Beyond - Legends Glory Abandoned - Updated 09/07!

Of all the places to reveal my Imperial ties, Coruscant was probably not my best choice.

I didn?t mean to blow my own cover, of course. The fact that it happened probably surprised me more than it did the Rebel ? New Republic ? guard to whom I was speaking. In fact, the moment the words slipped out of my mouth, he just gawked at me in astonishment. His mouth hung open widely enough to be almost comical, had the circumstances been different. As it was, my own horror at my error overrode any humor I could have found.

?Sir, what are you doing here??

I turned toward the guard who had spoken. He was thin, his Republic-issue haircut short and making his head look quite small under his gray helmet. He wore a similar gray uniform ? I thought it looked rather Imperial, ironically enough ? with a blaster pistol in a holster on his hip. He didn?t carry a rifle or a carbine; that much firepower would have been considered overkill for a soldier pulling patrol duty in the heart of the Republic. In the upper levels, anyway.

My cover story leapt quickly to the tip of my tongue. ?I?m supposed to meet a friend, a client.? I smiled in what I figured was a non-threatening, innocent manner.

The guard took a step toward me. ?At this hour??

I glanced at the sky out of instinct; it was easily visible seeing as how I was standing on a shuttle pad on the roof of a relatively tall tower. The sun had set long ago, though Coruscant was hardly dark. The billions of city lights saw to that. ?We?re not from here,? I explained. ?The time change hasn?t affected me yet. I?ll be leaving again tomorrow, so it seemed useless to adjust my sleep schedule for one night.?

?Ah. And your friend, he is also not native to Coruscant??

I smiled again. ?She.?

?I?m sorry; she is not native to Coruscant??

I didn?t bother to point out that a vast majority of the population was from other systems, flocking to the power center of the galaxy like mynocks to a ship?s cables. ?No, she is from Folor.?

The guard looked around, decided nothing else demanded his attention. For a second I thought he would leave, but I wasn?t so lucky. ?And what are you meeting for??

I swallowed. The more in-depth this interrogation got the harder it was going to be for me to keep my story straight. That was rule number one: limit your interaction with any particular person so that you stand less of a chance of screwing up. So far rule number one was getting shot to pieces.

?It?s a business deal. I trade in spices, you see.? I raised the bag I was carrying, which actually contained the spices to which I had alluded. ?She can?t get them on Folor, so she buys them from me whenever she gets the chance.?

The guard creased his brow. ?Ah. Pretty expensive to fly all the way here just to buy a bag of spice. Wouldn?t it be cheaper for her to have you ship them out? The new line, Higgus, will ship anywhere for less credits than it costs in fuel. Something about bulk deals saving on costs.?

I was really getting annoyed now. I spotted a Shistavanen Wolfman in the crowd that was milling along a nearby walkway and hoped the guard would shadow him, but the tall man didn?t seem to notice. ?She had to make a run here anyway, to see her father. I was planetside for another deal, so it was convenient.?

?Her father?s from Coruscant but she?s from Folor??

?He moved here just after she turned fourteen. She opted to stay with her mother on Folor.?

?Ah.? The guard itched the back of his neck, looking bored. If he said ?ah? one more time I was going to have to seriously consider smashing his face in. The years of combat training would make it an easy task, helmet or otherwise.

There was a break in conversation; I used it to mentally run through my options. The guard was apparently not going to leave any time soon, for whatever reason. As such, staying where I was seemed to me to be a rather flawed plan. However, if I cut and run, I would miss my contact. Spices aside, this meeting was of a decent amount of importance. And the window of opportunity for it to occur w

 

*snags first review* Whoot!

Okay, I'm hooked. I don't even know who the main character is, or have any clue what the plot it, but I'm hooked. But I'm also in love with this kind of story.

The whole tone of the post was very Asimov/detective novelesque, and I think it works very well, particualarly when combined with the first person POV. I liked that whole scene with the guard and the espionage person - it seemed very real. The discription also helped with that.

I swallowed. The more in-depth this interrogation got the harder it was going to be for me to keep my story straight. That was rule number one: limit your interaction with any particular person so that you stand less of a chance of screwing up. So far rule number one was getting shot to pieces.

Heh. This is a very true rule, and this guy's a bad boy for breaking it. If you talk to one person longer than you have the details for your cover story, you wind up adding layers that'll contradict themselves and minght not have the time to tell your partner about it.

But spice trading is a relatively good cover story. The galaxy seems to revolve around the spice trade.

My though process left me in a tight spot. I had basically sized up the only two real choices I had ? staying or running ? and rejected them both. Not good.

No, not good at all laddie! Backed yourself into a corner didn't you?

?On some planets there?s no choice.? I tried to look like I was disgusted by the thought but a bit more used to it than he was. ?Every planet doesn?t have the luxuries of Imperial Center.?

Uh-oh! He should've killed the habit long before he came to Coruscant.

Either he was terribly lucky or a terribly good shot.

Well, that's a bit confusing. Wouldn't it have been a good shot if the NR guy had hit the Imp?

An all around good first post!

 

I agree. Can you PM me when you update? Lovin' it!

 

glad you guys enjoyed it. i can definitely pm you when i update, ECR. That will probably be every couple of days, seeing as how i have a different project that takes up most of my time. Plus, i gotta think up a plot.

 

Not a bad start. I'll be interested to see where this goes

 

woo! Good job, cornboy! Thanks for sending me the link. I'll definitely be keeping an eye on this story.

 

Sorry for utter lack of updates. School kicked in and i was suddenly a lot busier than i am used to. Plus, every time i go on the boards i get totally distracted by "Have Blaster, Will Travel". Which, i might add, is an excellent piece.

Part Two

The room in which I found myself was decidedly less than remarkable. The walls were made of the plain white metal that characterized office buildings on every civilized planet in the galaxy. Well, perhaps with the exception of Tatooine, but that all depended on one?s definition of ?civilized?.

There were rows of desks, not separated by anything more than a few feet of empty space, filling the entire room. Luckily for me, they had been placed far enough away from the windows that I hadn?t landed on one during my rather unusual entrance. Probably to keep the employees from gazing out at the cityscape while they were supposed to be working. I was glad my job was nothing like that.

The sound of a turbolift invited me to reconsider my position in regards to my choice of occupations.

Pulling out my blaster, I decided that a shootout, while decidedly more dangerous to my health, still sounded better than sitting in a chair typing away at a computer while everything important in the galaxy passed me by.

The first thing I noted about the turbolift was that it was coming from the wrong direction. The guard I had left on the roof would be descending after me, but this lift was clearly coming up the central core of the skyscraper from somewhere in the lower depths of the city. This was not good; it meant that the trooper on the roof had called for reinforcements and gotten them just as quickly. He would now be coming down the emergency stairwell. A painstakingly slow process, but it ensured I wouldn?t simply run back up and catch a ride on the landing pad from the backup he knew I had waiting.

Of course, one guard was better than a whole squad. I briefly considered trying just that, shooting my way past him and returning to where this had all started. I knew, however, that it would never work. It was a good plan under normal circumstances, but had one fatal flaw in my case.

I didn?t have any backup.

My contact would never have risked her neck ? she was really a her; I had kept that bit of my story truthful ? just to pull me out. We were cooperating, but she was not part of my organization nor was I part of hers. We were independent, of each other at least, and therefore it had to be assumed that the other could look after themselves with any outside help.

The turbolift stopped on my level, the doors hissing open on well-maintained hydraulics. I bit back a curse. They had some sort of imaging system, infrared most likely, installed in the building. It painted an anomaly on a sensor board in the main security lab. While they wouldn?t know my exact position within the room ? unless this was a far more sophisticated system that I assumed it was ? they would be able to tell which level and which room I was in with a fair amount of ease.

I hid myself behind a metal desk, though I had no illusions that the thin plating would give me any protection whatsoever. All it would do was keep me out of their line of sight, at least initially, and that was a plus in its own right. I moved a bit to my right, where I could see out the door and watch the turbolift in the hall beyond.

The troopers who stepped into view where like something straight out of Alliance propaganda holofilms. They wore uniforms in shades of deep blue and black, swirled together to break up their profiles. While they didn?t sport the full body armor that stormtroopers in their position would have, they wore a breastplate and weapons belt over a one-piece uniform that looked vaguely like a pilot?s flightsuit. A standard Alliance-issue helmet topped of the ensemble.

The dark colors would make them blend in instantly in a dark, underworld setting or a firefight taking place outdoors at night. The lights in the tower, though, still blazed brightly like a cluster of small suns gath

 

Nice cliffie! Thanks for the PM. So your charactor is a severe Imp, eh? That threw me for a loop. Looking good, can't wait for more!

 

yeah...not much Star Wars written strictly from the Imp point of view, so I thought I'd try it out.

 

Being tortured by a bitter Rebel guard didn?t sound particularly enticing. Of course, maybe he would adhere to regulations and report his success to his superiors. If that happened I could count on a few more years of life ? in a prison, but life regardless ? while the justice system tried to sort itself out.

Needless to say, getting myself captured and dragged before some Grand Jury was not on my list of things to do either. I decided to wait until we stopped until I made my move.

The lift doors opened to reveal a hanger bay. It was a military bay, complete with a squadron?s worth of X-wings, a few beat up old Y-wings and a light cargo hauler that looked as if it had come stock from Correlia and been intercepted by pirates along the way. This was a very odd since, as far as I knew, we had not been anywhere near a functional military installation.

Confusion aside, I had to regain my freedom.

I hesitated before stepping out of the lift. The guard pressed his blaster into the small of my back to get me moving, an action that was obviously supposed to inspire fear and a good deal of cooperation. It also told me exactly where his blaster was.

I rolled to my left, arching my back so that his shot screamed wide and only singed my cloak. I turned the roll into a sweeping blow that caught him just under the chin, lifted him off the ground, and deposited him heavily on the floor at my feet. Aside from breaking his jaw in at least two places, he was immediately unconscious.

I grabbed my weapons back from his belt and kicked his as far as I could out into the hanger bay. It skidded neatly under the port engine of one of the Y-wings. I grabbed his wallet and identification from his pocket and tucked them into my own before running for one of the X-wings.

Now, I personally preferred the TIE Interceptor to any other snubfighter the galaxy has produced. Maybe this was a result of my Imperial upbringing, but I?d like to think it?s because the Interceptor is simply a superior fighter. Its lack of shields is inconvenient, but it more than makes up for it in speed. If the enemy can?t get behind you they can?t kill you, shields or otherwise.

Unless, of course, you?re stupid enough to run head-to-head. I?m not.

In a pinch, though, I could fly an X-wing well enough to be a nuisance. It was required training in Basic, along with a plethora of other fighters, bombers and shuttles. The Empire wanted its agents well versed in transportation so that we could find our own rides off planet. We always joked that they were doing it so they could save on fuel costs, but in reality it was a helpful skill to have. Now was a perfect example. I could hardly call up the Transgressor on the com and have them come pick me up.


I chose the farthest X-wing, more for its color than anything else. It was painted in white with black trim. Against the traditional red and white of the other fighters, it looked the most Imperial. I probably should have chosen one of the others so that I?d fit in better, but a steak of patriotism got the best of me.

The X-wing?s cockpit was already open, a mobile stairway leading up to it. I glanced around the hanger from the top of the ladder to make sure the pilot wasn?t running frantically to his craft and, seeing no one, slipped inside.

As I hooked the life-support system up to my own black flightsuit ? I had stashed my cloak behind the ejection seat ? I had to commend the rebels on their cockpit designs. Even after I closed the canopy I could see in all directions, a decided advantage that the Incom X-wing had over the TIE series. Not enough to make the X-wing my preferred choice, but it was something.

The gauges all came up green and I pushed the throttle forward. The repulsorlifts whined as they kept me off the deck and I began moving slowly forward. It was then that I had a very disturbing thought.

Where in the name of the Emperor are the bay doors?

There was no doubt about it, this was not your average hanger. Instead of bay doors, all I could make out was a small