m paying my dock fees like everyone else!”. The controller responds, “I’m sorry sir, but your compliance is mandatory. 15 Minutes. Goodbye” The line disconnects, and transmission closes. Twil slams his fist against the wall of the sovereign. “What is going on here?” thinks the Zeltron to himself. “I cannot…will not out of principle. I’m a fully legal owner of this ship now, and The Good trader’s reputation will be ruined if I let them search it.”
Glancing out at the landing bay, Twil notes the mass exodous of ships from the landing pad. What could cause port control to evacuate all ships simultaneously? Did Draven and Zanroy spook the whole city?
“There’s at least 8 of them back there! How are we supposed to get out when they know this place as well as anyone?” Screams Draven, chasing the mad woman, and Zanroy in a full-out sprint down the walkway. “I thought you had some kind of better plan!”. Zanroy bites back “How could I know she was coming? It’s not like I invited her!”. Elazia yells back behind her shoulder, “If you two would focus your energy on running and not bickering, we’d be out of here by now!” The group runs around the outer edge of the central wind corridor, nearly half a dozen levels higher up than where Zanroy and Draven had entered, thanks to Elaiza entering from above the museum. They make their way to the entrance where she entered into the wind tunnel. On the ground two armored guards lie, but no visible sign of injury. Both are surprisingly clutching their blaster rifles. “…but how…” Zanroy trails off as they run past the guards and into the back entrance of a maintenance shaft on the edge of Port Town. The group emerges to a shockingly empty street, even for this time of night.
Zanroy slows as they reach the street, bringing up his wrist communicator, “Twil, we’ve got the…” An error pops up on his communicator, showing that he has no signal. “Draven, do you have anything? I had a signal here just the other day.” Draven shakes his head, double checking his comm frequency. Elaiza closes her eyes, concentrating on something. “Now is NOT the time to think happy thoughts!” screams Draven. She ignores him, continuing her concentration. “Something is seriously wrong. We must leave here, now.” Draven rolls his eyes, laughing off the obvious comment “What do you think we’re trying to do here!?” He snaps back. She responds, “No, I mean off of this city. Off of Cloud City. Away from Bespin. There is a great darkness here. Only pain awaits us.” Draven throws his arms up “What does that even MEAN? How would you know!?”. Elaiza completely ignores his remark and continues moving much more swiftly than either of them expected she might be capable of.
The group rounds a corner on the edge of port town which connects to the upper levels, making remarkable pacing thanks to the lack of people in the streets. Rounding corners as the wind streaks past their ears, the freedom and speed keeps Draven’s heart pumping, almost tempted to pull his mask away from his face, but he resists the urge. He couldn’t let them know. Not now.
Storming into the upper levels, the buildings change from the old, grey tones of the underbelly of the city, to the brightly lit gold tones of upper cloud city. The sun begins to rise over the horizon of the city streets, illuminating the city with another layer of golden hue.
On the horizon, a crowd of emerges, flashes of the rising sun reflecting off their clothing. Elaiza stops in her tracks, nearly causing Draven and Zanroy to smash into her. The two, winded and exhausted simultaneously bend over in pain, catching their breath, Elaiza barely breathing at all. She looks around quickly. “Do you have a way out?” She says, showing her first signs of panic, “…a vehicle to get off planet?”. Zanroy responds “I can’t connect with my pilot. We’re grounded until we get back to the landing pad…”. He ponders for a moment “Wait, Rath gave me the frequency for his contact, I can try him since he’s motivated to help us get the Gem away from that Hutt.” Elaiza responds, “Good. Contact him. Do you trust him?” Zanroy shurgs, “I barely know him, but he’s the only one I know who could provide any kind of ship for us” Zanroy pulls up his communicator, plugs in the frequency for Arend Shen.
Elaiza pushes the trio up against a nearby building, ducking in a dark shadow created by the rising sun. “Who is this? How do you have this frequency?” answers the angry Pantoran, his face showing his distaste for the distraction. Zanroy’s answer is concise, “I’m working with Rath. You made a deal with him regarding the gem. Well, now we have it and we need you to get us out of here, we have guards trailing us and something weird is going on here in the city.” Arend’s shocked face shows that he was not expecting this call, but he composes himself quickly. His response is animated and full of delight when he hears the good news. “Magnificent! You’ve made us all very rich, you know that, yes?” There’s a brief pause as he looks down at his computer. I have your location on the scanner. I will divert attention away from your position. An automated speeder will arrive in a few minutes and transport you to a safe location so we can discuss how to handle the transfer of the gem.” He disconnects from the call. “Well, that went really well” thinks Zanroy.
Back on the Sovereign, the team has split up to try and figure out what’s going on in port. Rath sneaks over to within transmission range of a port computer, and begins to go through the records via his implant while Idozzi chats with the nearby navigators and port workers distracting them while Rath works. Twil and R5 prep the Sovereign for emergency take off.
Rath returns to the ship first, running up the ramp. He looks over to Idozzi, whistling to catch her attention. She stops her conversation, looking frustrated. Both reunite at the same time at the bridge where Twil is preparing the ship for an emergency take off. “…If this damages the ship, those idiots will owe me a lot of credits! Shows their appreciation for uniting their stupid…” Rath bursts in, interrupting Twil, “We’ve got problems. Big problems. We might want to take them up on their suggestion. Cloud city has some bad visitors.”
Twil pulls up his local radar. Dozens of ships light up the display, emerging from Bespin’s atmosphere and heading for straight for port. Twil adds, “Yeah, play time is over. Lets do this R5”.
A few tense moments waiting for the shuttle from Shen seem to stretch on forever, and the periodic sound of alarm klaxons, almost certainly a result of some facet of the heist, only make matters worse. Finally, a perfectly nondescript droid-driven airspeeder drops down onto the nearby platform w. The door opens with a quiet hiss, and the interior beckons. Draven is first onto the shuttle, stepping up into the clean interior, followed closely by Zanroy and ultimately Elaiza. The door hisses shut behind them.
Draven quickly takes to the controls, inputting coordinates to the Sovereign, and hits initiate. Nothing happens. He tries overriding the controls and steering the ship manually, but the engines simply continue to hum, and nothing changes. He beckons to Zanroy to check out the controls while Elaiza stands solemnly at the entrance to the ship. After a few moment of troubleshooting, he attempts to contact Shen on his communicator. No response. “I’m getting really tired of this stupid communicator today.” He yells as he slams it against the wall multiple times in an attempt to get it working.
From the back of the Ship Elaiza screams “WE HAVE TO GET OUT!” Eliaiza reaches for the door controls, tapping the “OPEN” sequence repeatedly, but to no avail. Zanroy and Draven watch anxiously, wondering what the outburst is about. She steps back, reaching her arms out to the door, and closes her eyes, twisting and manipulating her fingers as though she’s reaching out to grab the door. Draven looks closely and sees the door begin to crumple inwards at its hinges, the metal creaking and squishing like crumpled paper.
Towards the cockpit of the small ship, a series of metal connections sounds in rapid succession, sounding like metal on metal circuits connecting. The ship entrance continues to crumple inwards until light from the sunrise begins streaking into the ship. The door screams and hisses in hydraulic anger, as it violently folds in on itself. All at once, the crumpling door explodes outwards, flying from the ship, in two cleanly cleaved pieces leaving bleeding hydraulic lines and dangling electrical connections. Elaiza seemingly flies out of the of door, glancing at the astonished onlookers. Instinctively, they follow, without a word.
Emerging from the ship, they find Elaiza in a combat stance, just feet outside of the ship. She is facing a battalion of Shen’s private security detail, all blasters trained on the group. The first guard begins to speak, “Hand it…” before he can finish, a deafening explosion in the ship behind them pushes at the backs of Draven, Zanroy and Elaiza, sending them flying onto their faces, their ears fill with white noise, and burst out in pain as they hit the smooth, cold ground.
As Draven slowly opens his eyes, he feels a sharp pain in both of his shoulders as they are stretched and pulled above his head. Looking up he’s able to see that guards dragging him backwards through a dark tunnel. As he looks up he instantly is triggered into a flashback of horror, to the day when he met the scientist. The screaming, the death, the senseless destruction. He can almost see the reflection in the white helmet’s visor starting back at him. The stormtroopper notices that Draven has awoken, and reacts with a swift, hard blaster whip to the side of Draven’s head, forcing him to bite down hard on his tongue. Draven feels the warm gush of blood in his mouth. “There’s about 8 more of those for you if you try anything” says the guard through his insidious mask. Draven lets his shoulder go limp, feeling his body pulled along the hard, unforgiving streets of the city. His hands remain close together, tied with energy cuffs to prevent his easy escape.
Looking up at the sky he curses his predicament, wondering why he ever volunteered to get involved with this group. All they did was get him deeper involved with trouble. “I need to get to the wheel.” He thinks to himself. “This Droid, whatever it is…this IT-3P0, holds answers…answers about my past. I’ve come too far to have it end here.” Wincing at the lightning bolt of pain in his jaw, he cranes his head to look around at his captors. He counts 6 guards in this group, but sees none of his crewmates. What happened to them?
He spots his chance as the troopers approach a staircase. The stormtroopers begin to haul him up the jagged, sharp stairway, Draven feeling every step eat into his spine on the way up, a washboard against each vertebrae. He spots a notch in the wall, an improvised ring for a handhold. He takes his chance.
Throwing his body against the wall, he pulls down and backwards on the Left guard’s shoulder which reacts with a sickening POP as it slides out of its socket. Howling in pain, Draven shoves the now-wailing stormtrooper’s arm into the slot in the wall, and thrusts his other fist upward, catching the jaw of the unsuspecting right guard. With the trooper’s arm now caught awkwardly in the railing in the wall, he throws himself behind the injured stormtrooper, using him as a shield between himself and the half dozen others in the entourage, now all training their blaster rifles on his head.
“PUT THEM DOWN NOW AND YOUR FRIEND DOESN’T LOSE HIS ARM!” Spits the enraged Draven, as the howling guard whines in pain. Pain shoots up Draven’s wounded neck. The guards inch closer and closer, one of them making hand signals, presumably to achieve a particular formation. In hushed tones one of the guard’s mechanical voice whispers “On my count…” as he holds up his arm at a right angle in a fist.
What happens next is a blur. An unseen force explodes into the alley, knocking all of the guards backwards at least 15 feet, leaving Draven and his body shield untouched. Draven winces on instinct, expecting yet another fireball to fill the alleyway, but he sees none. Not only is there no fireball, but the only sounds are those of the bodies of the guards hitting the ground. No wind, no explosion, nothing. Looking quickly to the way from which they entered the alleyway, Draven looks at a ragged and torn Elaiza standing in a guarded position, holding what could only be described as a sword of pure light and energy.
She stands, majestic in her power, breathing heavily, yet calmly locks eyes with Draven and says “This is not your fight.” She raises her hand toward Draven, and he feels the soft metal of the energy cuffs slide down his hand. Draven looks at the now slumped stormtrooper, and then darts off in the direction he came not fully understanding what he just encountered. Before making it even 2 blocks, he looks back at the robed woman, now running down the same stairs they had just ascended. The Empire troops have regained their footing and are firing a barrage of blaster bolts at the fleeing woman. He can almost swear she’s flying down the stairway as he turns the corner.
He quickly makes his way through the empty streets, emerging on a landing bay near the edge of Port Town. Sneaking up into the bay, he finds an abandoned junk freighter. These types of freighters are quite common in the Outer Rim, scavenging wrecks and scrap, then unloading on the nearest port. Having no sympathy for these vultures, Draven hops up to the cockpit of the filthy ship, and to his surprise finds a mostly fueled and primed ship ready for flight. He ignites the engines to the surprise of the onboard R4 unit. The low gurgling of the freighters engines roars as he pushes the ship out of port. The outdated navicomputer is luckily not too old to lack coordinates of The Wheel. After a few tense moment, the computer accepts the coordinates for the jump and carries Draven out of Bespin’s atmosphere.
White hot streaks and stars flash across Zanroy’s vision as he tries to sit up. He can feel the hot, stinging shrapnel protruding from his left abdomen, and along his back up to his shoulder. He knew his wounds were far from lethal, but they’d definitely slow him down. He tries again to sit up, this time successfully, but taking a few moments to calm his dizzied mind and vision. He looks around but can only decipher blurry objects as he feels a wave of heat at his back. Turning around he’s reminded of the recent events from the smoking, hot rubble of Arend Shen’s transport vehicle. Smoke still billows from the husk of the ship. Feeling the sharp bruise covering the left side of his face, Zanroy looks around, attempting to clear his vision.
Standing just feet away from him, a sharply dressed man in formal attire has his blaster trained on Zanroy’s head from just a few feet away. “ah ah ah” says the disapproving voice “You’ve done some bad things, Mr. Diggersby, and I wouldn’t move if I were you, unless you want a blaster bolt to be the last thing you see” He reaches into his pocket to check the gem, hopeful. Nothing. The gem is gone. “That double crossing monster will pay for his treason.” thinks Zanroy to himself.
Letting out a frustrated grunt he looks up to the voice, only to find out that the voice doesn’t belong to to just a sharply dressed man, but a man wearing the insignia of a High General in the Army of the galactic empire. “You know, it’s rather convenient that we’d track you here just perfectly to coincide with our visit. You almost couldn’t write such a beautiful and convenient story line”
“What do you want with me?” bites back Zanroy, clenching his jaw as he says the words. The haughty general arrogantly paces around the prone Zanroy, “Oh, you’re going make me a very happy man. You see, when I deliver you to the Grand Moff myself, this will surely be the act that finally gets me promoted.” Zanroy rubs his eyes, not understanding the full details of the event. “What? What promotion? Why are you here? How do you know my name?” The general chuckles quietly to himself. “Oh you’re not a hard one to spot Zanroy. We have you on record along with all of your aliases. You really think we wouldn’t be able to find you after what you did to Zekra? As far as why I’m here, it was just a coincidence, you see, the fleet landed this morning, and I was given permission to roam the city while the Grand Moff took care of some…business.”
Stunned Zanroy takes a moment to digest the thought that a grand moff could be on Cloud City of all places. Knowing he can do nothing against the man while laying prone, he slowly begins to push himself up. A blaster bolt ricochets off of the ground in front of him in blinding violence. “I didn’t say you could move, did I? Be a good little traitor, and STAY DOWN.” Shouts the General, resulting in Zanroy laying back down for the moment.
Zanroy closes his eyes, meditating upon his situation, thinking about his options. He pictures the blaster in the general’s hand, a single handed holdout blaster. He thinks of the blaster and ways to dismantle it, ways he can swat it away. The branching scenarios flay out in his mind like the branches of a tree, he begins to see his various options. He numbers them, quantifies them, sorts the opportunities and risks. Until he can feel the plan settle into place in his mind. He counts down in his mind. 3…..2……1…..
Flipping upward with immense power, Zanroy anticipates the arm of the general, narrowly avoiding a wild blaster bolt fired from the blaster. Swinging around, he brings his left arm down, pushing the pistol out of the generals arm, while simultaneously bringing his right elbow down on the generals neck. Without a sound, the general is knocked unconscious by the power of the blow, crumpling under the weight of the forceful impact, his blaster rattling to the floor.
The scene is over just as quickly as it stared, but with a reversal of positioning. Before he has a chance to even blink, Zanroy notices the silhouette of Elaiza running towards the adjacent gantry, headed straight for what looks to be the only ship left on the platform. In his mind, Zanroy can swear he sees the Gem tucked away under her left arm, safely secured in the woman’s robe. Knowing this might be his only chance to find out, he sets off running.
“Have you lost your mind?! That’s an imperial convoy!” Screams Idozzi at the top of her lungs, pointing out of the front of the ship at the dozens of imperial ships on the horizon. “Twil, There’s no chance we get out of that without them seeing us!” Twil smirks back confidently, “How many times have I flown us to safety? I can count twice just on Tatooine, one of those from the Empire as well, and that was on the Purple Pearl. Not once did you have anything to worry about. Now we’ve got this beauty” Twil leans over and pats the control console of the cockpit. Rolling her eyes Idozzi says, “I know, I’ve seen what you can do, but did you not notice that this is dozens of ships, including multiple TIEs?? They don’t just send those out for fun, you know. Even Hutts don’t mess with those”. Shrugging off the Twi’lek’s advice, Twil shouts for R5, “Hey, buddy, can you divert all power to shields and thrusters?” The astromech rolls directly to a comm port in the cockpit getting to work. “We’re gonna have some fun!”
Rath enters the combat in the middle of the conversation, “Why does it even matter if the Empire is coming to cloud city? We have nothing they want. It’s not like we’re the rebels. Plus, whatever weird interest they had in Zanroy is gone since he’s not even on the ship. I fail to see the problem here. I’d rather take my chances blowing past some idiot TIE fighters than submitting everything I have to some illegal search.”
Idozzi replies, “Well, if you remember, his is one of their own employees trying to sell a priceless gem and avoiding the taxes. They probably see it as worth stopping and scanning all ships and merchandise leaving the City, and I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be stopped by anyone in the empire, even if we have nothing to hide.”
As the smooth hum of the Sovereigns engines whirs from underneath its floors. Rath adds, “You take care of the fancy flying, Captain, I’ll make sure they can’t touch us”. Twill turns his head back to Rath “What do you have in mind?”. The hacker smiles and turns back to the communication array controls without answering the question. “Whatever that was about, I like it” smiles the Zeltron. Idozzi is now rolling her eyes at both of her crewmates. Looking out the window she thinks to herself, “I hope Zanroy and Draven are ok…”
Twil gently pushes the Sovereign gently into the air only to feel a harsh jolt pull the entire ship back down to the ground before it can even lift 5 feet up. “What was that!?” screams Twil. Rath comes on comms from the other side of the ship, “it looks like they’ve tethered us down, Their Ion tethers are draining the engines, and preventing us from leaving.” Twil shouts back “What can we do about it?”. Rath goes silent for a few beats before responding, “well…you can watch this…” his smirk is audible. Twil looks out of the undership holocameras as sparks begin to explode outward from the opposite ends of the tethers, one by one. The tethers are chained into the landing deck, providing the power to ionize the cables, and the chain reaction creates a brilliant light show of sparks flying from the ends of the tethers leaving blast marks in the floor of the platoform. The Sovereign then lifts off in a brilliant, dramatic light show.
Diving behind a pile of toppled cargo, Zanroy watches as Elaiza crosses the flat platform, speeding towards what could only be her ship. The small transport vehicle is a modest, discrete ship, unassuming and perfectly fitting the woman’s guise. He leaps up and shouts to her, “Give me back the Gem. You have no right!” She glances over, almost stumbling as she arrives at the ship, frantically attempting to open the door to the small transport.
Realizing that she has no intention of stopping, Zanroy bolts up and after her. As he approaches full speed, he realizes that she’s running with a cause: a brigade of stormtroopers emerge from around the corner at the far end of the platform, rifles pointing at her. Observing his new predicament Zanroy makes the split second decision to continue with his momentum, quickly closing the gap between him and the ship.
Finally able to open the hatch, Elazia pulls down hard on the door as she climbs in, but the door doesn’t close. Just as it is about to seal a hard thud comes from the outside of the ship. Under the edge of the door, fingers lift upwards, and Zanroy ducks into the small ship holding a blaster to Elaiza’s head. “The gem. NOW!” screams Zanroy. With calm, but stern resolve she says “I need this more than you. You have to go now or we’re both dead”.
“I’m not leaving without that gem” continues Zanroy, blaster still held against the side of the woman’s skull. A beat passes. The door to the ship flies open behind Zanroy. Shouting of multiple stormtroopers screaming to “drop the weapon” and “get out of the ship!” flare from behind him. Zanroy’s gaze doesn’t deviate, “You hand it over or we’re both dead.” says Zanroy, teeth clenched.
Elaiza looks up at Zanroy, and whispers, “You owe me” She thrusts her hand outward, as though she’s pushing an immense weight. Screaming with a roar of power, an invisible wall smashes into the storm troopers with astonishing force, sending the entire group flailing with a violent push. The door comes down, closing behind Zanroy as Elaiza punches the throttle, whipping Zanroy to the ground of the small shuttle, as the ship launches from the platform.
“Hold on for this one! YAHOOOOO” Screams Twil as the Sovereign slices through an oncoming wave of Imperial shuttles, testing the limits of the advanced inertial dampeners of the ship. A happy string of beeping comes from R5 as the crew nervously watches the captain split waves of the emerging imperial convoy.
“I’ve got them linked!” Says Rath over comms. Twil chirps back, “Alright, on my mark…steady…” The Sovereign’s first tail of TIE fighters lines up behind them, hailing the ship to halt, “Unidentified YT-2400, return to port for inspection or we will be forced to take disable your vessel” Twil opens up comms to both of the fighters lined up behind, “Not today you won’t! Just remember, it’s nothing personal!” He then turns his comms to Rath, “hit it!”.
Rath inputs his commands and anxiously switches to rear holocams, watching as both fighters instantly pull hard upwards, leaving an approach vector on the Sovereign. He watches as the ships continue to pull back, performing a loop before coming down into another loop, followed by another. “I told you I could take care of it.” Rath calmly says over comms as he watches, satisfied with the infinitely looping fighters.
2 Years Later
“Thanks Ota, I’m doing all I can to get you these supplies as fast as I can. I know that new base can’t be built fast enough. I still don’t get why you’d want to build it somewhere as bleak and horrible as there…but that’s your call”. Twil says his goodbyes and disconnects his holo-call. Idozzi crosses the room and hands him a stack of books and photographs. “These are for a the winners of the ‘Meet the Captain!’ contest back on on Zeltros. You have 15 more boxes to sign in the back. Let me know when you’re done and I’ll ship them out”. Twil smiles from ear to ear.
“Master, I should remind you that you also have that photo opportunity later today for the Toydarian Trade Association” Chimes in 41-Vex. The droid shuffles across the room, handing a stack of books to the captain. Twil breathes a heavy sigh, “I guess not all photo opps can be ones to look forward to”.
Just as he sits to begin signing the books, Aklee walks in behind him. “Captain? We have someone who’s here to see you. They’re at the front desk.” Twil looks back, and finishes his current shipping order to the planet Hoth. “You know, Aklee, I really hope we can keep up with these Rebels. They’re so hungry for these supplies. Lucky for us they trust so few people.” He then turns to Idozzi sitting across the office, and mouths, “It’s probably just another fan” she rolls her eyes. She nods, deep in conversation with a contact on another holo communicator.
At the desk, a robed, sullen figure stands. Twil squints, trying to decipher the visitor’s face. He walks slowly to the front of the desk. “Welcome to The Good Trader, what can I do for you?”
Zanroy pulls back his hood with a glimmering, metal hand. “I need your help”.
Fingers dancing nimbly across the holo terminal, Rath peers into multiple screens across his desk. “They’re so foolish, R5. So very foolish.” R5 responds with many beeps confirming Rath’s sentiments. “Right? It’s like I don’t even have to try”. After a few more keystrokes, he stands up from the terminal. “I wish once in a while I had a challenge.” Walking across the room, Rath pours himself a cup of warm, blue bantha milk, drinking it down quickly as it warms the back of his throat. Illuminated by nothing but terminals, Rath moves from station to station, accepting dialog boxes and adjusting settings. “It’s fun to think back to the fact that you were just a junk yard droid. What a long way we’ve brought you. You’ve ended up being alright”. R5 gives an agitated whistle.
As Rath takes his final drink of milk, a calm, but steady alarm begins on one of the terminals. He walks slowly over to the terminal. Scanning the lines on the display, Rath’s jaw slowly opens. He breathes out slowly.
“R5, they’re….alive. I don’t know how, but…they’re alive.” Blinking in the screen in front of Rath reads the a report detailing a resurgence of a noble house on Csilla, the Chiss home world.
The usual slime and filth of the Wheel fill the port as a major supply freighter unloads the latest goods from the core worlds. Draven watches on, feigning interest. He finishes his food, throwing the rest in a nearby garbage chute. He walks down the metal-hallway ignoring the flickering fluorescent lights are the norm on the seedy space station. He ducks into a small living area off the beaten path. Inside, clothes are strewn about in reckless fashion. Maps and diagrams line the walls, lines connecting dots on different holoscreens. The room is filled with references to the “the rogue”.
He picks up his twin-matched blaster pistols and holsters them away beneath his vest before returning outside to the stale, recycled air of the station. He slowly makes his way to the stations repulsorlifts, which run throughout the entire wheel. He cringes as a particularly wretched Geonosian enters at the same time.
Exiting the lift, he finds himself in corner of the wheel outside of the hustle and bustle of the main port, winding through forgotten shafts, walkways, and cordoned off areas. He enters a large, spacious room, full of high tech equipment, and various species running about between terminals. At the far end sits a Chevin, breathing steadily and confidently on a throne of discarded weapons. “The men are ready, Garalug, We’re ready to start the assault on the station”.
To Be Continued…
