Saga - PT Hanna's Story (Blood and Shadows part 1) - OC origin tale

Sorry about the delay, everyone. I've been a bit busier than I anticipated and it took longer than expected to finish this chapter. On the plus side, though, it gave me time to find Ice's "voice", and she's growing to be one of my favorite members of the crew.

To answer some of the questions here, Findswoman, Hanna calls her father "sir" when they're in public, especially around his old military friends. But in private or unguarded moments, he's her daddy. The visors are my own invention, based on a video game called Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfare. They're basically head's-up-displays you see in most game of that sort, like the ones Karen Traviss describes in the Republic Commando books. And the Nuvve Ring name was a complete coincidence, I swear. [face_sweat]

After this, next chapter will be up in a week or so.

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Chapter Nine


Nuvve Ring Station floated in the middle of a cluster of asteroids hurtling through space on the fringes of the Nuvve system. The system itself was barren, with only two gas giant planets in orbit around a white dwarf star and no habitable moons to support humanoid life. In the days before the Empire, smugglers had used Nuvve as a rendezvous point and hyperspace jump buffer, but never as a base or destination. Until one enterprising Besalisk named Wort had decided to haul a derelict class-VI space station out into the middle of the somewhat sedate remnants of a long-destroyed planetoid on the fringes of the system. The station made an orbit through the system so broad that the star itself was the size of a marble in all of the external viewports.

The location had advantages and disadvantages. Being in the midst of the ever-shifting Deep Core systems, traffic was spotty at best, and the broad orbital path it was on meant that the clientele had to follow a tracking beacon, sometime across the breadth of the system, to reach it, or else wait almost a full decade for the station to come around again. Also, due to the asteroids it was situated around and among, traffic had to be limited to a handful of corridors maintained by tractor beams and particle shield projectors, costs that ate into the station's overhead expenses.

The advantages were, due to the location, Nuvve Ring Station had its pick of material, services and goods from any number of established Core and Deep Core worlds, especially when dealing with the Empire and its subsidiaries. The station also had a thriving black market hub aboard, owing its relative remoteness and safety from inspections or audits to being one of the biggest stations for under-the-table deals within the Core. Even Imperial officers visited, unofficially of course, to obtain illegal or rare goods from across the galaxy.

Wort, the owner and sole proprietor of the station's three restaurants, four hotels, six equipment shops, gambling parlor and spaceport facilities, ran everything with a firm but fair grip. He turned a blind eye to the black market activities, but promised no help if ever the Empire came calling to a dealer's room. He and the small army of droids who worked for him serviced anyone and everyone who arrived at the station, regardless of political affinity, station or allegiance. So long as you could pay your dues, Nuvve Ring Station was at your disposal. Fail to do so, however, and a hasty departure was in order. Otherwise, well, Wort had several ways for the unlucky, unrestrained or uncouth to recoup their losses, all but a few of which involved scrubbing out refresher floors and maintenance duty among the station's droid work force.

Some unlucky sop always seemed to be in the garage at a given point, so the station did not have a dedicated mechanic. Which explained the rickety, grinding sound the greeter droid made as it came up to greet the crew of the Arbiter upon their reaching the station and gaining clearance to dock in one of the stations small hangar bays. The protocol droid looked old enough to have predated the Republic itself, and while its blue-gray finish was free of any obvious stains or discolor, rust was eating at its joints and motivators, and one of its eyes was blinking irregularly with each step it took.

“Greetings, gentlebeings!” The droid said in a cheerful voice that had an electronic warble in it, “Welcome to Nuvve Ring Station! I am C-1A5, and I am here to offer you my assistance in-”

“Save it.” Ice shoved the droid aside and moved past it.

“But...” The droid, confused and befuddled, turned from her to face the others as they approached, “Welcome, my programming requires that I-”

Hanna gave it a smile and patted it on the shoulder as she walked by. “Maybe next time.”

“I-” The droid, even more bewildered, watched her go past, then turned around again, arms twitching. “Salutations, I have the floorplan and map of this station-”

Blade motioned toward the droid, causing Trev to move in behind it and start to work on the exposed circuitry on the droid's back.

“Sir, begging your pardon, but those are my main memory and program circuits you are cross-” The droid's head twitched to one side, its eyes flickered and voice cut out for a moment. A second later, its head righted and the eyes came back on, both steady this time. “Will there be anything more, gentlebeings?”

“No, thank you.” Blade said, “That is all. Thank you for your assistance.”

“Thank you, sir, and welcome again to Nuvve Ring Station.”

Blade nodded at Trev as the two walked away. “Good work, Trev.”

Trev flashed him a grin.

T'ocs was the last to depart the Arbiter, checking something on his wrist comm as he came to where the group had settled, just outside the hangar bay's meter-wide entrance. “Before we go anywhere,” He said, “What did you do to that droid, Trev?”

“Just fired a few extra subroutines in his vervobrain, boss.” Trev said with a slight smile. “Made him think he's already helped us out instead of having to go through his whole spiel. I used to do it on salesdroids at the parts market back on Ansion.”

“Hmm. Remind me that you can do that if it ever comes up again.” He looked around at the others. “All right. Does everyone have their assignments?”

Nods went around the circle.

“Go to it, then. Make sure to get all of the supplies on your lists, regardless of how you might need to pay for them. And, please, try not to cause trouble, we do have a strict time limit. We will meet back at the Arbiter in three hours.”

The others split off, Ice and Hanna going together down the hallway to the right of the hangar while Blade and Trev went to the left. T'ocs followed Ice and Hanna, as for the moment their courses fell along the same path. The station's corridor was well-lit, but also worn and grungy, maintained, but not at all pretty. The walls and floor were gunmetal gray with tinges of copper here and there where oxidation had set in to whatever alloys had been used in construction. The ceiling was striped with florescent glow-panels, not fancy, but functional. Everything smelled like metal and rust remover, with a bit of the tang of coolant and the smokey pall of exhaust.

“Have you been here before, boss?” Hanna asked him.

“No, never.” T'ocs said, checking something on his wrist-comm. “The last time I came through this part of the Core, there was a war going on, and Nuvve Station was little more than an ammunition dump and fueling station.”

“How about you, Ice?”

Ice grunted, shifting her sniper rifle up higher on her shoulder. She was the only one of the crew who had brought a weapon larger than a blaster pistol on their retail expedition. Then again, she seemed to bring the rifle anywhere that was further from her cabin than the Arbiter's refresher. “Before I joined up with this crew. A quick stop, like this one. It was dirtier then.”

Hanna walked along with them in silence for a few more steps, watching for any signs or indication of where to leave the corridor and head deeper into the station. “Will Atto be okay staying on the ship by himself?”

“He's used to it by now.” Ice said, “It's pretty much standard op at this point. We come into a place we might need to make a quick exit from, someone has to stay behind to keep the lights on.”

“Atto is also the only one I trust to fly the ship aside from myself and occasionally Trev. All of his mannerisms aside, he is not a bad pilot, though I have learned to lock him out of the computer's navigational systems and memory banks.”

“Why?”

“The last time he got in, he replaced every second or third system name in the navcom's database with a Huttese cuss word.” Ice glanced to her right as they passed a door marked Maintenance Entrance, as if she expected the door to jump out and grab them. “Took the boss and Trev almost a week to get it sorted again.”

“Is that what he does with his spare time, then?”

“Not anymore.” T'ocs said, “Now, he just watches random programming on the HoloNet, mostly the sort old housewives would go quite mad over.”

“Ah.”

“We'll have to get you trained and ready to fly the Arbiter at some point.” He said, almost to himself. “Just to give the lad a break.”

“Should feel honored.” Ice elbowed Hanna in the side. “Boss doesn't let just anyone at the controls of his ship. Atto's the only one since if he screwed up and the boss killed him, no one'd miss him.”

“You really don't trust anyone with your stuff?”

“No, I trust my crew quite a bit, actually. I depend on them to watch my back in crowded cantinas, or give me cover from a kilometer away. I buy them expensive gear all the time, as well. It is not about trust. It is about having a personal attachment to a vehicle and being hesitant to allow anyone else handle it for more than a few short bursts of time.”

“I thought you said sentimentality didn't have a place among mercenaries.”

“I said love has no place here. Sentimentality is a different matter. Sometimes, it can be all we have.” T'ocs pulled to a stop as they reached an intersection in the hallway, where the path that had led them from the hangar branched off in two other directions in addition to continuing onward around the rim of the station's axis. He pointed to their left, down the hall that would lead them deeper into the station's interior. “This way.”

“Wouldn't it benefit the team more to have everyone be able to fly the ship, anyway?” Hanna asked as they resumed walking. “If both you and Atto get injured, aren't the rest of them... us, going to be stranded wherever we are?”

“We all know how to fly it,” Ice said, “We just don't do it. The Arbiter's the boss's baby. Just like this little number,” She shifted her rifle on her shoulder again, “Is mine.”

“The crew all have their roles and specialties, Hanna, but everyone is also capable of pulling their weight in any of the others' given tasks. Trev can bandage up cuts, for instance. And Blade can lay out a sniper post and wait for instruction to pull the trigger. They may not be the best in the crew at it, but they can do it. And if you want to survive out here in the real galaxy, away from the classrooms, you're going to have to learn to do the same.”

“Always bringing it back to me.” Hanna said under her breath.

“Getting you pilot-ready is just the first step.” T'ocs continued, “The Arbiter is a rather unique craft to fly and will take some getting used to. After that, I will make sure that your marksmanship is up to par, tutor you on explosives, and refresh your rudimentary field first-aid. The others will help you with fields they know better than I do.”

“Like sniping.” Hanna looked at Ice. The older woman looked back at her without much expression. But there was the slightest hint of an amused twinkle in her eyes.

“Like sniping.” T'ocs agreed. “Ice is not the most personable teacher, but she has forgotten more about sniping than anyone else in the crew, except possibly myself.”

“Boss used to be a dead-eye.” Ice commented, “First time we met, I was doing merc work in the Haruun Kal jungles. Blowing the heads off slavers. Ended up being a sniper's duel with someone, lasted almost a week local time. Both of us sat there taking potshots from different sides of the same valley. Shoot, move, shoot, move. Never more than a meter at a time. Sometimes, hours 'd pass between shots and I'd just wait in the quiet for him to make a mistake. But he never did.”

“How'd it end? Who won?”

“Ice plugged my helmet a good once or twice.” T'ocs said, “But she gave up the battle in the end.”

“Vine cat almost took my arm off.” Ice said with a disgusted huff. “Stupid animal fell right into my blind. I had to get back to camp before I bled to death. Took me two days, moving slow, trying not to get caught, gunned down. Boss was already waiting for me there, he'd decided to take my contract out from under me, add insult to injury. Made it all right, though, had me patched up and gave me a bunk on the Arbiter.”

“You joined up with the man you'd just spent a week trying to kill?”

“He's the only man to ever match me. Besides, it's good pay, and I'd rather be working with whoever might be able to kill me instead of against them. Otherwise, one of us'd get hired to kill the other again.”

“Is that how you met everyone in the crew, boss? Beat them at their own game, then offer them a job?”

“No, some of them I made sure to bathe first.” T'ocs pulled to a stop at another branch in the hallway, this one simply offering a left-or-right decision. He consulted his wrist for a moment. “My destination is on the left, yours is to the right. We will meet back at the Arbiter.”

He left without another word or looking back at either Hanna or Ice. The former turned to the latter, who shrugged.

“Let's go, we have shopping to do.”

The station was beginning to show signs of life as they moved inward. A few more droids wandered past them, mostly maintenance or cleaning models that both suffered from the same sort of neglect as the rest of the station. They also began to see living beings, some of the station's living personnel. It was a motley crew of humanoids and the occasional Besalisk or Gand, all clad in the same puke-colored jumpsuit and wearing unmistakable expressions of absolute misery on their faces, even through masks, goggles or welding helmets.

Hanna looked back at a Rodian and Givin who were engaged in welding a section of the hall's wall back into place, the former giving the latter an earful of what sounded like curses. The latter, after finishing the weld he had been working on, turned and belted the Rodian in the eye for whatever insult had been stated, and the two fought, audible until well after the pair had disappeared around a bend.

“Is everyone on this station completely miserable?”

“No, I think a few of them are too drunk to be much of anything.” Ice nodded toward a row of colored lights and signs just ahead. “We're here.”

Here was a bustling marketplace, full of small shops that sold random items of every sort and size. The air was full of color, lights blasting the names of proprietors and products in all directions, signs and banners hung on the walls and on the front of ramshackle stalls giving pricing information in terms that any species would understand. Vendors of all species and genders were shouting, calling, screaming, even singing. And the smells...

Hanna put her hand to her nose. “Ugh, it's like we turned a corner and walked into a locker room built on sewage plant next to an animal farm.”

“Oh grow up.” Ice said, “It's not that bad.”

“Not that bad? I've been in men-only refreshers that smelled better than this.”

“Have you had to lay perfectly still in an open pit full of corpses until the only thing you can smell for weeks after is the pong of rotten meat? No? Then shut up and follow me.”

Hanna followed the older woman into the market, nose wrinkled but not complaining further. Various sellers, seeing two new prospective customers, called out to them in both Basic and Huttese, but both kept walking. They had a mission, a very certain list of items to obtain, and could not afford the time to browse. Vendors gestured, pleaded, did all but physically grab the pair and drag them to their booths and force them to view their wares. Hanna glanced at some of them, but ultimately followed Ice's lead and kept moving.

“Is that man selling...?”

“A variety of body parts from various species all pickled in jars of chemicals, yes. Some species grind them up to use in medicines.”

Hanna shuddered as the the vendor furiously proffered Gungan eyeballs in her direction, prompting them to bob and move in their container in a sickening mockery of life. “Well, I'm pretty sure I'm going to be sick to my stomach now.”

“There's a refresher by the bar up ahead. I wouldn't use it, but you're welcome to.”

Hanna swallowed. “I'll pass.”

“This isn't even the worst bazar I've been in, kid, you've got a long way to go before you find something to make me lose my lunch.”

“Hope we never get there, then.”

Ice paused for a moment in an open space between three booths, the Rodian to their immediate left burbling the benefits of a particular drink he held out to Hanna. She took one sniff of the rather pungent, bubbly drink and withdrew, holding her nose, waving a hand out in front of her to wish him away. The Rodian looked hurt and retreated to its booth to whip up another concoction for other prospective customers. The other booths around them, one selling some sort of grilled meat on skewers and one that had expensive-looking timepieces for suspiciously low prices, seemed content to stay where they were and leave the ladies alone.

“We need commlinks and a dozen or so packed military surplus rations.” Ice reminded them both, “There's a few booths further down that might have what we need. Stay close and keep your mouth shut.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Seriously. Most of these vendors are legitimate enough, but mess with the wrong one and next thing you know you're strapped into the back of a tramp freighter headed for Gorse or Kessel to spend the rest of your life as a miner's pay-order bride. And before you ask, yes, I am speaking from experience and no, I don't want to talk about it at all.”

“I wasn't going to ask. I don't want to get a hole through the side of my head.”

“I don't shoot people for asking stupid questions. Not often, anyway.” Ice started walking again. “Find me a booth where they sell commlinks. I don't care how cheap.”

Hanna nodded and followed her, watching the booths as they went for anyone with either of the things on their shopping list. While it was a bit demeaning for the both of them to be sent after the most mundane items the crew was collecting here, she was the newest crewmember. It made sense for her to be sent after the stuff that you could send the most rudimentary droid after. Ice might have been a bit surly, with babysitting the inexperienced kid on her first away mission, but it was hard to tell. Ice was always surly, even when she was being nice.

She still was not sure if Ice was actually being nice to her or not. She seemed willing to take Hanna under her wing, but still kept her at arm's length. The other members of the crew seemed to expect her to turn on Hanna and leave her in the cold at some point, as if they had seen this sort of thing before. And with all of the other sixth members of the crew having come and gone, this scenario might have played out before. Maybe once, maybe a half-dozen times.

All Hanna knew for sure was that she could not trust Ice to continue to play nice with her. She could not depend on any of the crew to be nice to her. She was only going to be with them for the one mission, and they had no reason to keep her any more alive than any of the others they had brought on in the past. She had to make her own way, and could not depend on anyone else except herself.

Hanna spotted a booth packed with Imperial military surplus items at the same moment Ice nodded toward it. “There. Maybe we'll get lucky and they'll have commlinks, too.”

The being running the booth, a dark-skinned human man with a winning smile, was all too willing to let the two women peruse his wares while expounding their virtues. Most of it was too out of date to be of much use, Hanna noted, she recognized quite a lot from her father's mementos and collected holos of the Clone Wars. There were some packed rations, though, still sealed and only a few years old. Which meant that they would be well within their expiration date.

“Nutrient cubes.” Ice said, holding up a package to examine it. “Stale, spongy, flavorless and dry, but perfect nutrition for a field mission, high in protein and carbs, and they take almost a decade to go bad.”

“I've had them. The instructors had us eat them every week's end to get us used to the texture.”

Ice snorted. “Not much getting used to putting packing foam in your mouth.” She turned to the eagerly smiling patron of the booth. “We'll take three-dozen, if you've got them all in this condition.”

“Of course,” He replied, “Everything I have is top-of-the-line, straight from surplus warehouses across the Core.” He whipped out a datapad and punched in a code from the back of another ration packet. “As it so happens, I just received a shipment of these delicious morsels not three days ago. I currently have three hundred in stock here on the station, if you want them.”

“Thirty-six.” Ice repeated. “And I'll not pay more than eight apiece for them.”

“Ah, there. You drive a hard bargain, my dear. I have to keep my margins up or else the Empire won't deal to me anymore. Do you want my business to be shut down? I have to have at least twelve apiece.”

“I'm not your dear.” Ice replied with frost in her voice, “Eight, and no more. I'm sure there's other places on this station to get packed rations.”

“Not of this quality, not in this amount.”

Hanna looked at her comrade. “Ice...”

“Quiet. Eight, and I'll take that all-weather cloak you've got sitting on the corner there too. The one with the seventy percent discount slapped on it. Just to get it off your hands.”

The dealer looked at her, at his wares, and at the cloak she had mentioned. “I cannot go any lower than eleven, even with the cloak. I am already selling at a loss, any lower and I might as well be giving them away to street urchins on Corellia.”

“If you're already selling them at a loss, then you'd have been out of business long before now.” Hanna noted, jumping in before Ice could say anything. “We'll give you nine apiece for the rations, and the cloak at sticker price, and,” She grabbed something off of the booth's front display, “I'll take this dead-blade, too, full price.”

The man turned to her, glancing at Ice to make sure he was not being hustled. At seeing her surly but resigned expression, he smiled at Hanna. “Ah, there. A much better deal all around, I think. Though, I wish you would offer ten apiece for the rations, they are not...”

“You have our final offer,” Ice interrupted him, “And you won't get a credit more.”

He shrugged, seemingly abject to the decision, but with a gracious-in-defeat smile on his face. “If that is your final offer, then I had best take it before two of my new best customers leave my shop, eh?” He proffered the datapad once again. “Would you prefer direct transfer or chit?”

“Cash.” Ice dug into her belt and pulled out a small wad of credit bills. “We're in a hurry.”

Hanna dug a few credits out of her own belt to cover the cost of the knife and the extra overhead on the rations. The bill paid, they gathered the items and stored them away, Ice stuffing the rations into an unfolding carry-all sack she had tucked on her back beside her sniper rifle. She tossed the cloak at Hanna as they left the booth and the still-smiling vendor behind.

“What's this for?” She asked, holding the drab gray and green synth-mesh up in front of her.

“I don't need it, I've got camo. But if we're dropping in to a swamp planet, you'll stick out like a sore thumb in that bodysuit.”

Hanna did not know what to say at first. She folded the cloak into a square, it was surprisingly compact-friendly, and stuffed it into the largest of her belt pouches. Then she took her new dead-blade knife out and offered it to Ice. “Here.”

“What's that for?” The older woman asked, “You bought it.”

“Yeah, but I already have a multi-tool, I don't need two knives this size. I figured maybe you can use it for something.”

Ice looked at the knife, then at Hanna. Then, to Hanna's surprise, she smirked and took it. “You just don't want to be in my debt, do you?”

“No reason to set myself up for a fall this early in the mission. Owe nothing, that's what my father told me.”

Ice tucked the knife away, face expressionless again. “Good advice.” Then she reached over and punched Hanna in the shoulder, knocking her over and into a booth full of bottled drinks, causing the vendor there to shout at her.

“Ow!” Hanna rubbed her arm and scowled. “What-?”

“That's for trying to second-guess me with the vendor while we were bargaining.” Ice pointed an index finger into the middle of Hanna's face as she resumed her walk. “Never undercut a crewmate on a mission, it'll probably get you both killed.”

“Right, I forgot, let you do the talking.”

“Exactly. Come on, we still have to find commlinks.”

Hanna felt someone grab her shoulder, a shout in Huttese blasting in her ear from behind. She spun and jerked her arm away from the still-angry Devaronian vendor. “Hands off, punk!”

The vendor jabbered and jeered, shoving his face right into Hanna's and pointedly demanding something, one hand cupped in the other.

Hanna wanted to punch him. He had a distinctly punchable nose. But she held back. They had a mission. “I don't have time for this.” She snarled, spinning on her heel and walking away.

The Devaronian kicked her in the backside, hard enough to knock her down. Hanna was ready, though, and braced herself, turning the fall into a rolling tumble and coming up on her feet. She turned, put one hand in the other, and cracked her knuckles. The vendors around them were clearing out, scooping valuable merchandise off the front displays and huddling back behind counters.

“Big mistake.” Hanna said.

The Devaronian snorted, folding his arms across his chest and puffing himself up a bit taller in his boots. He was almost a full head taller than Hanna was, broader, and likely had a couple dozen kilos on her as well.

“I'll let T'ocs know you'll be late.” Ice said, turning and walking away. “Try not to stain that new cloak I bought.”

Hanna said, “You do that,” As she stepped forward. She walked deliberately, slowly, letting the Devaronian know that she meant business and was not the least bit frightened of the prospect of a brawl. But she doubted he would change his mind. Few of her opponents ever did, in school or out of it. She did not cut the sort of figure that intimidated them, regardless of the swagger in her step or confident sheen in her eyes. She had to demonstrate her abilities first; respect only came with evidence of competence and evident knowledge of the task at hand.

Little did this Devaronian know, Hanna knew exactly what she was doing.

 

So, it's been more than a week. But I do have an update. So... one out of two? One last filler chapter and we'll be getting to Ome and the mission next chapter.

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Chapter Ten


“What exactly did you think you were doing?”

Hanna flipped her hair back over her ears as Atto moved from working on a small cut on her left cheek to her right, where he applied a clear sealant to a larger laceration than ran from her ear to her nose. She did not wince, though it did sting. She was more concerned with defending herself against T'ocs's verbal grilling. “I was dealing with a problem.”

The Arbiter's main hold, where Hanna and the others had first met, was turned into a makeshift medical station as Atto worked on patching up the various cuts and bruises she had taken during her fight aboard the Nuvve Ring station. Though none of the others had been there to witness it directly, they had heard the full account from the station's security droids, who had also reported the matter to administrator Wort. The crew had purchased all of the supplies they would likely need for the mission, but it took a bit of diplomacy on T'ocs' part to allow them to leave port on time and take Hanna with them. A bit of diplomacy, and a rather generous donation to the station's droid maintenance fund. The Devaronian stall owner was in no condition to press charges of any sort, regardless.

T'ocs was not evidently angry, his tone did not rise and nothing in his body language suggested a threat, but he was clearly still aggravated. “I was clear. Was I not clear?” He turned to look at Blade, holding a hand out in question. “I was clear, yes? Not to cause trouble, to do anything that would delay the takeoff?”

“You did say that, yes sir.”

“Look, the guy grabbed me.” Hanna pulled away as Atto patted her cheek, either to pat the dressing down or trying to distract her. “What was I supposed to do, let him?”

“You were supposed to follow orders.” T'ocs took two steps away from her, paused for a moment, then turned around and came back. “I saw your records. I've seen you fight. You could have knocked that man out in three seconds. But you didn't. You took your time. You took your frustrations out on him. You enjoyed yourself.”

“So what if I did?” Hanna finally swatted Atto away, cuffing him in the ear with enough force to cause him to fall backward with a yelp. “I got here in time to take off, didn't I?”

“By thirty seconds or so.” Blade said, arms folded across his chest. “You still violated your orders regardless.”

“You deliberately disobeyed a direct order, injured yourself and likely cost us relations with the station's administrator and its mercantile population, which will prevent us from using Nuvve Ring as a supply stop at any point in the near future.” T'ocs stepped closer to Hanna and loomed over her, still expressionless but eyes sparking with tranquil fury. “You are not acquainting yourself particularly well in the course of this mission, Miss Shirid.”

“Well then maybe your convincing my father that I was somehow better off with this motley bunch than in the Imperial armed forces wasn't you best idea, huh boss?” Hanna snapped, standing up and staring T'ocs down just as she had the vendor on the station. “Maybe whatever mysterious reason you dragged me along on this mission wasn't all it was cracked up to be! Maybe you made a mistake, ever think of that? Or don't Mandalorians make mistakes?”

T'ocs jabbed out with his right hand, grabbed Hanna by the throat, and rammed her head back against the wall of the ship's rec room, causing her to gag in surprise. All of the other crew members, barring Ice, took a step back and out of the way.

“Don't you ever question my orders again.” T'ocs growled into Hanna's face, voice and expression harsher and more intense than she had ever seen him. “Now susulur. The moment this mission is done, I will offload whatever is left of you on your father's doorstep and forget that I've ever known you. Until then, you are not a person, you are not a student, you are not a friend. You are a soldier. Which means that you will listen, you will follow orders, and you will keep your mouth shut. Otherwise, I will shove your shebs into the airlock and launch you into space without a suit. And this is not a threat. This is a promise. I owe you nothing. I owe your father nothing. My first, greatest concern is to my crew, and the second is to our mission. If you continue your current path and keep up this attitude, you will be a greater hindrance than a help. And any shabuir who hinders my crew and gets in the way of our missions does not stay here very long. Do you understand?”

Hanna could not speak. She did not dare speak. She just nodded as best she could with the obstruction on her throat.

“Good.” T'ocs did not move, though the harshness of his voice and expression did slacken off. “No one doubts your ability, ad'ika. But unless you learn to take orders and not snap back at everyone who crosses you, you'll never survive out in the real galaxy.” He let her go and turned to the others. “Atto, make sure she's patched up, fighting fit again by the time we land. Ice, you're her chaperon from here on out. If she does something else stupid, stun her and drag her to the airlock. Everyone else, back to your stations. We still have a mission to run, and less than ten hours to prep for it.”

The crew dispersed without a word, leaving Hanna, Ice and Atto together in the hold. Atto approached Hanna with his medical kit again, crouching and looking at her sideways, eyes squinted.

Upon receiving Hanna's look, he said, “I want to make sure you're not singed by the flames.”

Hanna rolled her eyes, and Ice turned away from them both, dropping into a seat against the far wall and cradling her sniper rifle in her lap.

Atto urged Hanna to sit back down, which she did. He sat beside her and took a small batch of artificial skin strips from his medical kit. “You know,” He said absently, “That was probably the first time I've ever seen the boss that mad.”

“I find that hard to believe,” Hanna scoffed, “With everything you've pulled.”

“No, really.” Atto looked her in the face, sincere for once. “I've never made him that mad before. Not once. He's gotten mad at me, yes, but not that mad. Not slam-me-into-the-bulkhead mad.”

“He's right.” Ice commented from across the room. “I've been with the boss longer than Atto has. He never gets mad. You really pushed a button somewhere.”

“Maybe it was me bringing up his culture.” Hanna mused as Atto applied a soft synth-flesh patch to the gash on her cheek he had tried to repair before. “He did spew a lot of words at me I don't know.”

“Yeah he did, didn't he?” Atto said with an uncharacteristic frown. “I guess those must be Mando words he used. They weren't Huttese, I know that for sure.”

“How much do you know about the Mandalorians, Atto? I asked Trev and he didn't tell me much after I made a joke about them.”

“Yeah, Trev takes 'em pretty seriously. More than the boss, I'm pretty sure. He takes most things pretty seriously. Not sure why.” Atto got a small hypospray out of his kit and applied it to Hanna's face. “This is going to hurt.”

Hanna winced, but did not flinch away. “Ow.”

“I honestly don't know much about Mandos, just what everyone knows.” Atto replaced the hypospray and took a small bottle of something out instead. “They wear armor, fight for whoever has the most credits, can kick twenty kinds of backside from here to the Unknown Regions, you know. Here, rub this on the cuts on your hands, it'll disinfect them and speed up the healing.”

“But what about the boss?” Hanna accepted a small squirt of the pink substance, a topical bacta ointment, in both hands, and rubbed them together. “Isn't he like, a case study?”

“Not really. He acts a lot like most of the other mercs I've worked with.” Atto put the bottle back and closed up his medical case. “Just a lot calmer. Which is why it was really, really weird watching him snap like that.”

“What about you, Ice? Know anything about the Mandalorians aside from hearsay?”

“No. And if I were you, I'd stop asking questions about it.”

“Why?”

“Because boss never talks about it. And if he doesn't want to talk about it, asking questions is only going to make him mad at you. You're walking a thin line out here, kid, you should toe it for a while until this blows over.”

Hanna sighed. “Already on probation, huh?”

“Yep. Consider this a warning from your chaperon: drop it and leave it alone. We need to focus on getting you ready for the mission on Ome.”

“Well, Atto's got me patched up at this point, right Atto?”

“Yep, good as new. Well, almost, you might have a bit of scarring here and there, but it'll fade and you'll be back to your baby's bottom smooth complexion in no time.”

“So what's next?”

“Next,” Ice stood up, “Is fitting you with a bio-signal transmitter and hooking you into the ship's network.”

“Wait, what?” Hanna sat forward. “No one said anything about wiring me up to something.”

“Ah, it's not that bad. After you get used to the chattering little voices in your ear telling you to kill things, it's actually kinda pleasant to have someone there to talk to all the time.”

“Atto.”

“What, Ice?”

Ice pointed toward the portal that lead to the rear of the ship. “Out.”

The Kiffar shrugged and departed, taking his medical equipment with him. He gave Hanna a wink and a smile before disappearing through into the passage.

“All it is,” Ice said, “Is an injection that implants a nanocircuit into your spinal column at the base of your brain. It's designed to monitor your body's vital functions, pain receptors and nervous system and send it all here to the Arbiter.”

“Uh, that sounds like... something I'd rather not have plugged into me.”

“Relax. Trev and T'ocs borrowed it from old military tech, we've all got one. They keep track of everyone in the field and send out an alert if someone gets shot or something.” Ice shrugged her head to one side. “Don't even need the medic to help out, I can get Trev to hook you up right now. Takes thirty seconds.”

Hanna squirmed away from Ice a bit, face twisted with concern. “Do I have to?”

“Yes. It's for your own good.”

“Why?”

“Because if you get hurt, it'll let all of us know without you having to comm ahead. Now shut up and follow me.”

Hanna fumed, but kept her mouth closed as she followed Ice into the passage that lead to the cockpit. The cockpit was a small, square room with two chairs in front of a large forward-slanting viewport, surrounded by banks of computer consoles, monitors and readout screens. In front of the left-most chair was a bank of tactile controls, a flight yoke and a more intimate set of controls for directing the ship's course. The chair on the right had an elaborate sensory readout in front of it as well as the ship's main commlink system. At the moment Hanna and Ice entered, T'ocs was sitting in the left chair, and Trev was in the right, both of them absorbed with something or other involved with running the ship.

Ice tapped Trev on the back of his head. “Trev, we need you to get the hypo ready. New girl needs her injection.”

Trev rubbed the back of his head, ruefully, but still got up and left the cockpit without comment. As soon as he left, Ice followed, and the portal closed behind them, leaving Hanna alone in the cockpit with T'ocs.

“Hey, what-?” Hanna looked from the now-sealed blast hatch to the chair where her boss sat, seeming to not even notice she was present. “What is this?”

“A discussion, and training.” T'ocs said without turning to face her. "Sit down.”

Hanna sat down in the only place she could: the seat Trev had just vacated. “So that whole business with the nano injection...?”

“It's all true, I'm afraid, but I needed to see you alone for a moment regardless.” T'ocs hit a button and watched the lights on his flight display dance for a moment. The computer chirped and whirred. “I heard what you were asking the others earlier, about me and my heritage.”

“You-? What? How?”

“The ship's internal comm system pipes through the cockpit, and I wanted to hear what you had to say after my back was turned.” T'ocs at last looked at her, his facial expression as enigmatic as ever. “Atto was right. It takes quite a lot to rile me up the way you did earlier. The fact that you are bold enough to talk back to me is a part of that, but so is the fact that you simply refuse to let anyone best you in an argument. Your immaturity shows itself more than anything, in that case.”

Hanna was quiet for a moment, less fuming and more thinking. “I can't be the only one to ever question you like that, can I? Or be immature and... snooty?”

“No, you are not. But...” T'ocs did something Hanna did not expect. He sighed. “Your presence aboard this ship is different from everyone else. I cannot tell why. But something, some instinct inside me drove me to choose you, to press for your joining my crew and come on this mission. Something impossible to quantify or even explain, even to myself. But I know that there is something unusual, something special about you and this mission. Some connection that I cannot see yet, that none of us can see.”

“So, you brought me on this mission, did everything you did to recruit me and gear me up and get me ready, because of a hunch?”

“My hunches are good. Ask the crew. But this is not a hunch. It could almost be called a premonition, except it is no nearly specific enough to be anything of practical use.” T'ocs sat back in his chair, arms folding across his body and gaze staring out through the viewport into the endless swirling vortex of hyperspace. “When I was a boy, my mentor told me that hunches were a soldier's first line of defense, before weapons, armor or his comrades. Hunches are the unconscious mind speaking, shouting to be heard, tracking data and facts that your conscious mind glosses over or forgets. But nothing he taught me, nothing in my training, prepared me for the feelings I got when I saw the profile for this mission, or when I looked at your portfolio. I knew. Somehow, I knew.”

There was a pause. T'ocs fell into thought, and Hanna did not know what to say, letting the silence linger and become awkward. She fidgeted in her seat. “What happens now, then?”

“Now? Now, I will start teaching you some of the things he taught me, things I have never taught anyone else, not even Trev, the poor ad'ike. He means well, but he worships the ground I walk on whenever I mention my past.” T'ocs stood up and went around to the back of his chair, standing behind it. “Sit in my seat for a moment.”

Hanna moved from the right seat to the left without a word.

“Now,” T'ocs leaned over her shoulder and pointed to the control board in front of her, “The throttle control and main weapons array readouts are here, on your left side. The flight yoke here controls the ship's pitch, roll and yaw, and this little thing here on the right controls the main stabilizers, forward and aft. The co-pilot's seat handles navigation, communications, shield displacement and the sensor array, so all the pilot has to worry about is shooting down others without being shot down him or herself.”

Hanna was thrown a bit at the sudden swerve of topic, but mentally checked and filed away the locations of the various controls. “How's the response time? I'm used to flying fightercraft in sims, this can't be anywhere close to that maneuverable.”

“No, you are right. As much as I love her, the Arbiter does handle far more sluggishly than a starfighter. She will still outrun or fly almost anything else her size, though, and has the weaponry to outfight what she can't.” T'ocs brushed a hand over the weapon's control, almost reminding himself of what lay there. “You wondered before if Mandalorians ever make mistakes. I can say with confidence that they do. Mandalorians are mortal, fallible beings, just as anyone else is. Mandalorians simply prefer to play to their strengths rather than solely cover weaknesses. Thus, the ship's modifications are both to boost its speed and its firepower, while not giving up the one thing a Loronar B-7 has in abundance: ubiquity.”

“Meaning, that there are thousands of other freighters out there that look almost exactly like this one, and the targets we're up against won't know the difference until it's too late?”

“Precisely. No one thinks twice about a B-7 slipping in or out of a sheltered port with a ton or so of cargo. Ours just happens to be a rather destructive ton.” T'ocs reached over to tap a control on the board, and the hatch behind them unlatched and opened. “Trev and Ice will be waiting for you. Come back up when you are through, we will go over the other cockpit systems.”

“Yes, sir.” Hanna got up from her seat and headed back through the hatched. Halfway out, she stopped and turned. “And, boss?”

T'ocs was sitting back down into the pilot's seat as he replied, “Yes, ad'ika?”

“Thank you. For explaining some things I mean. It doesn't make sense to me either, but, I'm willing to give it a shot.”

He turned to look over his shoulder at her. He was smiling. “Good. And, you are welcome.”

Hanna departed through the hatch. T'ocs returned to looking at his controls, face turning from a smile to a rather grim frown for a moment, before resetting to its natural, neutral placement. He returned to his study of the Arbiter's vital signs without so much as a stiff exhalation.

 

The entrance to Ome and more questions. My, my. Shorter chapter this time, apologies for the delay as well. IRL stuff has been eating into my writing time. But the plot is starting to pop a bit more...

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Chapter Eleven


The Arbiter shuddered from rivets to frame as it exited hyperspace outside of Ome's gravity well. The planet ahead was crowded with clouds, a green-gray sphere that swirled as it rotated. Its sun could be seen beyond it, a dazzling orb of brightness that caused the viewport to tint and preserve the eyes of the crew. In front of them was a single geometric shape, a triangle forged from white durrasteel, the Imperial-class Star Destroyer Marshall Awe.

“Well, here we are.” Trev said. “Not much to look at, really. Looks messy.”

“It'll be a lot messier after we're through with it.” Atto said, his voice audible over the ship's internal commlink. While the Arbiter's cockpit was only large enough to hold two, perhaps four humanoids if they stood, the other members of the crew were at their ready stations, Ice and Blade on the side-mounted turrets, Atto strapped in to a crash seat in the rear compartment alongside Trev, both viewing the ship's destination on a holocam monitor, while T'ocs navigated the ship and Hanna worked the flight controls.

While the flight over had allowed her to somewhat familiarize herself with the ship's control layout, Hanna had yet to actually fly the ship, since hyperspace did not require fine-tuning to that degree. With her palms already soaked in sweat, she grasped the ship's piloting yoke for the first time while T'ocs busied himself with dialing up the Star Destroyer's hailing frequency.

“I do not know what they will ask us to do.” He was saying, “Board and discuss the mission or head directly down to the planet.”

“Which would you prefer, boss?”

“Boarding. The more intel we get for whatever may be down there, the better.” T'ocs leaned forward to speak into the ship's comm speaker. “Marshall Awe, this is freelance military contractor designated Arbiter. We have arrived in system without incident and are awaiting a sitrep, over.”

“So polite.” Ice said under her breath, but still audible over the comm. All of the crew were wearing their comm headsets now, along with the visors, though the latter were not powered on. “You'd think we're a guest of some kind.”

“This is a zone under military jurisdiction.” Blade mentioned, “Especially relevant if the government on the planet below has undergone turmoil. In many ways, we are a guest.”

“An invited one they should be expecting.” Ice countered, “What's taking them so long to reply?”

“Maybe they're on break.” Atto offered.

“The whole crew? At the same time?”

“Hey, you never know, maybe there was some bad food at the mess hall...”

“Atto, shut up. Everyone, keep the comm clear and sit tight.” T'ocs flipped a switch and tried again. “Marshall Awe, this is the Arbiter. We are awaiting your instruction on procedure, over.”

Hanna, still gripping the piloting yoke as if merely releasing it would cause a horrible tragedy, was studying the Destroyer through the main cockpit window. “Imperial-class,” She muttered under her breath, “Sixty main guns, sixty ion guns, carries a seventy-two-strong fighter compliment, fifty assault and scout walkers and roughly a fifty-thousand person crew.”

“Impressive statistic recitation,” T'ocs said, “But what does that have to do with anything?”

“Just... this is the first time I've ever seen one.”

“Really?” T'ocs sounded a bit surprised, but not shocked.

“Huh.” Atto said from the back, “I'd have thought, growing up on a Core world...”

“Not everyone in the Empire lives every day under the guns of a Destroyer, Atto.” Hanna said, “The best we got at Empress Teta most of the time was a TIE fighter fly-over on Empire Day.”

“Huh.” Ice was the one to say it this time. “Figured your instructors would have at least taken you on a field trip or something if you spent as much time in class as you said.”

“Empress Teta's a peaceful world, we don't need to have a Destroyer parked in orbit to keep people from rioting in the streets. Besides, I was going for an Army post, not Navy.”

“Big difference.”

“Not to argue semantics, ladies, but does anyone else find it odd that the Destroyer has neither contacted us, nor sent out any fighters or other craft to investigate?” Blade interrupted with smooth poise. “They are supposed to have this entire system on lockdown, and we just arrived within relative short distance of them. No Imperial crew could be this unobservant.”

“Maybe they did notice us.” Trev offered.

“Maybe,” Atto added, “They just don't care.”

“If not, why call us, offer us a contract?” Blade sounded oddly off-put. “No, something else is going on here.”

“We have a normal transponder signal, the Destroyer is pinging properly.” T'ocs reported, neither concerned nor sarcastic. “We are too far away to check their sensor data, but a quick fly-over should solve that problem.”

Hanna did not respond to what he said for a moment, then blinked and said, “Wait, a fly-over of a Star Destroyer?”

“I do not see another option at this point, considering that hails on all of the standard frequencies have failed.”

“Then shouldn't you have the controls?”

“Not necessarily.”

“You want me to do a fly over of an Imperial Star Destroyer?”

“Sure, kid, go for it.”

“Not helping, Ice.”

“Hanna, I've tuned the Arbiter's controls to be intuitive to anyone that's familiar with standard flight systems.” Trev said over the comm, “I don't think you'll have a problem with it.”

“I'm not worried about being able to fly it, Trev, I'm worried about the hundred and twenty heavy starship grade weapons that might get pointed our way.”

“Along with a few hundred smaller ones.” Ice said with a note of tease in her voice.

“Shut up, Ice. Please. I'm freaking out already.”

“Hanna.” T'ocs turned to her and reached out, placing his hand on her arm. “If they were going to fire at us or send fighters out to shoot us down, they would have already done it. There is no reason for them not to have.” His arm fell away. “Go ahead. Take her in.”

Hanna looked at him for a moment. His expression had not changed a whit, but something about his words radiated reassurance, confidence. She took a deep breath, nodded, and turned back to the controls. “Okay. Engaging thrusters at half cruising speed.” She gripped the throttle and eased it forward, causing the ship to rumble beneath and behind her.

T'ocs nodded to her, then turned his attention back to the rest of the crew. “Ice, Blade, stay alert. Keep up visual scanning and be ready for anything. Trev, unstrap and get back to the input station, I want my sensory on high-mark, full spectrum. If anything so much as sneezes out there, I want to see it on the board in front of me.”

“Can do, boss. It won't be pretty, but it'll work.”

“It does not have to be pretty this time, Trev, so long as we do it right.”

“What about me, boss?”

“Atto, you stay put. I need you clear of the major impact zones, in case something happens to us up here. We'll have a fresh pilot and our medic ready and waiting.”

Atto sounded surprisingly subdued. “Yeah, okay.”

“Engines responding well.” Hanna reported, almost mechanically, as the ship reacted to her touch on the control yoke. “Plotting a course around the Destroyer.”

“Take us over it.”

She turned to look at T'ocs in shock.

“You heard me. Take us right over the main hull, right across that line of guns you were talking about before. No point in hiding.”

“You're mad.”

“No, just tired and a bit frustrated. Fly, please.”

“Boss...”

“Hanna.”

Hanna sighed, closed her eyes and leaned back against the chair. Her hands were still wrapped around the ship's control yoke, but she did not, or could not, move them about. “I...”

“You can do it, cheeka.” Atto's voice said from the speaker. “Just like flying a speeder. Just pretend the massive Imperial death machine isn't there.”

“Not... helping.” Hanna gritted out between clenched teeth.

T'ocs flipped the switch on the board in front of him, and the comm went silent. “Put aside the distractions and focus on your objective. Get us in for one good sensor sweep, bow-to-stern, following the central axis as far as you can. At the first sign of trouble, bounce upward and head for deep space. Clear?”

“Clear, sir.” Hanna opened her eyes and let out another deep breath. She eased the ship into a steady “descent”, relative to the Star Destroyer's position, dropping to its plane before leveling out. She kept one hand on the yoke as she reached for the throttle again, pushing it forward.

“Full cruising speed.” She reported, eyes not leaving the growing white and gray mass that loomed in front of her beyond the Arbiter's window.

“Steady as she goes.” T'ocs turned the comm back on in time to catch Atto muttering something to himself in Huttese under his breath. Rather than rebuke the Kiffar for whatever he said, he grunted and let it slide. “Visual scanning at maximum. Trev, anytime you are ready.”

“Sensors recalibrated and ready, boss.”

T'ocs sent out a sensor ping and watched the displays, intent and focused. “Readings coming back. Destroyer's power systems are operational, but I am not reading life support or weapons. Or shields, obviously. No life signs thus far.”

Hanna held her course, taking them over the sloped nose of the Destroyer and following its spinal ridge back toward the command tower jutting out above the rear of the massive ship. She had never imagined getting to see a Destroyer this close so soon in her life away from her home, nor had she ever dreamed the sort of terror that rested in her gut at seeing bank upon bank of weapons, laser canons, ion guns, turbolasers, all sitting still and dormant, but still menacing if just from presence alone. Small wonder that these were the Empire's flagships. Their size and presence alone should have been enough to rule the galaxy. The threat of all of the those guns, the thought of them turning and firing at once...

“We have a sign.” T'ocs reported into the silence, “Life signs, amidships, clustered around the ship's main hangar. By my count, a hundred or so, possibly more.”

“A hundred?” Trev asked from the back with a bit of disbelief. “Out of a crew of over fifty thousand?”

“Not everyone aboard a Destroyer has ready access to emergency breathing apparatuses if something goes wrong with the life support.” T'ocs stated as if he knew. “We could be looking at a derelict with only a skeleton crew left aboard.”

“Heh, skeleton.” Atto chimed in. “Over forty thousand people are dead.”

“Continue the sweep.” T'ocs said as if he had not heard, “I highly doubt the entire crew would be dead, if only from a statistical standpoint. In either case, we need to be sure.”

“What if everyone is dead, boss?”

T'ocs paused for a moment before replying. “Then we cut our losses and head back. Empress Teta's only four days away from here, and there'll be other jobs.”

“Not jobs like this, boss.”

“No, not like this. Hopefully, ones that are safer and more predictable than this.” He shook his head and muttered something to himself. Something in a language Hanna did not understand, but still knew could not mean anything particularly edifying.

“I do not like this, at all.” Blade said, his voice faint but still being picked up by his headset. “Too many variables, too many unexplained problems. And we have not even landed on the planet.”

“Stow it, Blade.” T'ocs barked, “Keep alert. We are a long way from done here.”

“We might be done at any moment here, boss.” Blade countered, “No disrespect, but this is not a job anymore. We have no reason to continue beyond pride, and pride will do nothing to preserve our lives if even a single gun on that Destroyer pulls the trigger.”

Hanna was listening to all of this with one ear while she kept her mind on flying the ship straight and her eyes on the viewport. She had her own opinions about their situation, mainly that they should get out of there and never come back, but she was the pilot, not the Captain, and she followed her orders with the mechanical efficiency of a droid. That was her job, and a good soldier did her job. Even if the gnawing feeling in her guts did not go away.

The Destroyer's widening hull forced her to change course to match it, angling upward from its main hull axis and pivoting out and away from the superstructure as it rose up in front of them. She could not see the scanners from where she sat, and so could not say if they were picking up anything new, or if they were even in the proper place. But she did not see any reason to deviate or change things, not yet. No one was shooting at them and there were no other immediate danger signs. She kept her heading in mind and watched the Destroyer's hull flow by, still passing even after all this time.

Something moved. She blinked and looked again. It looked like part of the Destroyer's hull was moving independent of the rest of the ship. It took another second or so for her to recognize that it was a separate ship, not a part of the Destroyer itself, painted the same Imperial white and perfectly camouflaged. Whether it had been attached to the hull and just left it or come from the far side of the ship and been disguised was not clear. But Hanna did not see it as important at that moment.

“Boss, there's another ship-”

“I see it.” T'ocs turned his attention to the scanners and started flipping switched on the board between them. “It's a corvette of some sort. No transponder signal.”

“Is that where the life signs were coming from?”

“Maybe. It's turning away and heading for the planet, full speed.” T'ocs pointed out a new course, plotting the projected path of the mysterious corvette as it left the shadow of the Destroyer and headed toward Ome. “After her.”

“On it, sir.” Hanna turned the ship toward the corvette's fast-retreating signal and shoved the throttle forward. “Full speed?”

“Full speed.” T'ocs nodded, “Everyone on full alert. Ice, Blade, bracket that corvette, but hold your fire. We are going to trail them down.”

“Boss, that's an Imperial corvette.” Ice pointed out, “It outguns us by quite a bit, and can probably outrun us, too.”

“I do not think they want to fight, Ice. Besides, we are not here to fight the Empire, we are here to investigate the rebellion going on on the planet below us. If the corvette is headed there and is an Imperial ship, it is in our best interests to follow it down and find out more of what happened up here. And if it is not Imperial, then we stand to gain more from whatever intelligence we can gather before heading back to Empress Teta.”

“And if they turn and fight when they see us following them?”

“Then we turn and run. Never let it be said that I bit off more than my crew and I could chew.”

“Shouldn't they have seen us already?” Hanna asked, “I mean, they were within a few hundred kilometers at least, that's plenty close enough to at least pick up our ion wake and sensor profile.”

“They probably did. They probably heard our comm signal as well. In all likelihood, that is why they are running.”

“Away from us?”

“Or just away from whatever they have done aboard the Marshall Awe. At this point, I have no idea what sort of beings might be aboard that corvette. They might very well have killed the entire crew of the Destroyer somehow and left it adrift for us to happen upon. They may not be running so much as returning to Ome, from whence they started, at the conclusion of a successful mission.”

“I'm not sure I want to fight a corvette full of beings who just killed the whole crew of a Star Destroyer, boss.”

“Neither do I, ad'ika. But we do have a mission to complete.”

Hanna shook her head, not hard, just enough to let her dissent be known. “I'll try to match their speed, but they're already outpacing us and we're close to our maximum speed.”

“Do not lose them. Whatever it takes.”

“We could start jettisoning the dead weight?” Ice suggested from the rear, “I volunteer Atto.”

“Thanks, Ice. I volunteer Trev's parts collection, Ice's rifle, and Blade's, well, blades.”

“Fat chance.” All three of the crew members said in unison.

“Corvette's picking up speed. I think they've hit the gravity well.” Hanna looked at T'ocs. “We're going to lose them in the clouds, I can't push us any faster.”

T'ocs' look spoke of silent frustration, but his tone was as level as ever. “I suppose it cannot be helped. Keep on their course, follow them as far as you can.” He examined a sensor readout for a moment. “Ome City is along their projected route, but, that may not be their destination. The spaceport facilities are on the planet's north and west sectors, if that is their objective, they will likely change course soon. If not, where else could they be heading...?”

“There isn't much else on the planet's surface aside from jungle and swamplands. A few open bodies of water, but no other major cities or settlements.” Hanna did a quick visual scan of their course matching against the computer. “They're holding true to a course straight for Ome City so far, I think it's safe to say that's where they're headed.”

“Probably.” T'ocs sighed. “Pull back, get us to the edge of sensor range and no further.”

“Having second thoughts?”

“Ice is right, we cannot win a fight if it comes to that. We need to evaluate the situation and move forward with caution. And we need to send a message to the nearest Imperial garrison regarding the Marshall Awe.”

“But we don't even know what happened to it.”

“Not yet.” T'ocs sat back. “I have a plan. A plan for what to do here on this planet and have all of us walk away from this in as few pieces as possible and still ten thousand credits richer.”

 

Had to chime in on this story - love the tone that was set and the flawed but interesting main character. I'm interesting to see how the group dynamics play out, the crew certainly has some edges to it.

I'm enjoying the slowly emerging mystery of this mission, sometimes it's nice to have a mystery unwind slowly than all at once. Keep up the good work!

 

Happy belated Thanksgiving and future Christmas, everyone. Meanwhile, mysteries abound aboard the Destroyer...

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Chapter Twelve

The Star Destroyer Marshall Awe was an eerie place for exploration. Normally, a Destroyer was a bustling hub of activity, men and women in uniform going back and forth, carrying out orders and keeping the ship running. Akin to a hive, a Destroyer was also the launch pad for shuttles, fighters, transports and corvettes, the center of a web of ships that could stretch for entire systems. There was no sign of any of that aboard the Marshall Awe. Every corridor, from the hangar to the turbolifts, was empty. They were empty of life, empty of bodies, empty of any sign that they had ever been inhabited outside of basic construction and functionality. Whatever had happened to the crew, there was no trace of them left to be discovered without advanced forensic technology.

T'ocs frowned as he turned his headset piece off. “No life forms on this floor. Not so much as a pet fish.”

Blade, stalking out beside him, was watching the corridor with a hunter's wariness. “This is not right. There are no signs of a struggle, no bodies, no blast marks or blood.”

T'ocs grunted. “It makes me wonder if the whole crew just... left the ship, all at once.”

“Why? How?”

“I do not know.” T'ocs keyed his commlink. “Trev, what is your status?”

“I'm past the initial security layers, boss,” Trev reported from elsewhere aboard the ship, a computer station closer to their impromptu base of operations in the ship's main hangar. “But, there's nothing in here.”

“Define yourself.”

“The entire ship's records have been deleted and the memory purged on an extremely thorough level, almost down to the hardware. Everything was scrubbed back to factory basics and then some. I've never seen a ship's computer this... clean.”

“You are not there to admire it, Trev, you are there to pull whatever you can out of it.”

“Right, sorry. There's probably at least one layer of data that the wipe didn't reach, I'll keep digging.”

“Do that. See if you can patch into the security feeds, as well.” T'ocs turned to Blade. “We will head to the bridge and survey it. Watch for any more signs along the way, anything that might give us clues to where the crew went.”

“And what if we find nothing?”

“Then we go down to the planet and look there for our answers. But first things are first.” T'ocs pointed off along the corridor. “The turbolifts are this way.”

They started walking, but did not move in any way fast. Despite his scanners assuring him that there were no life signs anywhere around them, T'ocs knew better than to trust his life to the effectiveness of his equipment. He had no idea what could be aboard this vessel, the undead, war droids, an abomination from the depths of space, and therefor no idea whether what had caused the crew to vanish might still be aboard and was simply able to avoid his scanners. While he was normally inclined to be skeptical about such far-fetched flights of fantasy when Atto or another member of the crew posited them, this mission was different.

Nothing was going right. Nothing was working the way it was supposed to. Nothing was as it should be. The longer questions were proposed without evident answers, the worse he felt their prospects becoming. The deeper they went down the ranat hole, the worse the bad feeling he had about this mission became, the bad feeling he had about this mission only got worse.

Each step he and Blade took down the lonely, empty corridors echoed through the speakers on his headset, creating a soft pattern of bumps in the audio sensory alerts. He stayed behind his tracker, letting Blade lead the way and focused on listening to his commlink and watching his sensory. T'ocs himself was getting on his years, he was not as alert or attentive as he once had been. He left the more stringent searching to the younger members of the crew, the ones whose eyes were not fading and whose back did not ache after a long day of bending over to look at tracks or signs.

Star Destroyers were massive vessels. Walking across the length of it without taking any of the lateral turbolifts would be a long and involved process at their current pace. But until Trev was into the security system and could tell them for sure that they would not be ambushed around the next corner or in the next intersection, it was best that they played it safe. Blasters poised, alert, they poked their muzzles around every corner and turn, wary, watching.

“Boss.”

T'ocs quelled the fear that jumped into his throat at the voice's sudden return that broke the suspended silence. “What is it, Trev?”

“I'm into the security system. Almost all of the cams are still online, I can see basically the entire ship from here now.”

“And?”

“As far as I can see, the entire ship's empty aside from the two of you. But there is one blind spot, and it's a pretty big one.”

“The bridge?”

“Uh huh.”

“Can you get the cams there online again?”

“No, they've been removed from the system manually. Which means someone probably blew them up. The best I can do is pull up the records from before they went down, if they haven't been wiped like the rest of the information here.”

“Keep me posted.” T'ocs said.

“Right, boss.” Trev signed off the commlink with a soft clicking noise.

“The bridge is sounding more and more like a trap.” Blade commented, sweeping his blaster down a side-hall, dark eyes taking in every corner and panel of the gray and white surfaces. “This is not a good plan.”

“No, it is not.” T'ocs agreed, mirroring Blade's sweep with a gesture down another corridor to their right. “If you have an alternate idea that does not involve all of us leaving, I am open to hearing it.”

“We cannot leave, that is true. My suggestion would be to storm the bridge directly, take whatever is up there by surprise. Because no matter what we do down here, they will know we are coming well before the turbolift arrives.”

“Fair point. But a Star Destroyer's bridge is not the easiest thing to carve into. They would be alerted either way.”

“But we would also have the Arbiter close by instead of sitting behind us, waiting for something to happen. Ice and Hanna would likewise still be here to make sure our forces are sufficient for the action. A better option all around.”

“Except that, there is no guarantee that whatever is on the bridge would have died, or that we would have lived. At least, this way, we are the only ones entering that danger.”

Blade turned and looked at T'ocs. “You feel guilty about this mission, even now. You do not like that we are neck-deep in a situation that may result in everyone's deaths.”

“Of course I do. I told everyone at the beginning that I did not like the way this mission smelled. But you all came along anyway. And for a while, I thought that we would not run into any problems, anything we had not seen before. I was wrong. And now I feel guilt that I may get five bright young beings killed.”

“Not all of us are young, boss.”

“Younger than I am, Blade, young enough to make a life beyond this...” T'ocs waved his blaster in the general direction of Ome, beyond the bulkheads and hull that surrounded them. “I have lived a full life already, when my time comes I am more than ready. The only ones who would care to notice my passing are the ones who bunk aboard my ship. But my conscience cannot bear the thought of Atto being killed, or Trev, or Ice or you or universe and all the fates forbid little Hanna. To have a small corner of the galaxy go dark before its time because of a mistake I made, because I delved too greedily into something I did not understand... I would rather it be myself that meets their end than any of you.”

“Then let us do our best to make sure that no one dies this day. Or any day soon.”

T'ocs smirked. “Always to the point, Blade.”

“I am focused, boss.” Blade held up a hand and paused in his walking. “Wait.”

“What?” T'ocs scanners had shown nothing anywhere nearby. But he knew better than to doubt the word of his best tracker. He stopped alongside him. “What did you find?”

“Nothing I found. Something that is missing. Listen.”

T'ocs paused, listening. Aside from the soft white noise of his commlink in his ear, he heard nothing. Just his and Blade's soft breathing. “I hear nothing.”

“Indeed. Where is the air filtration? Why are there no engine noises or computers beeping and whirring, no droids moving about? Someone has shut down all of the ship's internal systems, save only the lighting and artificial gravity. The only reason we have not suffocated is that this ship is so large and empty, the air left here is still somewhat fresh.”

T'ocs grimaced. “Trev, you reading any of that?”

“I heard him, boss. And he's right. The only other thing aside from the lights and gravity is the main security system. All of the tertiary computer terminals are shut down. Someone left this one active on purpose and shut off everything else. This just went from suspicious to very scary.”

“We are walking into a trap.” Blade said, “Something expected us or others like us to come aboard.”

“Of course they did. Trev, get whatever you can out of the systems and then head back to the Arbiter, give us support from there.”

“You're still going for the bridge, boss?”

“Of course. If this is a trap, that is where the bait will be.”
------- --------- --------

The bridge of a Star Destroyer was not meant to be a battle arena. Along each wall were alternating viewports and control and command consoles, two crew pits in the center of the room separated by a central command walkway, with the forward-most wall being almost entirely made up of clear, vaguely triangular transparisteel panels. Everything was the same professional gunmetal grays and whites the rest of the ship was colored. Everything about it was neat, functional and standardized, a ship of the line in every sense of the word.

Behind the bridge within the ship's command superstructure were various other necessary functions of the ship, such as the main security suite and communications stations. A hologram pod allowed audio-visual messages to be sent anywhere the HoloNet reached, while the ops center and main officer's meeting room were connected through the main corridor beyond. Functions that, in lesser ships, received a single console to themselves, had full rooms and teams of technicians working constantly on them aboard the Empire's most iconic starship. The bridge was always a buzz of activity, even when the ship was not in combat or even in motion.

As Blade and T'ocs crept out onto the command deck of the Marshall Awe, coming into view of the bank of viewports that opened the ship to space, the bridge they saw was almost entirely deserted, the hum of noise and motion missing and leaving the ship with an hauntingly silent atmosphere. Even the control consoles were silent and dark. The only lighting came from a pair of lumina panels in the walls, and the twinkling stars far beyond the bulkheads of the ship.

But even with the low lighting, both T'ocs and Blade instantly spotted the only other living being still aboard the Destroyer, someone sitting cross-legged in the middle of the command walkway and framed in shadow on both sides. The figure wore nothing but a simple brown robe, the hood hanging low over the its face, not looking up or acknowledging the approach of the two hunters.

T'ocs motioned to Blade in silence, and the two of them fanned out to the opposite sides of the bridge, across the crew pit from each other and with the figure between them. Both had their blasters out and pointed at the figure, but Blade also had a long vibroknife in his hand, clutched across the blaster's forward grip. Neither of them said a word, focused tight on the figure in the center of the room. It was impossible to tell if it was human, though it was certainly humanoid if the shape was any indication.
The figure did not move or make a sound until Blade and T'ocs were on opposite sides of the room. Then, it began to speak in a voice that seemed somehow off, somehow not right with the universe. Perhaps it was a bit too deep, perhaps it was a bit too fast, but something about it unsettled T'ocs deep in his gut.

“Hunters.” It said, “Come from the fringes. Not Imperial soldiers at all.”

“We do not have to explain ourselves to you.” T'ocs said, activating his headset's broadcasting mode to send audio and visual signals back to the Arbiter for later review. “It is you who will be answering our questions.”

“Not so, hunter.” The figure replied, “Your purpose here is foggy, even to you. Leave now, while you can.”

“What happened to the crew of this ship?” Blade asked, “What have you done with them?”

“They are transposed, taken away from here to be remade. But there is no place there for you and your kind.”

T'ocs took a step forward, to the edge of the crew pit. “You could never have taken this ship over by yourself. The rest of your band, are they on the planet?”

“Why do you insist on asking questions you already know the answers to? You saw them leave, why bellow and posture for that?”

“How do you know what I saw? Were you watching?”

“Your mind is an open book, hunter. I read everything in it, your thoughts, your fears, your anger. Ah, the shock and horror, and now even more questions are in there, waiting to come loose. However,” The figure stood up in one impossibly smooth motion, causing both Blade and T'ocs to take a step back. “I will answer no more. Though this has been amusing, it is also unnecessary. You will be removed before you endanger the plan any further.”

The figure's arm reached out, a hand appearing from the end of the long sleeve of the robe and gesturing, palm out, toward T'ocs. Out of nowhere, a thundering blow rocked T'ocs, causing him to fall backward, head spinning and visor display systems flaring and blinking all across his vision. He rolled over and got to his feet, in time to see the robed figure turn a similar gesture toward Blade, whose efforts to dodge out of the way met with no success. The tracker flew backward until he hit the wall behind him, driving the wind from his body with an audible sound and leaving him slumped on the floor.

T'ocs took aim and fired. His blaster bolt pierced the figure's robe, but it spun away from taking a direct hit and the crimson energy lance splashed harmlessly against the far wall, showering Blade with sparks. The figure gestured again, this time in a lifting, rising motion. T'ocs flew up from the floor and did not stop or slow down until he hit the ceiling a second or so later.

The landing was almost as bad as the impact. T'ocs hit the floor again with a hard, ringing sound in his ears. He desperately grabbed and pulled for something in his belt, searching for the small, round sphere among his spare energy clips. His fingers found purchase and he gripped the object, a grenade, for a quick moment before heaving it outward as hard as he could toward the figure.

The robed being's hand emerged again, and the grenade changed direction mid-flight, away from it and toward Blade. The other hunter saw it coming and was able to roll out of the way before it went off, showering that side of the room with shrapnel but missing everyone within it.

“Your actions are futile. You cannot win.”

“Shut it.” T'ocs heaved himself up on his arms and climbed back to his feet. Something in his chest hurt, but he ignored it. He would have to hurt later. “I know what you are now. And I have fought your kind before.”

“Ah.” The figure turned to face him square. It took its hood in both hands and cast it back from its face, causing T'ocs to start. The being underneath the robe was a hideously deformed human, its face a mass of hairless flesh with no clear brow, cheeks or nose, with one eye, a small blue one, approximately where the forehead should have been, and another, larger and brown in color, much lower, toward the area of the right cheek. Its mouth was askew as well, slanted downward to the right with the bottom part of the upper lip puffed outward and the upper part of the bottom lip curled inward, a small gap between them giving a peek at misplaced, crooked teeth and a tongue that was entirely too large. How the creature was even able to speak was a complete mystery, let alone see or fight or anything else. Every breath it took moved its mouth, face and neck in unnatural ways, and every syllable that fell from its malformed lips seemed all the more terrible now that it could be seen.

“I understand your part, now.” The thing's unnatural voice somehow emerged from that misshapen maw, “They sent you here because you are not just hunters, you are hunters of Jedi.”

“Perhaps they did.” T'ocs felt pieces click into place, pieces of a puzzle that was beginning to form a picture he did not like in the least. “Perhaps they made a mistake.”
“Oh,” The figure smiled, and it was the most heinous thing T'ocs had ever seen. “That was never in doubt.”

It turned and delivered another invisible blow to Blade, who had stalked forward while unnoticed and was interrupted mid-spring, hoping to reach the figure's back with his knife. He sprawled against the floor, weapons clattering away into the shadows.

“You reveal your every move to me before you even make it.” The figure said, turning back to face T'ocs, “I hear your thoughts in my head before your even finish thinking them yourself. You cannot win.”

“That is where you are wrong.” T'ocs let his blaster drop to the floor and kicked it aside. “Just because you know what I am thinking does not mean you will always be able to stop me.”

The figure gave him a look that seemed a mix of bemusement and puzzlement, if its face's contortions were anything similar to those of a human. T'ocs said nothing more to it. He simply smiled.

A quick-draw from a holster was one of the first things a young man or woman living on the fringes of the galaxy learned to do. On some planets it was a common contest of skill to see who could draw faster, but most learned to do it just quick enough to survive one more day, until they fought their way into wielding bigger guns, guns where drawing was no longer an issue so much as accuracy was. On Mandalore, where T'ocs had grown up, being able to quick-draw was just one of a hundred things that were taught and practiced about blasters, and it was not one he was particularly good at. Any gunslinger on the fringe would have taken him with ease. But he did not need to outdraw a gunslinger here. Not this time.

He drew his pistol and fired, dropping into a crouch as he did so the shot went for the figure's center mass rather than the head. A headshot was a kill shot most of the time. But he did not want to kill with his first shot. That would have been too easy to predict, to viscerally visual to have slipped by for the precious seconds he needed to calculate range, speed and angles in his head. He needed a body shot, something that would hurt, wound, maim, something that would ruin concentration.

The figure took the shot right in the center of its chest, letting out a wet gasp as a cloud of burnt fabric and skin burst into life from its body. It staggered backward, one step, two, almost tumbling into the crew pit behind it before righting itself, one hand clutched to its fresh wound, viscera and blood oozing out and staining its robe a dark muddy color. Spittle raining from its mouth, it turned on T'ocs and raised a hand.

The second shot came from behind, blowing the figure's kneecap off and bringing it to the floor with a harsh, rattling scream. Blade stood up from where he had recovered his blaster, leaping the crew pit and striding to the figure where it now lay, weapon in one hand, the other at his side.

“Your kind is not welcome in this galaxy any more.” He said.

“Our kind... will rule this galaxy.” The figure rasped out, “A future... I have seen something your kind will never have. I have seen... a galaxy... at peace.”

“Peace will come when you are dead.” Blade drew a particularly long, serrated vibroblade from behind his back and powered it on. It shrieked almost to the height of the pitch the figure struck when the tip pierced its flesh and drove through its neck all the way to the floor it lay on. Blade let the dagger carve through, then stood up and powered it down. “You and whoever is left to stand with you.”

T'ocs came over to inspect his crewmate's handiwork. The figure lay still in a pool of its own blood, throat sliced through almost to the spine, mouth still frozen mid-scream. He patted Blade on the shoulder at the latter cleaned his weapon off on a scrap of cloth.

“We need to speak with the others.” Blade said, “Now.”

“Yes, we do.” T'ocs turned to look out the viewport at the distant starfield, toward the rim of the planet Ome just coming into view as the ship drifted. “I only hope we are not too late.”

 

Chapter Thirteen

Hanna resisted the urge to scratch. A spot on her head, right above the fabric strap of her goggles, had started sweating, and the trickle of sweat running down her face had caused something or other to itch just under her collar, under the edge of her armored bodysuit. The fabric of the suit caught the moisture and became itchy. It was right in a spot she knew she would be able to reach, but aggravated her because no amount of scratching would dry her off. She would need to get a towel or something similar and clean off her entire head and neck.

Of course, if she did that, the excess movement meant the likelihood they would be spotted shot up immensely. Not to mention that Ice was likely to hiss another blue streak of swearing at her.

Both Hanna and Ice were lying prone in a ramshackle lean-to of leaves and branches, just above the water line of a particularly swampy area outside of Ome City. The governor’s tower was ahead and above them, on the skirts of the city and overlooking the spaceport. They had made camp here after a long hour or so of slogging through downed trees, underbrush and swamp, within easy eyesight distance of the tower itself but far enough away that seeing anything in detail was a struggle. Neither was eager to repeat the journey, and so took great care not to do anything that might lead to them being spotted.

Ice was examining the tower’s levels one by one through her laser rifle’s scope, Hanna serving as her spotter and naming places she saw movement in or near the tower. It was a slow process. The tower was forty-six levels high and had segmented windows the entire way up, meaning each room called for separate examination, but nothing within sight had moved since they had started their observation. The sounds of the swamp, of insects and amphibious animal life, had been interrupted only once, by the buzzing hum of a speeder as it had left the tower before they had finished their lean-to. Since then, nothing had moved along the tower’s entire height.

The tower was a tall cylinder, with a single main entrance at the bottom along with maintenance doors at even intervals along the base. The sides of the building were almost sheer transparisteel and durasteel, without any sort of protrusion from the architecture. No landing platforms, no balconies or even an open window. At the top of the tower was a single massive antenna, likely a communications booster for a HoloNet transceiver, and the only landing platform on the entire tower, likely one reserved for either the governor or whoever else was currently in power.

“Twenty-fifth floor is cleared out.” Ice reported, eye still to the rifle’s scope. “Still no one around.”

“Right.” Hanna marked another line in the wood of a branch next to her, the twenty-fifth in total. “Is the entire building empty, do you think?”

“I doubt it. Probably all hiding somewhere toward the top.” Ice moved her blaster along the row to the twenty-sixth floor. “You should have brought along a pair of electrobinoculars.”

“Well, I’m sorry for not being able to predict the future.” Hanna felt another stream of sweat slide down her face and into her collar. “Can I take my goggles off? They’re making me sweat more than I should.”

“You wore ‘em, you’ll bear it, it’s your own fault.” Ice flicked her fingers across her rifle, flipping the scope’s plasticized cover out of the way as the muzzle tracked along the width of the tower. “Why did you wear those, anyway?”

“I don’t know, I thought they might be useful for some reason.” Hanna blinked and sighed as more sweat slid down her face, running off her nose and down her lips. “Obviously I was wrong.”

“No, you were just wrong about this part of the mission. No telling what might happen later on.”

“You suck at supportive teaching.”

“Haven't got a lot of practice at it. Twenty-sixth floor's clear.”

Hanna made another mark on the branch. “Where did everyone go? A building that big's got to have almost a thousand people in it, they can't all be huddled at the top of the tower, we'd have seen them by now.”

“Dunno.” Ice aimed up toward the twenty-seventh floor, then let loose a harsh sigh. “This is all wrong.”

“What's wrong?”

“This place is under sedition and blockade by an Imperial Star Destroyer. It's supposed to be under civil unrest, rebellion, rioting in the streets. And look, nothing's moving. Not just here at the tower, through the entire city. There's no unrest, no rebellion. Everything's quiet, like there's nothing wrong. More than that, like the entire town's asleep or dead. I think we're too late.”

“Too late? Like, the revolution's already been put down?”

“No. Like the revolution's already won.” Ice turned and handed her rifle to Hanna. “Hold this.”

Hanna clutched the rifle in both hands for a moment, looking at it, then at Ice. Then she put it to her shoulder and lowered her eye to the scope. “What am I supposed to be looking at?”

“The top floor.” Ice moved position slightly and reached back behind Hanna's head. “And hold still.”

Hanna felt a tug on her hair, and was hard-pressed not to turn and swat Ice's hands away. “What are you doing?”

“What you should have done in the first place. Sweep that top floor for me.”

Hanna grumbled to herself. The red and white view through the scope highlighted sources of heat, picking out the tower's heating duct system and electrical components. She could see through the walls, but all she could make out through them were the loose layout of the rooms, clustered groups of wiring and such, and where people were. Hanna was no sniper, she knew how to use the rifle but that was about all. She used the sight more as a telescope than anything.

She moved from room to room along the top floor, looking for anything of interest. Room after room, utterly empty. She was about to turn to Ice and tell her the story when she spotted something. “I see... a group of people standing in a room on the top floor. Looks like... a control room or something, there's a lot of electrical signatures too.”

“Good eye.” Ice tugged at Hanna's goggles, pulling them off her head and dropping them onto the rifle in front of her. “Hold these.”

“What-”

“Just do it. Obviously, the building's been evacuated. The governor's probably been taken elsewhere or gone to ground somewhere. My guess is, whoever's up there is one of our targets. Where else would a group of rebels be able to set up a planet-wide communications array on this mudball?”

“Why build an entire tower full of communications, administrative and survey equipment when you can steal it?”

“Exactly.” Ice let Hanna's hair go and patted her on the shoulder. “There.”

“What?”

“I braided your hair back so it won't get in your way. Also, you can put those goggles away.”

Hanna reached back and felt her hair. Ice had bundled it into three strands and wound all three together into a tight braid down the back of her neck. It was back and out of the way, and it made her head feel a lot cooler. However,

“Only little girls wear braids.”

“Who told you that?”

“An instructor at my school. He said I should just trim it short.”

“So why didn't you?”

Hanna had no answer. She shrugged.

“If you're going to wear your hair long on jobs like this, you're going to have to braid it. Otherwise, it'll get in the way, it'll get dirty, and it might get grabbed during a fight. Look at me.”

Hanna turned to look at Ice. The darker woman had her own hair in a braid, a longer one that ran down over her shoulder. She tugged on it. “I've worn my hair like this for years, it's the only way I've seen to have it out without it getting in the way. Unless you go for the boss's crew cut, you're going to have to braid it, or else it'll cause you all sorts of problems, maybe even get you killed.”

Hanna ran her hand over her own braid again. She did not know quite what to say. From what the others had said, Ice was the last person to be giving out practical fashion advice. Yet, to Hanna, she had become almost a mentor, even though they had only known each other for a few days.

“Why are you being so nice to me?”

Ice may have flushed, it was hard to tell with her dark skin tone. She took her rifle back from Hanna. “I'm not. I'm trying to keep you from getting yourself killed.”

“That's still being nice. You could just let me get killed like all the others who've come and gone.”

“The ones who died were either too old or too stupid to keep up. The ones who didn't were too stubborn or arrogant to stick with the team. You're still young, you can't be any of those things yet. All I'm doing is stopping you from being one.”

Hanna paused for a moment before replying. “Thanks.”

“Yeah, well, don't make me regret it.” Ice put the sniper rifle back to her shoulder and put her eye to the scope again. “Yep, top floor, sure enough. Five or six of them.”

“Should we call it in?”

“Comm silence, remember? We'll wait for pickup in an hour or so. No rush.”

Hanna wiggled a bit in her perch, making a face. “Wait another hour in this heat?”

“If we make a comm call, it'll attract attention, even if they don't know what we're saying. That comm array is probably sweeping the whole city, listening for anything out of the ordinary.”

“No, I get all that. It's just...”

“What? Need to take a leak or something?”

Hanna said “Yes,” in a quiet voice.

Ice sighed to herself. “And I suppose you aren't going to just use an empty ration packet, or...”

“No!”

“Fine, okay.” Ice settled further down into her spot. “Just climb down and find a tree or a bush or something. Just be quiet and don't move too quick.”

Hanna slid backward out of the lean-to and to the edge of their hideaway, slipping off the branch and descending to the marshy ground. She felt her face burning a bit as she moved into a thicker part of the undergrowth and undid the clasps on her belt. This was the sort of thing she had no thought about before setting off on the mission, but by all accounts should have. This was a two-hour stake, not anything extended or intimidating, it was her own fault that her bladder was betraying her. And having to ask Ice for permission to leave reminded her all too much of her academy classroom days.

It took her almost a full minute to undo all of the straps, clasps and seals on her belt and pants. By the time she had her underwear around her knees and knelt at the foot of a tree, she was through being embarrassed and more annoyed at the stink and humidity around her than anything. The swampland around the edges of Ome City were also drainage and run-off areas so the buildings could be built on solid foundations, meaning that even the firmer areas, such as where Ice and Hanna had landed and set up their stakeout, had surfaces with a consistency closer to a jelly than dirt. It also stank of dead and decaying plant and animal life.

Hanna grimaced as she pulled her pants back up to her waist and sealed them again. Everything here stank, but at least it was quiet. Most of the fauna lived deeper in the swamps, away from the open ground and the people. Whether that was a natural movement or something that had only happened recently, none of the crew was able to say on their initial observation of the area. But they were not about to turn away a gift. Not having to worry about disturbing animals on their way to or from the stake meant they could be that much quieter.

That near-complete silence is what allowed Hanna to hear the sounds of branches breaking nearby just as she was pulling her belt up to her waist again. She froze, listening. Footsteps, the soft squishing noise they made in the soft turf and loam, were heading her way. She let her belt fall away and took a step to her left, moving back from the tree and to slightly firmer ground.

A figure in a brown robe stepped out from behind another tree. It did not speak, only gesture, coming to a stop between two trees and doing nothing but stand, its hooded face not even turned in Hanna's direction. Rather, it was looking toward the stake, the lean-to, and Ice. One hand was fishing through its robe for something, the other propped it up against one of the trees, but nothing else of it was visible, just swamp-encrusted robes that looked rather hot and heavy for their current climate.

Hanna stayed as still as she could. She had no idea if the figure knew she was there. She hoped not. Something about seeing it, how it moved and looked, it unsettled her. A feeling deep in her guts told her to stay hidden. She did not even put her belt back on, letting it dangle from her hand.

Then her commlink went off with its emergency tone, one that went through to her ear even if the commlink itself was in its sleep mode or entirely powered down. She silently cursed and stepped back into the brush, pressing the comm to power it on and hear whatever was so important to someone.

“-do not engage.” T'ocs' voice was saying, “Repeat, if you see anyone wearing body-covering robes on your recon, do not engage. These beings are extremely dangerous. We will be there to pick you up in a few minutes, hold tight and wait for extraction.”

Hanna could hear Ice swearing on another part of the line as she turned back to her observation of the hooded figure. The person had likewise turned to face her, likely drawn by the sounds she had unwittingly made. The swamp was dark, most of the ground level in shade thanks to the tall trees and overhanging boughs like the one the lean-to sat on. But Hanna could still see the twisted scars that ran across the robed figure's face as it slid its hood back, long, jagged lacerations that had been crudely stitched or stapled together running across its face and head in all directions, like rivers carving into rock. It occurred to Hanna that, the only reason for it to remove its hood was so it could get a better look at her.

She dove back behind the tree just as the figure raised its hand toward her. She could hear the tree bark splintering and cracking under the impact of something, but heard no blaster fire or any other weapon report. A thrown weapon of some kind? Hanna put her back to the tree and hunted for her tools, her blaster, only to realize that she had left her belt behind on the ground. She swore at herself again, scrambling to stand upright and preparing to run out and recover it.

The moment she turned the corner of the tree to run, the robed being was in front of her, just as surprised to see Hanna as Hanna was terrified to see it. Hanna ducked out of instinct, diving forward as a blow whistled over her head. She caught the figure in the midriff with her shoulder, wrapped her arms around its chest and brought it to the ground, driving as hard as she could into the impact to knock its wind out before it could recover its wits.

Feeling her opponent hit the ground, Hanna slid upward and back, releasing her hold and freeing her arms to rain in blows at the figure's face. The figure fought back, driving elbows and knees into Hanna's face and body. The ground underneath them squished and squelched, covering them both in mud in a matter of seconds. Hanna took an elbow to the eye, causing her to see stars and partially blinding her. She did not flinch back, though, fighting through the pain to deliver a fist to the bridge of her opponent's nose, breaking it and pushing its head back into the marshy turf.

Hanna grabbed for its throat and chin, trying to push it deeper into the sludge, when something struck her in the forehead out of nowhere. Her head snapped back and she lost her grip on the robed being's throat and face. As she reeled, the figure sat up and drove its hands into Hanna's chest, heaving her up into the air and sending her flying into a particularly soft patch of ground in the midst of a loose thicket. Mud in her eyes and nose filled with the smells of the swamp, Hanna coughed and pawed at her face, desperate not to lose sight of her opponent.

Something massively powerful and entirely invisible sat itself right on her face and chest, knocking her back down into the mud and threatening to smother her. Hanna struggled to worm out from underneath the weight, but it felt like her entire body weighed a ton or two. She could hardly move, let alone fight back. But she could scream.

“Ice! Help!”

A fresh blow covered her face in loam and compost, cutting off further words and forcing her to spit and cough before she could take her next breath. She scrabbled and pawed at the ground, turning over and hacking out a mouthful of swamp sludge.

Another invisible assault drove her face-first into the mud and kept her there, despite all of her struggles to free herself. The foul-smelling viscous surface drove itself into every orifice on her head, but most of it wound up in her mouth and nose. She could not breathe, she could not cough or spit, she could not cry out again. She could only struggle, trying to push herself out of the mud or squirm out from under the force holding her down. And even that soon resolved itself to futile spasms and twitching as the air flow to her lungs and limbs was cut off.

Just as she was about to lose consciousness, something turned her over. She coughed a couple of times, but lacked much of the strength to clear her mouth and lungs. The foot planted on her chest helped her, though. Hanna retched up the mess in her lungs and lay back, exhausted, one hand limply wiping her eyes clean.

The robed being was standing over her, one boot planted on her middle, arms folded across its chest. It might have looked intimidating or menacing, including that the broken nose Hanna had dealt it, leaving twin blood streams falling from its face, down its mouth and onto the front of its robe without any sign of it being unduly affected by it. The issue was, underneath the scars and blood, the figure was a girl about Hanna's own age, with bright blue eyes and streaky blond hair that had been shaved off most of her head except one long tuft that hung down over her left ear.

Hanna took a few moments to catch her breath, not doing anything to provoke any further attacks. Her opponent was content to leave her in the mud, pressing down harder with her boot and shortening Hanna's breath, but not attacking any further. She just looked at her, expression unreadable aside from a hint of a glimmer in her eyes. But it was not a smile sort of glimmer, it looked more rabid than that, more feral.

If not for all of the martial arts and self-defense programs she had been through, Hanna might have been content to lay there until something happened. But she knew that leaving herself at her opponent's mercy, she lost all initiative and ability to impose her will on the fight. She needed to act and take matters into her own hands.

Wrapping both hands together, Hanna drove a united set of knuckles into the front of her opponent's knee. It hurt, hitting bone against bone, but it hurt the robed girl more than it hurt it hurt Hanna. Its leg bent the wrong way, the girl gasped and hopped back, putting her weight on her unhurt leg, and freeing Hanna.

Hanna rolled to her right side and spun, kicking her leg through the girl's foot and knocking her down again. She did not go for punches this time, she did not have the energy anymore. She just threw herself on the girl, wrapped her arms around her neck in a particular way, a Teras Kasi hold, and squeezed.

There was a gurgling, crunching noise, and the girl in Hanna's arms stiffened for a moment, then went limp. Her breathing had stopped, so had her struggles. Hanna let the body fall out of her arms and sat back in the mud. She did not try to do anything or think anything, she just focused on catching her breath.

It was not until the second robed figure stepped out from behind a tree and laid her out flat with another invisible punch that she realized sitting in the open might not have been the best course of action. She was too exhausted to fight back or even protest, struggling just to rise back to a sitting position as the figure advanced on her.

An invisible vise seized her head and neck, cutting off her air flow yet again. She scraped at her throat where she felt something gripping her, trying to find it, to pry it loose. But there was nothing there, nothing but air.

There was a loud report, a flash. The second robed figure collapsed in a pile, smoldering flame licking around its hood where its head had once been. Ice swung down out of the tree, sniper rifle already strapped to her back, and grabbed Hanna around her shoulders.

“You hurt, kid?” She asked.

Hanna shook her head, but was unable to answer. Her throat hurt, her muscles ached from lack of oxygen, her eyes were still clogged with mud, and her head spun. She tried to speak, but no words came out.

Ice helped her to her feet, a bit roughly. “Here, we need to move. Can you walk?”

Hanna nodded, putting her boots on the ground and forcing herself to stand. She was a bit unsteady, but she managed to stand without Ice's help.

“Good. If there are more of these freaks around, they'll have heard my rifle shot, and they'll be on their way. If we move quick, we might be able to slip away.”

The pair plunged back into the swamps, Ice leading the way with her sidearm drawn, Hanna following as quickly as she could. It was hard going, especially since Ice seemed unable to make up her mind whether to go fast, or quietly. Hanna's feet seemed to find every bit of brush, exposed root and hole in the ground no matter how careful she was, and the sense of exhaustion she felt did not leave.

They walked for a long time. But it did not seem all that long to Hanna. She stumbled a few times, Ice had to help her up once or twice, but they encountered no more hooded figures nor any signs that they were discovered or followed. In what seemed like just a few moments, Ice was pulling to a stop in a small clearing, like the clearing they had been dropped in when they had initially landed on the planet. This one was unfamiliar, however, likely carved out by another ship landing some time before. The sun was shining a bit brighter here, though it was still not sunny per say due to the thick cover of clouds.

“This is good.” Ice pointed to the edge of the clearing, at the foot of a small hill. “We'll camp down there until the Arbiter arrives.”

“What if...” Hanna was beginning to get her voice back now. “What if they go to where we were instead?”

“They won't. Our headsets have signatures that the Arbiter can track, they'll come right to us.” Ice went to the border of the clearing and dropped into the brush, disappearing into the shadows again. “All we have to do is wait and not get caught.”

Hanna followed her over and lay down, almost collapsing. It took her about three seconds to find a position she was comfortable in. Then she lay still, head in her hands, and let her emotions out.

It took Ice a moment to realize what was going on. “Are you... Kid?”

Hanna did not answer. She had the heels of both hands crammed into her eyes to try and make the tears stop, but they refused. Everything was just falling apart in her head and she had to let it out somehow, or else her head felt like it would burst. The hot, stinging tears smeared more mud all over her face, but her eyes at least stayed clear. Not that she really cared about being dirty in that moment.

She felt Ice's arm fall around her shoulders. For a moment, she did not say anything, perhaps not sure of what to say, perhaps just letting Hanna jettison all of her built-up emotions.

“Listen, kid.” Ice finally said, voice surprisingly soft and gentle. “I've never been good about killing up close like that either. I like it at a distance, out of the way, clean and simple. And I've never seen anyone break a neck like you did.”

“You saw?” Hanna asked through her sobs.

“Sure. I was going to help you out, but then you took care of it yourself. Then when the second one showed up, I was already halfway out of the tree and had to swing my rifle around to make sure I killed it with the first shot.”

“I felt her die, Ice. I snapped her neck and felt her die in my arms.” Hanna started shaking, shivering, unable to stop. “I... I promised my dad that I'd never... I... I...”

“Hanna, listen. In this business, it's kill or be killed. You did the only thing you could.”

“It was a girl.” Hanna blubbered, “A girl like me. She just... she didn't say anything, she just stood there. But I had to do something, I had to fight back...”

Ice gave her shoulders a squeeze. “Kid. Stop. You can't keep doing this to yourself. It wasn't just a girl, you saw what it could do..”

“No, I didn't. I just... it was like fighting nothing, like the air was hitting back, not the girl. What were those things? They looked like people, but...”

“I don't know all of the details, but the boss said over the comm that we're up against something big here. He wants us to regroup so he can give us the four-one-one, as he says.”

Hanna lay in silence for a moment, tears still falling but sobbing ceased. She still had something painful tangled up inside her that had to find output through her eyes for some reason. It was all she could do to remain still and silent. She could still feel it, still feel the robed girl in her arms, feel the snapping of bone and sinew, feel the last gasping breaths of life escape from collapsing lungs.

“You never forget the first kill you make.” Ice said, “My first was when I wasn't much older than you. A burglar broke into my apartment and wanted to take my things. We disagreed. He pulled a blaster, I got it away from him and when he started running away, I shot him. Wasn't pretty. But shooting people was the one thing I was really good at, so I kept doing it. Never got over that first one, though, it's why I do my job with a rifle, not a blaster.”

“I'm not sure I have the option at this point.”

“Maybe not. But you probably will in the future, so keep it in mind.”

“Keep what in mind? You just said you changed your weapon of choice, not why.”

“Because you want it to be quick and clean. The guy I shot didn't die right away, I had to put another two blasts in him to get him to stop screaming. That's why I use a rife. Even if I don't kill them with the first one, at least I can't hear the screams.”

Hanna shuddered. “So, make it quick and clean every time?”

“We're professionals, Hanna, not thugs, we aren't paid to make people suffer. Do it fast and do it right the first time. It gets easier. Eventually.”

“I hope so.” Hanna clutched her arms around herself to try and keep the shivering at bay. “I wanted to be a soldier. I wanted my whole life to be a soldier, to fight for the Empire, to bring criminals to justice and put down rebellions. But this... I don't know anymore. I just... I don't know.”

“You can do it, kid. You're strong, you've got that little extra something all of those other beings we've had blow through our ship didn't have. I can see it, and I'm not exactly a people person. T'ocs can probably see it, too, that's probably why he brought you along.”

“Yeah.” Hanna said in a soft voice. “That's what he told me.”

“Then don't worry. The boss isn't wrong about things like that. He's what kept this crew together and alive, and as much as I hate to say it, I trust him. You can trust him, too.”

A thundering boom shattered the silence they waited in, something up above them cutting through the clouds and breaking the atmosphere's sound barrier in the process. From where they were, they could see the squarish blob of the Arbiter crash through the atmosphere, wreathed in flames as it descended from orbit toward them.

“About time.” Ice said, pointing her rifle upward toward the descending ship and peering at it through her scope. “They'll probably want a crash and pull, our quickest exfil. As soon as you see the ramp come down, start running.”

The Arbiter had their location zeroed in just as Ice had said, only circling their location once before it cruised over, low and slow, descending on repulsorlifts and only running two of the underside lights. The side hatch was open, but the ramp did not come down until the ship had descended much closer to ground level, close enough that a well-timed leap would carry someone onto the ramp's edge.

“Go!” Ice slung her rifle up behind her and started sprinting for the ship, Hanna following right on her heels. The clearing was not large, and the ship was not far, Blade and Atto visible within the open hatch, both armed and beckoning the two women forward.

Then Hanna saw something out of the corner of her eye. Something flashed in the lights of the ship's engines, something on the edge of the clearing. She turned, in time to see a robed figure step out from the trees and, with a grand-looking gesture, throw something that arced toward the space between Ice and the Arbiter. It did not look like it would reach them in time, Ice was moving quite fast, but the object traveled impossibly quick through the air, almost like a rocket.

“Ice! Look out!” Hanna shouted.

Ice did not pause, but she did turn to look over her shoulder at Hanna, eyes wide and questioning. Then the object hit her, square in the side of the head, and exploded. The air filled with a fine red mist, blood, bone and viscera scattered into the winds around the Arbiter's roaring engines.

Hanna stopped, pulled up short, horrified, terrified. The red mist splattered across her face and body, causing her to flinch, violently, before screaming again. “Ice!” She scrabbled for her belt, for a weapon, a tool, something to save her friend or kill the enemy. But it was only then she realized that her belt was still back in the swamp where she had dropped it.

Blade and Atto were both dropping out of the ship and running to where Ice's charred body lay. Atto grabbed her up and carried her on his shoulders back toward the ship, while Blade swept the swamp where the robed figure had been, blaster churning up turf and setting trees on fire. Hanna ran toward them, toward Ice, not knowing what to do but knowing that she could not stay there. The robed figure had vanished, she had looked, it was gone. But she did not dare stand still or wait. She had no weapons and Ice was... Ice was...

Hanna reached Blade, almost tumbling into him as she ran. Blade caught her and kept her from falling over, still pointing his blaster at the woods. “Get aboard.” He said, voice only just loud enough to be heard over the whine of repulsors.

“Blade, we have to go.” She shouted, “We have to help Ice.”

“You go.” He replied, “I will cover you.”

Hanna did not argue further, she turned and ran to the ramp, where Trev was helping Atto with Ice and all three of them were climbing up into the ship's belly. Atto turned to help Hanna up onto the ramp as she reached it, his face about as grim as Hanna had ever seen it.

“How is she?” Hanna asked.

“Bad. How about you? You look like a gundark's chew toy.”

“I'm fine, but we need to go.” Hanna turned and shouted back out into the swamp. “Blade! We need to go!”

“She's right, Blade!” Atto added, “Let's get out of here!”

Blade turned and ran to them, covering the distance in a scant few seconds and making the ramp in a single bound. “Then go!”

The Arbiter began lifting before all of the crew were even inside, and by the time the hatch was closed and sealed, the engines were powered up and roaring and the ship was coursing through the sky, reaching escape velocity and cruising toward the stars once again. No one assaulted them, no one followed them. But Hanna did not feel safe again until they had crashed through the last layer of clouds and reached the sparkling vastness of space.

 

I've had this on my to-read list for a while already, because I like OC stories and because Findswoman is a woman of taste -- and having read chapters 1-3 I wonder why I didn't start reading earlier! Hanna is such an interesting character, on the one hand so bright and talented, on the other hand still a child who seeks her father's approval, who forgets everything for a mouthful of ryshcate and who thinks of rejection as failure... I'm looking forward to discovering how she will find her place in a military group. It's bound to be a difficult process.

 

Thanks for the kind words, Chyntuck. No spoilers, but yeah, it's not going to be easy, or take her at all to the places she expects.

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Chapter Fourteen


T'ocs left the cockpit, shoulders slumped and pace slow. The main hold had all of his crew in it. Even Ice, now wrapped in a sheet. Hanna, still caked with a fine layer of mud and gore, was huddled in a blanket on the floor beside Ice's swaddled form; Atto was concerned with packing away his medical equipment; Trev was aimlessly tinkering with a headset and looking over the retrieved data; Blade stood alone in the corner, head down. No one met anyone's eyes, not even T'ocs as he entered. Everyone seemed listless, soulless, just going through the motions. Except Hanna. She was in shock, pure and simple.

While the thing he should have done would be to go to the others and comfort them, to say something, to assure them that Ice's death meant little, that she would want them to move on and finish the mission, T'ocs could not do it. He had endured the deaths of comrades in the past, quite a few of them in fact, even as Mandalorians went. They had made him angry, sad, sick to his stomach. But this time was different. This time, he just felt... empty. Like a part of him was gone, now.

He had known Ice for years. Aside from Blade, she was the one who had been with the crew longest. They had trusted each other, but more than that, they had respected each other. Though their relationship had never progressed beyond that of strict professionalism, they were still comrades and business partners, beings who each knew the strengths and weaknesses of the other but would never exploit them. That was the sort of relationship that did not happen often in the world of the mercenary. T'ocs was very lucky to find a small number of beings who, to this point, all shared that sort of relationship. And now, one of them was gone.

He went over to where Trev was looking through the data he was recovering. Blade has still been wearing his headset and inadvertently recorded the events of their exfiltration from Ome and Ice's death. Trev was framing back and forth, scouring the fuzzy 2-D hologram for any further clues as to how the grenade had managed to fly across the clearing, accelerating as it came, and correct its own course in mid-flight with such accuracy to hit her square in the temple, all of it done without any sort of visible guidance or propulsion system. It looked, from what could be seen in the fuzzy images Trev played with, like the sort of bog-standard frag grenade all Imperial military ships, outposts and facilities had hundreds of.

T'ocs sighed and put his hand on Trev's shoulder. The young man started, then looked up at him. “Oh, boss. What is it?”

“You won't find anything there, Trev. Not anything beyond what your eyes tell you, in any case.”

Trev hesitated for a moment, looking between T'ocs and the screen. “But, boss, I want to know. I want to know how they did it. No one can throw a grenade that fast and that far, not even the greatest grav-ball player in the Empire.”

“One sort of being can. The sort of being who should not exist anymore.” T'ocs moved toward the center of the hold, nearer to where Hanna stood. “Listen, all of you. You need to know exactly what we are up against.”

Everyone turned to look at him. Four pairs of eyes, dark, broken, lent their weight to the burden he already felt. He took a deep breath and forged onward.

“How many of you have heard of the Jedi?” He asked, locking gazes with each one of them in turn. “Mostly the three of you younger beings, Blade and I already know what we have run into.”

“Only rumors and stuff.” Atto said, face rather more somber than T'ocs had ever seen it before. “They were generals or something, right? Back in the Clone Wars?”

“Yes, true, but only a small part of the story. Trev, anything to add?”

“I'd heard they were peacekeepers for the Old Republic, before the war. They were the ones who wiped out most of the Mandalorians before Duchess Satine took over.”

“Also true, but, again, only a part of what I am getting at.” He looked at Hanna, who looked back at him and offered nothing. Her eyes, those gray eyes, had gone dull, cold and dim. All of that spark he had seen when he had first met her was gone. He moved on, heart aching but needing to speak for benefit of the others. “The Jedi Order were the backbone of the Old Republic for millenia, dating well before the Clone Wars, to a time before most of modern history was written. They were both monks and warriors, known for being peaceful mediators who turned into deadly warriors if pressed hard enough. But the thing that set them the most apart was what they called the Force.”

“The Force?” Atto twisted his face quizzically. “My old man used to use that as a cuss word. Never did understand why.”

“The Force is what gives a Jedi their power.” Blade said in a low tone, looking back down at the floor. “It gives them supernatural abilities, far beyond what any mortal being could do.”

“Like, what?”

“I could not tell you everything about what the Jedi believe or what they can do.” T'ocs looked at them all again. “But the ones I have encountered in the past have been able to run, jump, climb and swim further and higher than anyone else I have ever seen. I have seen Jedi weave a starfighter through a hail of cannon fire so thick it would have vaporized a fly. I have seen Jedi stand before a full rank of soldiers with blasters trained on them and walk away without so much as a singe, leaving nothing but corpses behind. And I have seen them move things with their mind, blasters, ration packets, armor, all sorts of things, big and small.”

“Like a grenade.” Trev said, realization dawning on his face.

T'ocs nodded. “This is no ordinary rebellion. We are up against Jedi, who could walk from one end of a Star Destroyer to the other and not leave so much as a blaster burn on the walls or blood on the floor.”

“The Empire killed the Jedi.” Hanna said. All eyes turned to her, huddled in her blanket beside the remains of their crewmate. She looked up at them with hollow, dead eyes, voice a soft protest without strength or conviction. “That's what my history books said. They said... Darth Vader hunted and killed them all, after the Clone Wars were over.”

“Not true.” T'ocs said with a first shake of his head, “Unfortunately. So long as even one Jedi remains alive, they can rise again, repopulate. The Jedi spread by taking children while they are young and indoctrinating them, sometimes even stealing them from homes, from their families. Most are taught self-control, selflessness, to stifle their emotions and obey what their leaders say, to hold back their abilities until called upon. The ones that do not are even more dangerous, loose cannons insane with their own power, liable to crush your throat or head on a whim. I think, I fear, that we have run across a faction made up almost entirely of the latter.”

“How are so many of them still alive?” Trev asked, “I mean, Hanna's at least partly right, the Empire brushed most of the Jedi off the map some time ago. How did these escape notice until now?”

“I have no idea, Trev. They did not entirely escape notice, but it is obvious that their presence was entirely underestimated.”

“Entirely? They threw a Star Destroy at them, and they still didn't kill all of them!” Atto exclaimed, “Or any of them, maybe! And what's their next step after that? Us!”

“Why would they send a mercenary team, six beings, to fight against what might be a whole planet worth of Jedi?” Trev asked in rhetorical anger, “That's not a dream job, that's a suicide mission!”

“We were set up.” Blade said, quiet but still intense. “That is what this mission is. They set us up, hoping for mutual destruction. They wanted all of us to die down there along with Ice. The money was just a lure, bait for willing fish.”

“We need to leave, right now.” Trev insisted, “If we stay, we're all going to die. There's no way we can take so many Jedi on, it would have been rough going even before...”

“We can't leave.”

Everyone stopped and looked at Hanna again. She was looking down at Ice's body, arms still swaddling the blanket about her body, fingers scraping at the dried blood and dirt on her face. “We can't leave.” She repeated.

“Can't?” Atto asked, “Why the kark not?”

“Ice wouldn't want it. She'd never let us leave until the job was done.”

“Ice isn't here!” Trev protested, “She's dead! And without her, we don't have a chance against those Jedi!”

Hanna stood up. She stood up and dropped the blanket from her shoulders and looked Trev square in the eyes, her own gaze beginning to snap with just a bit of the same sort of spark that had been in it when she had first come aboard the Arbiter. Her voice was not angry or shouting, but it was hard, and it was fully convinced. “Ice didn't die so we could run away, Trev. She died because we were running. And if we keep running, the Jedi will find us again, and again, and again, until all of us are dead.”

“Hanna's right.” T'ocs said. He stepped up beside her before any of the others could try to counter her. “The Jedi have gained a foothold here on Ome, but they will not stop here. They will never stop, not until they are all dead. Maybe this is a trap, Blade, maybe this was meant to be our ends. Why, I cannot say. But it was not. And it will not be.”

“We can't fight them.” Trev protested, “You know that, boss, you saw the footage. They'll kill us all, no matter how much we try.”

“If we fight them close-up, sure.” Hanna seemed to be getting more and more of herself back, scraping off more of the gunk and staring Trev square in the face. “But the Arbiter's proton torpedoes could raze the governor's tower from orbit, and a good chunk of the town as well. All we have to do is figure out where we need to hit first, or second, or third. Then wham, no more Jedi.”

“You know it won't be that simple.”

“Why not?”

“Well, they have a ship too, that corvette, remember?”

“Then we take that out first, while it's still on the ground.”

“You really think they won't see us coming? They probably knew we were here before we even set foot on Ome, why wouldn't they pick up all of us flying down to blow up their one ship? And why wouldn't it be defended?”

“Then we split up again! Three of us get fast-dropped at the tower and bring that down, and the others fly the Arbiter to take out that corvette before they get it back off the ground. Then all we have to do is sit at altitude and pick the rest off one by one, or even just fall back and get someone with a Star Destroyer in their pocket to Base Delta Zero the whole mess!” Hanna paused, panting to try and catch her breath, with no one else having anything to say. Even Trev was quiet.

“I think your arguments have carried the motion.” T'ocs said, with a smile in his voice. Hanna's recovery had lifted his own mood quite a bit. “She is right. The best way to kill Jedi is from as great a distance as possible. And the Arbiter just so happens to have a full bank of proton torpedoes in its weapons storage just waiting to be launched.”

“A full bank, that's, what, ten warheads?” Atto asked, likely trying to calculate explosive yields in his head.

“For this ship, twenty.”

Atto's eyes bugged out, then he smiled. “Well, then.”

Trev was looking at the ceiling, eyes blinking rapidly, also calculating numbers in his head, but doing so with more accuracy than Atto. “Twenty proton torpedoes. That's enough explosive yield to level a small city and turn the streets to glass.”

“More than enough for our case, I think.” T'ocs said, “But that isn't all we need to think about here. Hanna is right, as unwise it might seem, we should split our forces, three of us go to the tower and bring it down, in conjunction with two of us flying the Arbiter. It all needs to happen at about the same time, otherwise they would be able to alert each other. I will need two to come with me to take the tower down.”

“You're going, boss?” Hanna asked, before rolling her eyes at herself. “Who am I kidding, of course you are.”

“Do you want to come along, ad'ika?” He asked her.

She shook her head with a rueful smirk. “The last time I volunteered for something, I wound up aboard this ship. I'll take my chances up in the sky this time.”

“We'd have to look over blueprints and plans for the tower, see if we're better off taking the charges from the warheads or just packing detpacks and looking for supports struts.” Trev turned to look at T'ocs. “Needless to say, I'll be coming along with you. You'll need your demolitions expert to make the call on how to bring that tower down.”

“Fair enough, Trev.” T'ocs patted the younger man on the shoulder. “Are you sure you are up to this? We are going up against Jedi down there.”

“You know that I'll follow you to the gates of Chaos and back, boss. Besides, for once, you need me in the field. I'll be more use out there than I will be up here twiddling my thumbs.”

Atto put his hands up in front of him, palms out. “Don't even ask, I'll fly the Arbiter, no problem.”

“You always get stuck up here, Atto.” Hanna said, “You don't want in on this action at all?”

“Not this time.” He shook his head, “I'm not as good at this as the boss, I'd just get in the way. Besides,” He gave her a grin, “Can't leave my best patient up here by herself.”

She swatted his shoulder, but it was more a playful gesture than an aggressive one.

T'ocs had turned to look at Blade. He did not say anything for a moment, Blade finally pulling his gaze up from the floor and locking eyes with his boss. The two eldest members of the crew stared each other down for a good two or three moments. Everyone else watched the confrontation in silence.

“What do you say, Blade?” T'ocs asked, “One last mission?”

Blade took a deep breath and brought his head back up, face dark and emotionless. “None of us will survive this. I know that now. But we have to make sure that this sort of creature cannot continue to spread. No Jedi will leave this planet.”

T'ocs took a step closer to him, voice lowering. “We need you, Blade. If we are going to do this, we need you at the top of your game. I need you at the top of your game.”

Blade did not answer at first, instead drawing a long knife from a holster that sat across his chest, watching as it emerged and lights danced across the reflective sides. “Do not worry, boss. I am always at the top of my game.”

T'ocs nodded, then turned away. Something about seeing the crew all behind him, even yet, kept the darkness at bay. “All right. Trev, get your equipment in order with all of the explosives you can safely carry. Blade, anything you have that might work at range or against Jedi weapons, you know what to do. Hanna and Atto, head forward and make sure you two are on the same page.”

“And what about you, boss?” Atto asked.

T'ocs had already turned and started to head toward one of the ship's rear compartments, a place rarely visited by anyone in the crew. Some things were not needed often enough to keep them up with the rest of the equipment, but it still behooved them to have it kept close by instead of on storage in some Rim system. One of those things, T'ocs needed for this mission. It was something he had not taken from its place in years, but this mission... this mission had a threshold, a line that had not been crossed in years, not since the war ended.

The others had just started to filter in, curiosity overriding their desire to follow orders, as T'ocs was pulling the last storage crate away from the massive wardrobe locker leaned against the far rear wall of the ship's cargo bay. It was one with double doors, locked with a biometric scan and able to hold a vast variety of clothing and outfits for basically any humanoid species in the galaxy, able to adjust its internal environment to allow for perfect storage conditions for any material, fabric or otherwise. You could put a synth-silk outfit inside, set the humidity and temperature controls, and pull it out a century later to find it wrinkle-free and ready to wear.

In T'ocs' case, however, he had left his beskar'gam in there years before, as his crew had started to grow and he no longer needed to be a one-man army. Mandalorian armor had a certain stigma attached to it, especially among the Empire, it was the calling card of an archaic, warlike people, hicks from a backwater planet who only knew how to fight and drink. He left it here so his reputation as a mercenary would be attached to his accomplishments and his crew, not to the uniform he wore or the culture he had been borne from.

But no one was judging him here. No one was looking down their nose, taking notes and writing up bills for his services. This was about survival, about finishing the mission and going home in one piece. The stops were being pulled, and he would hold nothing back.

“Whoa.” Trev said. “I haven't see that in... years. I didn't even know you still had it on board.”

T'ocs reached into the wardrobe and pulled out his old helmet, its matte black finish preventing it from showing a glint of light, even though it had been cleaned and polished before being put into storage. He turned it this way and that in his hands, looking over every curve, every scrape and dent, remembering where they had come from, and how many times they had saved his life. Beskar'gam was one of the strongest armors in the galaxy, heavy but not bulky, heat-resistant and shock-absorbing, able to take kinetic impacts, energy blasts and extreme weather conditions in equal measure. To have even a few plates of it was to horde solid gold. To have an entire suit made of it sitting in the back of your starship, that was something only two or three beings in the entire galaxy could lay claim to.

“Now you know how seriously I am taking this.” T'ocs said. He set his helmet down on the ground and started taking off his other equipment. He would replace some of it with the gear already in his armor, and the rest could sit in his belt or shoulder holsters, once he had put them back on. “Return to your own preparations. All of you. I will come forward again in a moment, and we will make our plans for the tower assault then.”

Everyone filed out in silence, leaving T'ocs by himself in the cluttered cargo bay. He watched the last one, Trev, walk out, giving the array of armor a long look before he closed the door behind him. T'ocs turned back to the wardrobe and started to suit up. There was no accelerated or easy process to this, each plate and section had to be put on separately. Many Mandalorians had their armor attached to a bodysuit, allowing them to slip it on and off with relative ease. T'ocs' set was all separate pieces, meaning they could be attached on to any bodysuit or clothes he happened to be wearing. He had to put it all on one piece at a time, barring the chest and back pieces, doing up a variety of straps and seals to make sure it all stayed in place.

He started with the shin pieces and worked his way upward, stopping for a moment as he finished belting up the codpiece. It felt good, like coming home again. The extra weight would inevitably slow him down, but it would also protect him from just about anything Ome was packing. Including the Jedi. He lifted the breastplate up, feeling the weight in his arms, looking over a gouge in the metal that had been polished down to a smooth dent, like a scar that had healed long ago. This armor was a second skin to him, he knew it better than he knew himself at times.

He put his belts back on after the breastplate, strapping one around his waist and one over each shoulder. The last few things he needed to put on were the shoulder plates, the arm plates and the gauntlets. All of it allowed him freedom of movement despite all of the extra weight, the plates fitting together with such care and precision that it hardly felt like he was wearing so many extra kilos at all. He did worry that the extra weight might cut down his endurance a bit, wearing him down over the long run, but he did not have any alternative. He was still fit, still able to move and lift the armor as he ever was, the issue would be whether the years had stacked themselves up too high.

Last, he knelt to pick up his helmet. Twisting it around, he looked into the glossy T-shape of the visor. Mandalorian armor, above all else, was connected to this visage, the faceless darkness and impenetrability of a cold, almost mechanical gaze. It was a signature, beyond the mere silhouette of the armor itself, letting everyone know who it was responsible for that destruction, that mayhem, that killing. Whatever had happened, the T visor left no doubt, the Mandalorians were the ones behind it.

It also reminded T'ocs of just how far he had come. Once, he had just been a boy, like Trev, wanting to go to the stars, to wear the armor, to live a life where no one told him what to do, where he could follow the money wherever he wished to go. The glamor had long since worn off, the killing had become a routine, the stars were just something above and around him, not a mystery to explore. But something about looking at this helmet again, at putting the armor back on, it pulled him back to the first time, all those years and parsecs ago, he had been behind that visor, instead of just looking at it from outside.

He turned the helmet over and tucked it under his arm. He did not have to put it on quite yet, and he needed to make sure it was synced in with the rest of their communication equipment. It would be a dream come true for Trev to be able to take the helmet's internal systems apart and put them up to date with the rest of them. He owed the boy at least that.

As he came forward again, steps heavy and hard on the ship's flooring, something about the moment struck him. Ice was gone, but he still had a crew. He still had a team of professionals who were willing to follow what he said, to fly on his ship and work with him instead of against him. Not everything had gone up in flame with Ice's death, they still had an even chance to pull through this and not only survive, but collect the payday that had prompted them to take this mission in the first place.

The rest of the crew were standing around the holoprojector, looking over the three-dimensional architectural plans of the governor's tower. All of them stopped a moment to look up as T'ocs entered the room. Eyes danced with awe and wonder.

“At ease.” T'ocs dropped his helmet on the edge of the table, forcing the two nearest him, Atto and Hanna, to move aside. “I will be wearing this for some time to come, so get all of your gawking down now before the shooting starts. Trev.”

Trev looked at him through the blue semi-opaque meter-tall tower. “Yeah, boss?”

“Check my helmet's internal systems. Make sure they're compatible with our commlinks and visors, do whatever you have to, so long as I can still wear it.”

Trev nodded and scooped the helmet off the table, going to his corner with all of his parts and tools. “Give me thirty minutes.”

“You have ten. Or until this planning session is finished, whatever comes first.” T'ocs looked around at the rest of the table. “So, where did we get the complete plans for the Imperial Governor's palace?”

“Ask Trev and Hanna.” Atto said, “They're the ones who found it.”

“It was in the Imperial system files.” Hanna shrugged. “Trev found it buried in the data he pulled from the Marshall Awe's computer. It's the original blueprints, so things have probably changed, but the main things we needed to find were the structural columns.” She pointed into the blueprints, indicating the main structural skeleton that was visible through the transparent walls. “There are four major supports, one at each corner, and secondary supports between them, with each floor being braced and reinforced against both primary and secondary columns. Basically, the building's built to withstand an earthquake, it'll take a lot of explosives to knock it over.”

“We don't have to knock it over.” Trev said from the corner, still engrossed with his repair job. “Just take out the communications and surveillance equipment on top.”

“He has a point.” Blade said, “We do not need to take down the entire tower. We only need to make sure it does not give the enemy any use. Take out their communications array and make sure they cannot use it again.”

“When Ice and I were surveying the tower, we noticed that most of the electronic equipment and heat was centered around the top two floors or so.” Hanna spun the tower hologram and indicated the floors she had mentioned, making them blink a white color.

“Taking out the equipment might not be enough.” Blade pondered, focused on the hologram. “Our first step should be to cut the power, here.” He pointed to a main conduit, running through the central turbolift and maintenance access area at the center of the tower. “If we cut the power, it will make them blind to the Arbiter, as well as disabling any security systems in place.”

“And stop the turbolifts, unless those have proprietary power sources, which is certainly possible.” T'ocs said, propping his arms on the table and trying to absorb all of the information the hologram was providing. “Backup generators are probably going to be an issue, but cutting the power should still give us a little bit of time to move if we need it. Our first priority will still have to be the equipment itself.”

Blade shook his head. “Unless we get a look at the way the tower is laid out now, as opposed to when these plans were created, any plans we make will have to be very general.”

“Here's an idea.” Hanna said, “I still have Ice's sniper rifle, that'll give me a look at the tower's power grid and where the Jedi might be hiding. I can give you support from the Arbiter until you've taken the sensors offline, then Atto and I can take out the corvette before it scrambles.”

T'ocs thought it through. “It means we will have to be quiet all the way up the tower, though, there's no way we will be able to drop onto the landing platform undetected.”

“We can do what Ice and Hanna did before.” Blade said, “Land in the swamp away from the tower and then walk there.”

“They'll be watching down there.” Hanna shook her head. “They already had people out looking for us last time, they'll probably have a lot more this time.”

“Then our only alternative is to approach from the town.” T'ocs slid the projection back to looking at the town and surrounding area in addition to the tower. “If we enter the town first and procure a landspeeder or other transport, presuming there are regular shipments from the town to the tower, we can use that to get inside the tower without alerting anyone.”

“Assuming there are.” Atto said. “That's kinda a big assume.”

Blade shrugged. “We can assume a lot of things, or assume nothing. If we assume nothing, it would be best for us to bomb the tower from here in orbit to take down the communications array, if not the entire tower.”

“Here's what I think. Whatever we do with the tower, we need to take the corvette out first.” Hanna gestured toward the spaceport, at the far end of the town. “The second we hit the tower, that ship will be scrambling. But, if we take it out first, then they won't have anything to put into the air to oppose us. We can take out the tower whenever and however we feel like.”

Atto glanced at T'ocs with a frank look on his face. “She has a point, boss.”

“I know she does, Atto.” T'ocs nodded to Hanna. “A very good point. The corvette first. Then, we fly into the town and commandeer a speeder, take it to the tower, where Hanna gives us support with Ice's rifle while we cut the power and plant whatever we can on the tower's supports along the north and west sides. Even if we don't get it to collapse completely, it might still bring at least part of it down. If it does not, we pull out, have the Arbiter pick us up, then do a fast drop on the landing pad and scrap all of the sensor and communications equipment we can find. All while killing every Jedi that gets in our way. Questions.”

Atto raised his hand like a child in a schoolroom.

“Before you ask Atto, no, you may not pack sack lunches for the away team.”

“That wasn't what I was going to ask, boss.”

“Well then?”

“Can I pack sack dinners for the away team?” Atto grinned and dodged away from the swat Hanna delivered to his shoulder. “No, in all seriousness, what's the timeline for this? Are we talking minutes, hours, days?”

“Ideally, we get it done in less than an hour. Realistically, barring problems, an hour is minimal. Past that, and we will be in trouble. Blade?”

“Are we breaking out the heavy equipment this time, or going in light and fast?”

“Your prerogative, but I would prefer we all pack as much firepower as we can. The more punch we pack, the better chance we have of all coming back in one piece. Keep in mind, Jedi can move things with their minds, so grenades are not a good option.”

“What about small-arms, what's our best option there?”

T'ocs hesitated for a moment before answering Hanna's question. “For now, the same as usual. Jedi focus on evasion and precognition instead of armor, so lighter and faster weapons are usually best. If you have a blast cannon or a flechette launcher, all the better.”

“Why the hesitation?” Atto asked, “Is there something else you aren't mentioning? Hopefully involving lunch?”

“Jedi are sometimes armed with weapons called lightsabers. They are beams of concentrated energy that can cut through solid durrasteel and deflect, or reflect, most laser fire. Combine that with their precognitive abilities, and they may send whatever shot you make right back at you.”

Atto whistled. “How many of your knives can do that, Blade?”

Blade grunted.

“I have not seen one of these Jedi wield one,” T'ocs continued, “But, I am not taking the chance that one will not make an appearance, and neither should any of you. Keep a backup plan close at hand if you see one with a laser sword coming toward you.”

“What's your backup plan, boss?” Hanna asked.

T'ocs raised his left gauntlet and ran his right hand down its side. “Installed flechette launcher. It only has one shot, but it also has a two-meter spread and five meter range. Not much will keep walking after it takes two dozen odd needles flying at over six hundred kilometers an hour all at once.”

“What about you, Trev?” Atto turned to the mechanic. “Gotta plan in case a Jedi comes after you?”

Trev looked up from where he was soldering something along the side of T'ocs helmet, dark goggles still on his face. “Not yet, but I'll figure something out.”

“You do not need to ask me, Atto.” Blade reached around behind his back, pulling a long, thin weapon that did not vibrate from a holster between his shoulders. “This is a cortosis weave sword, made years ago, when the Jedi were still plentiful. The weave makes it too brittle to use as a utility weapon, but the cortosis ore within it disrupts the energy of a lightsaber, rendering the Jedi helpless.”

Atto and Hanna exchanged a look. “You were hauling around a weapon that would only work against Jedi all this time?” Atto asked, dubious.

“As events on Ome showed,” Blade sheathed the weapon again, “It behooves us to be prepared for anything.”

“Indeed.” T'ocs turned to Hanna. “Can you fire that rifle?”

“I took two semesters of long-arm marksmanship a year ago.”

“Not an answer.”

Hanna scooped Ice's rifle up from where someone had propped it against the wall, hooking her hand onto the handle and propping the barrel atop her shoulders. “Yes, I can.”

“Good. Atto, can you hold my ship steady for Hanna without getting her shot full of holes?”

“Get Hanna shot full of holes, or the Arbiter?”

“Yes.”

“Sure, I can do that.”

“Trev?”

Trev put his goggles back, stood up, walked over to the table and dropped the helmet down in front of them. “Done.”

“What about the explosives?”

“I have a dozen military-grade thermal detonators and a quartet of baradium charges, in addition to our normal detpacks and breaching charges.”

T'ocs paused, mouth pressing to a line. “And these have been aboard my ship for how long without me knowing?”

Trev grinned, more feral than sheepish. “Oops.”

Shaking his head, T'ocs turned to Blade. “Are you ready to kill some more Jedi, Blade?”

Blade drew himself up, eyes closed for a moment, before giving his boss a thin, rather sinister smile. “Always.”

T'ocs nodded, leaning over and scooping his helmet off of the table. Trev's work was good, it blended perfectly with the aged circuits and electronics along the helmet's side panels, and as he turned it over to put it over his head, he noted that he had upgraded the optics and internal displays as well, somehow. The lad worked very fast.

He slid the helmet into place and relished the soft hissing of the internal air filtration system kicking in, the tug and pull of the automatic seals closing the gap between his bodysuit's collar and his chin, sealing him inside, and finally the soft hum and whir of the optics and visor displays coming to life. This, in the end, was home. Not any of the planets he had been to, loved and lost, not Mandalore in its ruinous, rugged state, not even the Arbiter, as much as he loved her. No, for him, this armor, this state, a part of the galaxy yet sealed away from it, protected, insulated, this was his home.

He put his hand down on the table, shutting down the projector, letting the harsh distortion of the helmet's external speakers turn his voice into an element of nature, the rattle of hail on a metal roof, the rasp of stones falling down a mountainside. “Then let's get started.”

 

Chapters 4-7: I think it's fair to say that Hanna just had her life turned upside-down, from going on an entirely childish tantrum for being rejected by a bureaucrat to finding herself on a team of mercenaries hired by the Empire for a mystery mission... I liked how you managed her baby steps in getting her act together and I also really enjoyed your depiction of the crew members, their individual backgrounds and their interactions as a group -- especially when they act as if they hate each other's guts as a way to express their friendship and affection. You gave them each a unique voice and personality, and I wonder how the mirror effect between Trev and Hanna, who are both in need of recognition an acknowledgement, will play out.

 

Chapters 8-14: I enjoyed how Hanna developed over time mentor-pupil relations and even a friendship of sorts with both T'ocs and Ice, which made it all the more difficult to see Ice die Sadly, it appears from the last chapter that Ice's death might have been the sort of traumatic event Hanna needed to grow up and behave with a level of maturity matching her skill and training.

Your description of the "feral Jedi" was absolutely creepy. I'm looking forward to finding out who they are, why they're disfigured and what they're doing there. I'm also curious to know more about T'ocs's Mandalorian past and who's behind the setup in which the merc team and the Jedi are supposed to annihilate each other.

Keep up the good work, and please be nice to me, update soon

 

Chapter Fifteen

Putting herself at the controls of the Arbiter, Hanna reflected, was not her smartest decision on this mission. She did not know how to be a gunner/navigator in any but the most general way, being far more used to actually flying a ship than sitting beside the pilot and waiting for something to happen. Having to sit beside Atto as he flew, with T'ocs standing behind them giving the occasional direction or bit of advice, and everyone else chiming in from time to time over the commlink, their return through the atmosphere and into the sky over Ome City was a bit more nerve-wracking than it should have been.

Of course, she reflected, that was because the whole mission was more nerve-wracking than it should have been. Beside that, the alternative, inserting with T'ocs and the others into the tower and having to fight through more of the Jedi things they had fought before, was very likely to be worse. She was in no mood or condition to do more fighting at the moment, especially not up-close and personal. Just the thought of someone's bones grinding and snapping in her grasp was enough to make her stomach do flips inside her. She never wanted to have to kill someone like that again.

From here, though, the killing would be much easier. Impersonal, clinical, like Ice said. Better from a distance, where you would not be spattered with blood or be able to hear the screams.

It occurred to her that she was trying to think as dispassionately as possible about having to snuff out the life of another being and, for a moment, Hanna felt a cold lump settle in her stomach and throat. Was this what it meant to be a soldier? To separate yourself from the sense of horror you felt at directly causing the death of someone who, if circumstances were different, might have been your neighbor, or even friend?

She had always wanted to follow in her father's footsteps, to be what he had been, to carry the Shirid name forward and make it as famous under the Empire as it had been under the Republic. But her dreams had always been of marching, of formations, drills, and of medals and ceremonies. All of her training, her schooling, lessons from dozens of instructors over the years, the drills and ceremonies, those were just the frame. This was a soldier's life, what she was living now. Maybe the flag T'ocs and the rest of the crew flew under was not as big as the one that hung over the Academy back on Empress Teta, but it was still a flag.

Hours of waiting and preparation, sitting here aboard the Arbiter in hyperspace and orbit around the planet, laying down in the mud and moss of the tree, then bang. Frantic action, split-second decisions, pain, loss, exhaustion, and then the slow climb back. And now it was going to happen all over again.

“Coming up on the city.” Atto reported, “We'll be through the cloud cover and into visual range in a few seconds.”

T'ocs' voice, a harsh metallic grow, rang in Hanna's ear and caused her to jump in her seat. “Any trace of the corvette yet?”

“No.” She said out of reflex, before actually checking the senors. “No sign of it, no transponder signal or anything.”

T'ocs made an inarticulate noise, a growl of frustration, and moved away from Hanna's seat. Ever since Ice's death and putting that armor on, he had become a different person, more aggressive and short with his words. There was a sense in everything he spoke that a line had been breached, that he was taking this operation seriously, almost to a point beyond that of any of the other members of the crew.

“What happens if it's not down there?” Atto asked out loud, turning to look at his boss over his shoulder. “What's the plan then?”

“Then you drop us off and the tower and go and find it.” T'ocs said, “That corvette is the only way we know for sure they can get off the planet. Shut it down, and they're trapped here regardless of what happens to us.”

“Well, we don't know that for sure, do we?” Atto continued to raise questions, “We haven't actually seen any other ships, but that doesn't mean they aren't down there somewhere.”

“Imperial interdiction protocols dictate the grounding or destruction of all vehicles that fly higher than a landspeeder.” T'ocs replied, pacing back behind Hanna's chair. “My guess is they carried out that order, then landed the corvette on the planet either to pull the governor out or bring more troops in. The Jedi took it and used it to ferry up to the Marshall Awe, and either killed or otherwise disabled the crew, then took them and all but one of their own number back down to the planet.”

“So they could use the Destroyer as bait for... us?”

“No, not us. They were expecting someone, or something, else. Our presence here is a spanner in their works, plain to see. It's why they did not kill all of us when we were down there earlier.”

Hanna, half-listening to their conversation while staring at the ship's sensor readouts and navigation screen. Something flashed and beeped at her. “Got it!” She yelped. Her screen was lighting up with information, picking up a something it identified as a Raider-class corvette, a long, thin triangle with four trapezoidal outrigger wings, two along the sides and two under the ventral side approximately amidships. It was sleek, it was deadly. And it was the same ship she had seen scamper back to the planet when they had first entered the system.

“What... is that?” Atto gaped.

“Raider-class.” Hanna reported, “It's new, very new, I'm not sure if the official roll-out's even happened yet.”

“What are we up against armament-wise?” T'ocs asked, “If it comes to that.”

“Six dual laser cannon emplacements, all located on the dorsal hull. A couple ion cannon hardpoints as well, it's meant to be modular depending on the command and the mission. It's also really fast for its size, its only real weakness is that its shields and armor aren't great. It's a hit-and-run patrol and escort craft, meant to take on starfighters instead of other capital ships.”

“Well, let's see how it fares against a torpedo or two down its throat.” T'ocs slid up beside her to look at the sensor readings. “Is she moving at all?”

“No, we're not getting any power readings or transponder, just the ping of materials from the hull.” Hanna adjusted the readout, widening it from the ship and looking into the surrounding area. “It's sitting on the edge of the spaceport, we should be able to take it if we come in from the north and a bit east.”

“From behind, eh?” T'ocs growled approval. “We'll be able to jam the torpedoes right up its exhaust vents without having to worry about its guns.” He straightened out and turned his expressionless visor toward Atto. “Swing us out over the swamps and back down on the spaceport from the north.”

“You got it, boss.”

T'ocs leaned in toward Hanna again, this time from the left side. “How many torpedoes do you think will be enough to destroy that thing?”

“I don't know.” Hanna answered honestly, “I'm not sure anyone knows at this point. Best guess, three or four, a couple to burn through the armor and one or two more to blow through the exhaust manifold, pierce the interior bulkhead and hit the fuel cells.”

“If they store the fuel directly behind the engine bulkhead.”

“They do. Or, at least, they do on other ships like this. This one is so new, I really don't know.” Hanna shrugged, gesturing to the sensor readout. “But, even if we don't hit the fuel, it'll still knock the engines out completely, and that'll ground them.”

“Good enough.” T'ocs nodded toward the weapon's control array, just to Hanna's right. “Think you can pull this off?”

“Can and will, boss.” Hanna said with a confident nod. “And I'll make sure not to waste a shot.”

He nodded to her and turned back to look at Atto. “Coordinate your attack run and keep me in the loop, but make it quick, the longer we spend over the city the more time they have to put something together to try and stop us.”

He left through the cockpit portal and closed the blast door behind him. Atto and Hanna both took a deep breath and looked across the consoles at each other.

“Ready for this?” He asked.

Hanna replied, “Let's do it.”

Atto grinned at her. “Okay. Focus on painting targets and pulling the trigger, leave the flying to me.”

“Just don't get us all killed, okay?”

“Hey, it's cool, we've got this handled. Brand new Imperial corvette, lost of guns, at least it's not the Star Destroyer again, right?”

Hanna shot him a look.

He gave her an infuriating smile in return. “Right?”

“Atto, I'd come over there and deck you if I could.”

“Aw, and ruin this lovely face?”

“And a lot more.”

T'ocs' voice echoed in both of their ears. “Children, do not make me come up there and separate you two.”

“Yes, boss.” They both said in unison.

“But seriously,” Hanna said, taking her headset off for a moment and turning to Atto, “If you keep it up, I'll break your legs, you don't need those to fly this thing.”

He muted his headset before replying. “Eh, I think the incoherent screaming and writhing on the ground in pain might be giving me some issues in that case.”

Hanna shook her head and put her headset back on. “Weapons are hot. Ready on my side.”

Atto nodded, taking a firm grip on the pitch/yaw controls in one hand and throttle in the other. He glanced at the navigation console between them. “We have our course. Ready for the attack run. Give us the word, boss.”

“Call for it, Atto. It's your show this time.”

Atto took a deep breath, held onto it for a moment, then let it out, slow and quiet. “Here we go.”

The Arbiter's course shifted under his deft touch, taking the modified freighter in a low, hard turn to starboard, spiraling down out of the air over the swamps and toward the city. They broke through the last layer of cloud cover and Atto shoved the throttle forward, causing the deck under them to shudder.

“Time to target?” He asked.

“ETA,” Hanna glanced at her the targeting computer, “Sixty seconds. Effective firing range in thirty.”

Ome city was not exactly a sprawling metropolis. Compared to Cinnegar, it was a rather small, dirty place, with few high-rises or big buildings at all. The land was too marshy to support large structures, even after being dredged and drained; even the governor's tower would have hardly been an average-sized office building on Empress Teta. No other buildings in the city were nearly that tall, five stories on average, with one or two that were taller, but nothing over eight.

But the spaceport on the edge of the city was distinguished by its complete lack of any buildings being taller than a single story. Most of them were much wider than they were tall, square structures with the middle cut out, the circular docking area large enough to hold most freighters and small passenger transports. Anything larger than that, like an Imperial Raider-class corvette, had to take their chances by landing on the ground and hoping that their ship did not sink into the mire.

In the case of the corvette Hanna and Atto had in their sights, it was wallowing, its landing gear almost completely sunken into the soft ground, hull and engines barely meters above it themselves.

Hanna watched her targeting computer intently. It was calculating range, angles, feeding her data on the corvette and what its status was. She armed the proton torpedoes, watching the range scroll down tens of meters a second as they closed in. Once they reached effective range for the torpedoes, she would need to obtain a lock as fast as she could, otherwise the torpedoes would fly straight forward until it collided with whatever obstacle lay in its path. A more confident gunner would have let fly as soon as they reached range, but she wanted to be sure she got it right the first time.

“Ten seconds to range.” She reported, “Corvette is quiet, no lights, shields are down.”

“Caught 'em with their pants down.” Atto said with grim satisfaction. “Let's keep it that way.”

Hanna gripped the solitary control stick on her side of the cockpit, a mounted device that did not tilt or pitch the way most did. Instead, it was a fixed mount with a trigger and two buttons, able to turn side to side to control the angle of the ship's rotary laser canon, with the torpedoes launched via one of the secondary controls. Simple enough to learn. Hanna's biggest concern was remembering which button to press when the time came. That and ensuring the torpedoes actually hit their targets.

Her targeting computer filled with red lines and yellow lights. The Arbiter was in range of its target. She started punching in the targeting data the computer was giving her, locking targets. “We're within range, computer's locked on. Another... two seconds and I'll have firing solutions.”

“Keep it humming.”

“On it.” The computer chimed, and icons started going green. Hanna looked up at the window, at the oncoming gray and white bulk of the corvette on the muddy brown and green ground. “Ready to fire. On your mark.”

“Give.”

Hanna squeeze the control stick and jammed her thumb down into the firing button. The cockpit shuddered and a blast of compressed air shot from somewhere below them, ejecting the torpedo clear of the ship before it ignited its own internal propulsion and flew off at five times the speed of sound. A split second later, she pressed it again, and a second torpedo left a streak of red fire through the hazy Ome atmosphere on its way toward the target.

“Two lit, on the way.” Hanna's mind scrambled for the official terminology for these sorts of things, even as she peeled her hand from the control stick and looked at how badly she was shaking. “On target, looking good.”

Atto eased the controls away from the corvette, sending them in an arc away from the spaceport and toward the city itself. “Keep me posted if we need to make another run, it'll have to be fast.”

Hanna nodded, watching the targeting computer, her only view of the destruction about to be wrought. The first torpedo hit, and the computer struggled for a moment to re-calculate and acquire the data around the corvette, bits and pieces of red light flying across the screen. The shockwave had just hit them, causing the Arbiter to rumble and shudder, when the second torpedo hit the target and all of the data dissipated into a cloud of confused red and yellow lines. It took another two or three seconds for the data to settle down and turn into something readable and give her the results of their work.

“Target is... heavily damaged, two direct hits. Rear section of the corvette is destroyed. We'll probably need a visual scan to get more specifics but...” She switched over to the main sensor readout, watching the scanners bring in more data about the target. “It looks like we peeled it like a jumba fruit, back to front. The engines are completely gone, and so is most of the bridge.”

“Nice.” Atto shifted the ship's course again, taking them back toward the corvette's landing zone. “Let's take a look.”

The Arbiter slowed down, Atto chopping the throttle back and keeping their course smooth. While their thrust was enough to keep them in the air, it gave both Hanna and Atto a clear view of the damage their attack had inflicted.

“Looks like a successful run to me.”

Hanna nodded agreement. The corvette, formerly a pristine and geometric example of Imperial strength and design, had been cut in half laterally. The forward half was mostly intact, aside from a little carbon scoring here and there, but the rear half was a heap of molten metal and black slag. The engine compartment, command tower, and four of the gun emplacements were nothing but charred craters, the two torpedoes tore the durrasteel armor apart and burst through into the ship's interior. Tertiary explosions had ripped through most of the corvette's rear section, ultimately destroying everything needed to fly the ship.

“Wow.” She said to herself. She never imagined that one of the Empire's premiere new warships would just... crumple like that. “Wonder if we should tell someone that two torpedoes is all it takes to blow the whole thing up.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

“Kinda a design flaw for something built to blow up starfighters.”

“Yeah, kinda.”

They both looked at each other, then Atto shrugged. “Let's just tell the boss.”

“Good idea.”

Atto pressed the button on the side of his headset, activating it and linking him with the other communicators used across the ship. “Boss, corvette's taken care of.”

“Good flying, you two.” T'ocs' voice came back, “Now get us to the governor's tower.”

“On it.” Atto shook his head as he turned his commlink off again and returned to working the controls. “If I didn't know better, I'd almost say that was to-”

The ship rocked, jolting both of them out of their seats. Alarms started blinking, shrilling and screaming all across the cockpit as the ship rocked off-course. Atto was upright first, grabbing the controls and putting them in an evasive climb, while Hanna struggled back to her own seat and looked over the readouts.

“What was that?” Atto asked. “What hit us?”

Hanna shook her head. “I don't know, the scanner's clean.”

“Did we take any damage?”

“Yeah, a bit. One of the maneuvering jets is down. You had to say that you thought it was too easy.”

“Hey, I didn't say it, did I?”

“You almost said it.”

“Almost doesn't count.”

The ship rocked again, though this time neither the pilot nor the copilot were knocked out of their seats. More alarms started going off, including one that flashed in front of Atto instead of Hanna.

“Huh boy.” Atto said, “That's one of the maneuvering flaps gone, we've lost the lateral controls.”

“I'm cutting in the auxiliary thrusters, keep us in the air.” Hanna flipped switches on the wall to her right, then went back to her scanner readout. “I still don't have a target or a cause of the damage. It's coming out of nowhere, there's no targets above or below.”

“Well something is hitting us. Are the shields up, at least?”

Hanna glanced at the readout. “Yeah, they are, whatever is hitting us is going right through them.”

“You sure? Because that first jolt felt a lot like something hitting unshielded hull.”

“The computer says our shield is up, you can argue with me all you like...”

Another jolt shot through both of them. Atto rolled his head around. “Oh, come on! I was maneuvering that time!”

“It's not my fault! The shields are up!”

He looked over toward her. “We lose another jet?”

“Yeah, how could you tell?”

“Because the controls are starting to a bit limp. If we don't figure out what's going on, I'm going to have a hard time not just crashing us down into that swamp.”

“Then take us in low, run the repulsorlifts. Get us low enough that maybe we can see who or what is trying to bring this ship down.” Hanna got up and went to the portal leading out of the cockpit.

“Hey.” Atto glanced between her and the viewport, “Hey, where are you going?”

“To talk to the boss.” She opened the blast door and ran to the main hold, where the three other members of the crew were strapped in to the acceleration couch.

“What's going on?” Trev asked, “We felt shaking.”

“Something's hitting us. We aren't sure what, but we've lost the maneuvering flaps and two-” The ship rocked again, causing Hanna to stumble and grab the wall to keep herself upright. “Make that three of the maneuvering jets. The shields are up, but it's still getting through. Nothing on scanners, coming or going. I'm having Atto take us down toward the surface and run us on repulsors, try to get visual contact with whatever's hitting us.”

“Here's a better idea.” T'ocs unstrapped and stood up, rolling his shoulders back. “Get us low enough to disembark then pull the Arbiter back, we'll handle whatever might be on the ground.”

“We aren't even close to the tower yet, boss. It'll be a hike.”

“I'd rather fight on the ground that have all of us die up here after my ship gets blown to pieces. Tell Atto to get us low enough to drop, he'll know what to do.”

“Right.” Hanna turned and headed forward again. Behind her, Blade and Trev were unstrapping and gathering their gear, silent and grim. Neither of them were all that keen on dying before the fight had even really started. But neither of them wanted to stumble out of the Arbiter unprepared for a battle, either.

Hanna got back into the cockpit just in time to see Atto slam the controls to one side, causing her to stumble and fall against the wall again. The Arbiter danced backward with the sort of lumbering deftness that modified freighters often did, quick, but never graceful. Something flew past the viewport, fast enough to just be a blur, and exploded somewhere above them, raining fire and shrapnel past them.

“What-”

“Grenades.” Atto explained, working the controls more to keep them in an evasive dance. “I figured it out just after you left. It's just like how they killed Ice, someone's throwing grenades up at us way faster and harder than anyone should ever be able to.”

“T'ocs said to take it lower, he wants to drop out and take them on from the ground.”

He glanced over his shoulder at her, a skeptical look on his face, then shook his head and returned his attention to the controls. “Well, he's the boss. Let's get low, then.”

He worked the controls and throttle again before Hanna had regained her seat, meaning she stumbled and almost fell into it as the ship jumped downward toward the ground. Atto fired the repulsorlifts and their fall slowed, but did not stop entirely, their rate of descent varying as Atto continued to work to avoid any more incoming projectiles.

“So, any idea how are they're getting through the shields?” Hanna asked, busy strapping herself down.

“No. They just are. Are you sure you have the particle shields up, Hanna?”

“The computer says I do. I can turn them off and back on, if you like.”

“Well, do something. Or else the minute we open that side hatch, we'll get a grenade right in someone's lap.”

Hanna set to work, mouth set in a grim line. She checked over the shield monitor again, at all of the green lights she saw, then worked at turning all of them off. One by one, she shut the shields down and then brought them back online, watching the monitors blink and flash for a moment before coming back up and turning green again. Whether they were actually working now or not, or if their unseen assailants would continue to somehow bypass them, she had no idea.

“I've recycled the shields, we're about as ready as we're going to be.”

“Okay.” Atto keyed his commlink. “Boss, I'm going in for the drop, be ready for the word.”

“We're ready, Atto.”

“Just you make sure we're low enough not to break our legs on impact, Atto.”

“I'll do my best, Trev.” Atto left his commlink on as he chopped the throttle back to zero and continued to fire the auxiliary engines and remaining maneuvering jets to keep them a somewhat moving target as they descended. A moment or so later, and they were low enough that they saw trees around them instead of only sky. Atto rotated the ship until they were facing the remnants of the corvette, a few hundred meters off their nose, still smoking.

“Okay, T'ocs,” He said into his comm, “Go for it!”

The ship shuddered a bit as the hydraulics and motivators of the ship's landing ramp and boarding hatch wound and extended, allowing the crew room for departure. Hanna had her hand posed over the remote switch that would retract the ramp and close the hatch after they were given the all-clear, watching through viewport for any sign of whatever had been hurling grenades at them before. Aside from the remains of the corvette, all she could see were swampy grasses and trees.

“We're clear,” T'ocs' voice barked in their ears, “Close the hatch and pull out of there!”

Hanna hit the switch, then bit her lip as Atto fired the repulsors and the ship bounced upward with unexpected alacrity. He shoved the throttle, and they accelerated fast enough to press Hanna back into her seat's cushion, arcing upward away from the ground and toward the clouds once again.

“Boss, you get in trouble down there, you give us a call.” Hanna said, “We'll be waiting.”

“Don't worry about us, ad'ika. Just keep an eye on the sky and an ear to the ground.”

Hanna leaned back in her chair, watching the monitors for a moment, then turning to Atto. The Kiffar had likewise leaned back in his chair, still working the controls, but no longer tense or excited. All of the energy seemed to have drained from the room the moment they had left the ground behind again.

“So.” Hanna said, “What now?”

“Now?” Atto sighed and looked over at her. “As befits the life of the team pilot: now we wait.”

 

I asked for an update soon, and a wonderful update is what I got. Many interesting elements in this chapter -- T'ocs slipping into his Mandalorian warrior persona, Hanna and Atto working as a team, the feral Jedi breaking through the ship's shields with incredible ease -- but what I found most powerfully written was Hanna's transition from soldier-in-training to soldier in real life. On the one hand, her musings about how she's getting more than what she bargained for and the awareness that she didn't know what she'd been bargaining for; on the other, her talent and competence and newfound realisation that she needs to follow orders and collaborate in order to survive. Nicely done

 

Short update, just to keep everyone posted. This chapter was a bit of rough going from a writing standpoint, this half being completely without dialog, so it took a while. I'll be posting the second half later.
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Chapter Fifteen

Today, T'ocs decided, was not a good day.

Crouching shin-deep in the mud at the bottom of the crater created by a falling superheated chunk of metal, swamp water pooling around his boots, he had a blaster carbine in one hand and the other around the muzzle of a blaster pistol. The pistol was out of energy and he had no spare clips, so he was using it as a club at the moment. It was a hardy weapon, he was not worried about damaging it. His carbine had five shots left in it, and he had two more clips left in his belt, enough for about three dozen shots total. The issue he had was that he had no idea how many targets he had for those three dozen shots, or even where they were.

His helmet was not his visor. It did not have the same sort of sensory ability his visors did, they could not pick out life signatures and give him exact locations and such. His helmet gave his a basic thermal mode, which was enough most of the time, but all of the buildings on Ome seemed to be built specifically to repel the heat, leaving the iridescent hues of the display a muddy mixture of purple and black, showing no white or yellow cores of life. So he had to go with basic high-def holocam mode, which slurred and stretched if he swung his head around too quickly unless he allowed it to focus for an extra moment or two, a horribly unnatural arrangement.

His other possible option, turning everything off and leaving him just natural vision through an empty visor, was not a promising option either. He needed visual enhancement to have any sort of hope of seeing those trying to kill him, his own eyes were not going to do it with the horrible atmospheric conditions. At this point, though, he was not entirely convinced that it would make a difference whether he could see or not.

Somewhere off to his left was Blade and Trev, making their way around to flank whoever was throwing grenades from somewhere deeper in the city. He did not want to turn around and look for them, or else he would leave himself open. Atto and Hanna and the Arbiter were somewhere above them, watching and waiting for something to happen, there for that just in case. Now was not the time to call them. They were his ace in the stasis field, they had to hold off until he needed that firepower brought down. This was his play, his time. He needed to solve this himself.

It was hard, when you could not see your enemies, to run through your options of how to fight back. Suppressing fire from multiple points against the general area was the standard response. T'ocs did not have that sort of firepower at his disposal, but he did have at least one response he could use. It was not going to be as effective as he would have liked, considering the moistness of the condition and the humidity, but it was his best option at this point. He just hoped he had enough fuel to last him for the next four or five houses.

T'ocs climbed out of the crater and started moving forward. There were three houses in his immediate vicinity, all of which could have one or multiple Jedi in them. He needed to clear them all. That was what they had been doing, clearing the houses, looking for any survivors or clues as to where they might be. But no. Everyone they had found were the enemy: beings of all species done up in plain brown robes, their faces horrible scarred and distorted, standing or walking around like they were in a trance, up until someone came close. Then, it was a blur of motion, invisible blows, the wind, the rain. Chaos.

He stuffed his blaster pistol into his holster and brought up his right gauntlet. This was not a weapon he used often, his flamethrower, it was too cruel and brutal for most operations. Burning to death was one of the worst ways to die imaginable, right alongside being ejected naked into space. Yet another threshold he never imagined he would have to cross again any time close to the present.

Fuel sprayed out, and fire followed shortly, unquenchable, even in the dampness. The flamethrower was fueled by a pressurized jet of gel-based starship propellant mixed with pure oxygen, it would burn quick and it would burn very hot but best, or worst, of all, it would never be smothered or quenched. Every drop would burn for hours, refusing to mix with water and any attempts to beat it out would only spread it. There were a handful of chemicals in the galaxy that could deprive the fuel of the precious mixture of air and heat it needed to burn long enough to extinguish it, but they were expensive and usually reserved for Rim worlds, where fires were a thing to be fought rather than a force of nature.

Nothing on Ome would stop the burning once it began. Perhaps it would not spread as far or fast as seemed best, but it would melt through stone and metal and evaporate the muddy ground, filling the air with clouds of steam so dense that it would be all but impossible to see him. The enemy, if they wanted to kill him, would have to get close, which was exactly what he hoped they would do.

T'ocs switched his visor over to thermal mode as the first few rivers of fire surrounded him in a cloud of steam. Though the fire obscured a good portion of his visor at first, he was able to cycle it out of mind and focus on looking for signatures within a certain heat range, colder than the fire, but warmer than the steam around it. He picked out a spot, seeing it waver and flicker through the clouds, and fired a quick shot in that direction. A spray of particles through the air, a harsh cry, and he was rewarded by seeing something flop to the ground from a window above and to his right, an unarmed grenade rolling out of the prospective assailant's hand.

He stepped through the ring of fire, letting the flames wash over his boots and up his legs. His armor was insulated, it could withstand a vacuum if need be, but he could still feel the heat, it conducted through the Mandalorian metal and connecting bodysuit. They would never get through, and though he could feel the heat it was far from hot enough to warp or damage the armor. But there was another factor: a Mandalorian in black armor walking forward through a circle of flame was an intimidating sight. Though he doubted whether anything would phase the Jedi he was fighting, he thought the visuals were worth the effort.

Something came bouncing along the ground in front of him, the movement visible through the cloud of infrared signals. Another grenade, one with some heat at its core, either fragmentation or possibly phosphorous. He took two long steps toward it and dealt it a kick, hard enough to send it down the street and into the base of a building. The explosion, it was a frag grenade after all, took out a chunk of the wall and exposed an interior corridor. T'ocs made for it, it was as good a chance as any to duck off the main road and avoid some of the chaos the fire he had started was causing.

The building has been a bar or cantina in the recent past. The lights were out and the bar itself was deserted, of course. No one was in this city except the enemy. Mysterious, impossible. At the moment, it was also immaterial; he needed to focus on staying alive and killing the enemy, not seeking to puzzle out where those who might get between him and them were. He brought down his helmet's rangefinder, enhancing its sensor abilities at the cost of some peripheral vision. It was his helmet's inner workings that had been the inspiration for the headsets he had provided his crew. While his helmet was older and therefore somewhat cruder, it was also exactly what he had been trained with and knew best. With it at his disposal, he could all but see through walls.

He stalked across the bar, kicking the odd table or chair aside as he went, head on a swivel, examining every corner and shadow with all of the scanners, natural and artificial, he had. He knew better than to assume that the enemy would stick to the ground level, watching the ceiling for signs of entry or exit, every vent scanned in succession. There was no sign of anyone in the immediate vicinity. The building was empty of life aside from himself and the odd rodent or two somewhere in the corners of the walls.

He took a moment to catch his breath. A quick glance at the chronometer and he grimaced. Ten minutes, was that all? It felt like hours worth of stalking through streets, blowing up alleyways, trading fire with unseen adversaries in windows and doorways. Then again, it always did. He was always surprised, even after years and years, how the passage of time seemed to warp around the event of combat. If it was not slowed to a crawl as he huddled in a bomb crater, it sped by shockingly quickly as battle wore on, entire days vaporized into a haze of suspense-filled hours and terrifying seconds.

His helmet warned him of approaching unknown signals. It was not Trev and Blade, he would have picked up their headsets' transponder signals. Here on Ome, if it was unknown, it was hostile.

The door, a crude but sturdy wooden construction designed to keep patrons in and the rain out, exploded inward. A shower of splinters flew in T'ocs' direction, rattling off of his armor. He stepped to one side and put an overturned table between himself and the door. His armor would take anything this planet could throw at him, but no sense in taking unnecessary damaged when it could be avoided. His armor might not take damage, but his body would still get the impact, the stress. The less of that, the better.

Two brown robes fluttered through the door, trying to run faster than he could see or shoot. They were light on their feet, he gave them that. But it took more than being quick to avoid a blaster shot to their center mass. T'ocs picked the one running to his left with a two-shot burst from his carbine, and immediately started moving himself, away from the second figure and turning to track it.

The other brown robe was still moving, one arm out to gesture at furniture and send in flying through the air in T'ocs' direction. Because everything was moist, nearly all of it made of wood and suffering from rather long-term disuse, he was able to shoot some of the smaller things out of the air as it came at him, turning the soft wood into flaming wreckage that popped and splintered against his body. Larger things, like heavy chairs and tables from the booths against the walls, were another story.

He turned to take aim at an oncoming barstool when he noticed the blinking red light on the side of his blaster. He ducked instead, dropping the powerless weapon to the ground as he rolled underneath the oncoming projectile and came up to his feet with his right gauntlet raised, hand in a fist. It was the one thing, he reflected as his wrist filled the air with fire, that he loved the most about his armor. Mandalorians were never truly unarmed, not so long as the very shell that surrounded them was in itself a weapon, and could have numerous other weapons built into it on the whim of its owner.

Collecting his carbine and reloading it with a fresh power pack, T'ocs started walking again. Respite was over. Nowhere on this planet was safe. So long as they were here, more and more of these brown robes would come out after them. They needed to find their leader, find the one who has started all this, the one calling the shots. Then, they needed to kill it.

 

Part two of this chapter, dealing with other members of the crew on Ome.
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Blade had only a moment of peace. A moment was all he needed, to be fair. He set his blaster down for a moment, letting it rest against the side of the building. He leaned his head back against the wall, eyes closed, listening. His hand ran along his belts, checking how many of his knives and blades were still there. Far too many of the holders and scabbards were empty for his liking. How he had lost them, he did not know or care to remember at that moment. A lesser warrior may have left them in floors or walls somewhere behind them. Blade knew that none of his found any final resting place but the flesh of his enemies.

His people were a war-like people. Not all were warriors, but the warriors they did raise were fierce and cunning, a legacy that stretched back farther than the reaches of memory. Each blade he held, knife, dagger, dirk or otherwise, lay its own storied history in his hands, each one a weapon that had been wet with blood. Most of them had been passed down through the rite of combat, the stronger of two fighters taking the weaker's weapons after killing them. However, Blade had not always been a skilled enough fighter to win in battle; some of the blood had been his; some of the knives had been taken after their users had fallen to a blaster or other means.

A lesson he had learned, long ago, was that simplistic “warrior's honor” many clung to had no place in the life of a mercenary. He preferred knives, as most of his people did, but he also carried a blaster, because only a fool went about the business of killing for money with nothing but a knife in his hand and another at his belt. The galaxy did not have any sort of honor system or ideal. The enemy came at them from every side, every angle, always there, hunting and relentless. He needed every advantage he could get, every trick up his sleeve. Especially since here, he was killing Jedi.

He hear Trev drop down beside him. The boy was breathing hard, his body not used to the exertion of constant combat, running and fighting and running again. He carried a lot of equipment, as well, far too much for Blade's taste. It was needed, yes, but there was no reason he could not have left the explosives or the detonators aboard the ship and then retrieved them later. It showed the boy's youth, his inexperience in field missions. It was all the two of them could do to stay alive and one step ahead of the enemy to this point. And even that had almost entirely been Blade's efforts. He did not think Trev had killed a single person yet to this point.

A canteen uncorked and Blade could hear Trev gulp down a mouthful of water. He smacked his lips and put the canteen away. Smart, that, too much water weighed you down. It was when he heard a ration packet rustling that Blade spoke up.

“Put it away.”

Trev froze. “Why?”

“Because running with a full stomach will give you indigestion. Besides, you won't have time to finish it.”

“What makes you think that?”

Blade opened his eyes and looked up, toward the rooftops of the alley above him. “Because we are being hunted.”

Two shapes, brown and almost formless, jumped from one building to the next. Trev glanced up, in time to catch the barest glimpse of them, then hurriedly stuffed the ration packet away and started gathering his other supplies again.

“How fast do we need to run?”

“How fast will you be able to run?” Blade heard something, the softest of pattering behind the wall he leaned against. “Never mind. We will not run, after all.”

“What? Why not?”

Blade got to his feet and scooped up his blaster once again. “They have us boxed in, two on this side, two on the other. In a moment, they will be at the mouths of both alleyways, cutting us off. We need to pick a side, kill those there and then run.”

“Why not just kill all four?”

“Do you fancy our chances in a narrow alleyway against four Jedi with no cover? Because I do not.”

“Good point.”

Blade looked from left to right, down to each end of the alley. They were clear for the moment, but he knew that Jedi could move far faster than any mere mortal. They could be in the alley and on top of them in the blink of an eye. Neither side seemed more or less inviting for their break than the other. It was a one in two chance, the flip of a coin, the gambler's nightmare. Blade closed his eyes and listened, letting the sounds of the silence wash over him. Beyond Trev's ragged, tense breathing, beyond the distant sounds of conflict where their boss was leading another group of Jedi to their demise, he listened for anything, the barest of sounds, the slightest of indications of where to go next.

“This way.” He said, grabbing Trev's shoulder and pushing him toward the left side of the alley from where they had been sitting. “Blaster up.”

Trev had his blaster, some sort of customized monstrosity he had put together, with three barrels and a pair of staggered triggers, at an ease position, ready to snap it upright at a moment's notice. He nodded toward Blade as he turned to look. “I'm ready.”

“Then run.”

He ran. The boy plunged forward with the sort of confidence and audacity that said he was expecting Blade to be right beside him or right behind him. In reality, Blade stood back, blaster up, taking a long vibroblade from his belt and clutching it against the barrel of his weapon. He moved forward, behind Trev, but not nearly as fast or as confidently as the boy had. He stuck to one wall, listening, watching, and waiting.

When two brown robed figures swept down on Trev from above instead of appearing in front of him as the boy was expecting, Blade was ready for it. He took the first one with a three-round burst to the back, two shots hitting in the shoulders, the third in the back of its head. As it fell, its partner dropped into a crouch and swept a hand out behind it, sending an invisible blow that rippled across the marshy ground. Blade jumped and kicked off of the wall nearest him to avoid it, firing his blaster as he continued to advance.

The hooded Jedi twirled like a dancer, letting the blaster bolts pass around it, harmless to all but scattered mud and bricks. Then it went on the offensive, invisible fists flying, smashing the blaster from Blade's hands and threatening to knock him off of his feet. Blade fought back, absorbing the blows and keeping his vibroblade in his hand as he continued to advance, dodging and ducking as he came. He and the Jedi met in a whirl of limbs, his blade slashing and swiping, the Jedi's hands keeping it at bay with no more damage than the tearing of fabric. Blade tried strikes low, high, between, left, right, but not one got through. The Jedi predicted and parried his every attack.
He changed tactics. Mid-swipe, he brought his right foot up in a kick, catching the Jedi off-guard and staggering it. Another swipe found purchase at last, carving into the Jedi's right forearm and drawing a stream of green blood. Blade used the momentum, turning his body and snap-kicking the Jedi to the side, causing it to stagger into the wall of the building face-first. He followed with a single step, a hunter's step, and stabbed his blade home.

The Jedi, a Rodian, died, gurgling, leaving a streak of blood down the wall as it collapsed. Blade kicked it over and watched the light fade from its eyes, just to be confident in its finality. He knew better than to leave a wounded enemy behind.

“Blade, drop!”

Instinct drove Blade downward into the mud. A harsh report, like three different blasters all firing in unison, sounded above him, and the alley filled with light for a moment. To his right, two Jedi dropped to the ground, robes and bodies smoldering with tiny flames.

Trev stood over him, his ridiculous blaster steaming in the misty air. He glanced down at Blade. “You all right?”

“Fine.” Blade got to his feet. “Good shooting.”

“Sure. And thanks for letting me know the plan ahead of time.”

“If you knew it, they would have predicted it. They can see into your mind, remember?”

“Oh. Right.”

“We should go.”

“Wait.” Trev stepped past him, over to the two Jedi who lay on the ground, where his single shot had left them. He took aim at one and pulled his weapon's front trigger, the blast annihilating its hood and head and filling the air with the stink of burnt flesh and ozone. He followed up with the second Jedi, then came back to Blade, blaster now propped on his shoulder.

“Just making sure?” Blade asked.

“No.” Trev said, “Checking for a pulse.”

“Did you find one?”

“Nah.”

Blade paused for a moment, unsure whether to praise the boy or acknowledge his efforts. He decided that, not being the boss, it was not his place to dole such things out. Instead, he said, “We need to move, more of them will be here soon.”

Trev nodded. “Where to?”

Blade stopped, listening again. He could hear the sounds of a blaster and explosions somewhere nearby, echoing off of the buildings but muffled in the humid air. “Away from where the boss is. We should split the enemy's efforts if we can, since they will find us wherever we go. Toward the tower.”

“Wouldn't it be better if we met back up with the boss? Since we won't be able to sneak up on them, we're really only splitting up to make it more dangerous for ourselves.”

“That is the boss's decision to make, not ours. If he wants our help, he will ask for it.”

“I wasn't worried about him.”

“If we are not able to handle ourselves, he would not have counted on us to do so. We must not betray his trust in us.”

Trev pondered for a moment, focus distant, the wheels behind his eyes turning long and slow. “I suppose that's true. He wouldn't have sent us out if he didn't think that we could handle ourselves without him.”

“Exactly.” Blade was already walking out of the alley and across an adjacent street to the west, toward the distant governor's tower. “Now come on, we have to keep on the move.”

“Right behind you.”

 

The past ten days have been far too exhausting for me to be able to comment intelligently on this story, but I thought I'd just drop a line to say that I'm still here, I caught up with your last two chapters, and I still love it!

 

Note quite to the tower yet, I'm afraid. And it, unfortunately, only gets worse from here.

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Chapter Sixteen

“Aw, nerfcrap.”

Hanna turned to look at Atto. “Uh, should I be worried about that?”

“Oh yeah.” He turned to look at her. “Look.” He played with the flight controls, and Hanna could see them swing loosely in his hand without any effect on the ship's course or direction.

“Uh oh.”

“Yeah, it feels like we've lost the other maneuvering jets. Or at least lost power to them.” He turned back to the controls and started flipping switches and turning knobs. “I'm going to try and get us down to a reasonable height so we don't crash and die. Can you look at the system monitor and figure out what the kark is going on?”

“The shields are still up, before you ask. I'm looking at the monitor now.” Hanna glanced at the computer readout that told her what the status of the ship's systems was. In short: not good. “Uh, we're losing power. Fast.”

“How?”

“Something, I'm not sure, it's somewhere in the rear of the ship, near the engines. We're losing power to everything, not just the engines or jets.” The lights and monitors around them started to flicker, and the ship itself seemed to shudder in pain around them.

Atto struggled with the controls for a moment, then struck the board in front of him with the flat of his hand. “It's no use, we're going to fall out of the sky unless we get some power back. The engines are still running but we can't maneuver or control anything.”

Hanna got up, climbing around her own seat and slapping Atto's shoulder as she went back to the portal into the body of the ship. “Keep it together as best you can.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Get us some power back.”

“How?”

“Leave that to me!” Hanna waited for the door to hesitate on its way open due to the low power, having to grab it and push it far enough from the wall to allow her through. The rest of the ship's interior lights were flickering and stuttering, and she had to pick her way across the deck and through the hallways on her way toward the rear of the ship. What had once been a friendly and secure place had turned into an obstacle course, a shuddering metal can in the sky that threatened to fall to the ground at any second.

She had to force her way through the door that led to the engine compartment the same way she had exited the cockpit. The engine room was dark, only red emergency lights flaring, and eerily quiet. Hanna was no mechanic, but she knew enough about engines to know that something was wrong with theirs. Nothing was running, there were no pulsing or grinding or humming noises, and both the fuel console and the coolant monitor were blinking with a lot of red lights.

Hanna turned on her headset. “Uh, Atto, there's a lot of red lights on back here. Any idea what to do about that?”

“Not a clue. I just fly the thing, Trev and the boss are the ones who keep it up here.”

“We're screwed, then.” Hanna shook her head, walking across the room toward the engines. “I have no idea what's going on back there.”

Something hit her from behind. Hanna stumbled forward, almost falling on her face before putting a hand on the floor and turning to see what had struck her. A man stood there, dressed in a plain brown robe, hands tucked into the sleeves, hood drawn forward over his face. Hanna gritted her teeth, climbing back up to her feet. This again.

“Your ship will fall.” The man said, voice far too calm for what Hanna was about to do to him. “You and your allies will die. And the Empire will be defeated.”

Hanna decked him in the face with the hardest punch she could throw, knocking him into the wall and sending him tumbling to the floor. “You can shut up now.” She told him.

“What was that, Hanna? What's going on back there?”

“We've got a stowaway back here.” Hanna reported, “I'm handling it.” She reached down and grabbed the man by the collar of his robe and dragged him up to eye level. “What did you do to the ship?” She asked, voice a harsh growl.

“Brought it down.” The man's voice was weaker now, behind a broken nose and possible smashed teeth and gums. “I will bring you down.”

Hanna slammed him against the wall, then planted her hand around his chin and forced his head back so he met her eyes. His face was just as horrible and scarred as the others' had been below on the planet, one scar in particular looking like part of his skull had been removed and then replaced. But his eyes still showed the pain when she dug her fingernails into his cheeks, drawing blood.

“What. Did. You. Do?”

“The coolant lines are shut off.” He groveled out, “And the engine override system is engaged to the console there. You cannot restart them without knowing the proper clearance code.”

“And what's that?”

He groaned again as her nails dug deeper. Then, he smiled. “Inside.” His hand went up to tap the side of his head. Then his hand went to her chest, and Hanna went flying again, backward into the engine housing. Her head hit metal, and everything went black.

* * *

When Hanna came to her senses, it took her a moment or two to get up on hr feet. Her head was throbbing and her eyes refused to focus on anything. She guessed she had a concussion. She had to put her hands on the floor to even climb to her feet. She stumbled forward to the door, grabbing the wall to keep from falling down. It took her a moment, standing with her eyes closed, to keep from letting the nausea take over her stomach and body and force her to her knees again.

It dawned on her, standing against the wall with her eyes closed, to realize that the ship was not moving anymore. Nor were there any sounds, no engine rumblings, no shuddering of the ship falling through the atmosphere, no sirens or alarms, nothing. The door was closed, and the Arbiter was quiet.

Hanna opened her eyes. She took a step back, waving toward the door, trying to get it to open. It remained locked and closed. What was more, she realized that the emergency blast door was closed as well. She was sealed off from the rest of the ship, without power, and had no idea how long she had been unconscious or what had happened in the meantime.

She bashed her hand against the wall, using the pain to center herself, help clear her head. The engine compartment was around five meters by ten, most of it filled with the engine workings themselves, fuel and coolant lines, as well as storage for various engine parts that would not fit anywhere else. There was no where to go and nothing for her to do. The power being cut left her with little light, provided only by the automated emergency bulbs in the ceiling. There were shadows and jagged edges everywhere, she could hardly see a thing except the door and the area right around it.

She had to get out. She had to, she could hardly imagine what had happened beyond it, elsewhere in the ship. They were not moving any more, she knew that for sure, and the man in the brown robe who had sabotaged the engines was long gone. Two and two still, as far as she knew, made four, and it was logical to assume that the man had somehow brought the Arbiter to ground after knocking Hanna unconscious.

The only thing she could think of doing was somehow to hotwire the door, try to trigger the emergency backups, and get out into the main part of the ship. Of course, that was far easier thought than done. Hanna had no idea what the internal workings of the Arbiter's door systems were like. She had some basic mechanical knowledge, but she was not a mechanic, she was not Trev. She hunted across the paneling in the bulkhead, looking for a place where the wall could be lifted away and reveal the wiring and machinery needed to operate the heavy door.

Everything looked the same. Every part of the wall around the door was identical to the rest, plain metal panels riveted and sealed against vacuum, painted a dull gray color with the occasional white highlight. There was no obvious place for maintenance to be performed. There was no access hatch, no loose paneling, nothing to betray where the workings lay.

Hanna hit the door again with her fist, turning and planting her back against the cold metal. Her eyes searched the room in front of her, jagged shadows preventing her from seeing much at all, useful to a potential escape or not. Trev kept all of his tools and things forward, in the middle section of the ship, so he could tinker on their weapons in his spare time. Everything needed to work on the engines could be brought back here as necessary. Unless, unfortunately, the blast door had closed between them.

She ran a hand across her face in exasperation. Her fingers found something, a thing she had entirely forgotten she was wearing. She took her headset off and looked at it; the impact with the engine housing had apparently been mitigated by the equipment, because most of the rear section was broken and bent, and both lenses were long gone. But, if luck was still with her, the commlink was still working.

Hanna took the headset apart, peeling off broken parts and digging past now-extraneous wiring. She pulled the earpiece out, following the wires to where the speaker was. It looked exactly like the parts to the field-model commlinks she and Ice had bought aboard the Nuuve Ring station; she had seen Trev taking those apart and put encryption scramblers in them, the parts were almost identical. She grabbed the battery cell and let the rest fall to the floor in a scattered heap.

The commlink was still connected to the power cell by red and black wires. She would not be able to adjust the frequency or anything else, but she would at least be able to sent a signal of some sort. What to say, though? That she was trapped and needed help? That the Arbiter had crashed? No, better to simply call for her friends, hope for someone to answer first. It was impossible to tell who else might be listening in.

“Hello?” She said, putting the speaker to her ear and the microphone to her chin. “Can anyone hear me? Arbiter calling ground team, please respond.”

She heard a faint trickle of static on the speaker, barely loud enough to be heard. She fiddled with the wires connecting the commlink parts to the power cell, causing them to pop and whine, but the signal got no louder nor any clearer.

“This is the Arbiter calling the ground team,” She repeated, “Requesting status update, over.”

The soft white noise that came back to her sounded no more comforting than the silence she had been enduring since her revival. She closed her eyes and leaned back against the door again, sliding down until she sat on the floor, knees huddled to her chest. “Someone. Anyone. Please, respond. Please.”

Nothing. Soft hissing, a pop. No voices, no response, nothing to tell her that anyone had heard what she had said. She let the pieces drop into her lap and leaned her head back against the door, looking up at the ugly yellow lights in the ceiling. She was doomed. She could not get out, she had no food, no water, and sooner of later the air within the compartment was going to run out. Any one of three ways would kill her, it was only a question of which would be first.

She never imagined that it would end like this. She had been raised on stories of the brave, the soldiers going out in a blaze of glory, of battles on land, in the air and in the distant reaches of space, of lasers and grenades and the whistle of slugs cutting through the air. Stories like this, dying alone, forgotten, trapped in a compartment on her own ship, smothering to death before she could starve or die of thirst, those were the stories told in hushed tones around a mess hall, the ones where a drink was raised, and each listener silently wished to avoid such a fate.

Any one of the other members of the crew would have been able to get out of this situation, avoid a fate like this one. Trev would have been able to open the door with his eyes closed, and probably T'ocs as well. Blade and Atto would have come up with something explosive, and Ice would have probably just torn through the bulkhead through sheer force of will. But she was useless, she was the one least familiar with the ship, the one least able to forge her own solution from the variety of implements around her. Her specialty was to hit things until they stopped moving, not the best stratagem in this situation. She was more likely to beat herself to death against the door than to actually break the door down or force it open.

How would she have gotten herself out of it, were circumstances a bit different? Hanna guessed she might have been able to rig some sort of power source using the battery from her headset and use it to at least get the door open partway. The thoughts struck her: All blast doors had emergency power cells of their own to prevent situations just like this one. The door was probably being kept shut because the systems meant to open it, the motion sensor and such, were shut down, and the damage-mitigating commands brought on by the crash were the last command they had received.

She could not get into the computer systems of the ship from here, could she? No, the main control consoles in the cockpit were the only way she knew how to get access to the programs that actually ran the ship. Except, there was another console, right here in the engine room. It was the one meant to keep the engines in balance and regulate the fuel and coolant systems. But who was to say that there was not a way to access other parts of the system somehow?

She got up, grabbing the power cell from her lap and walking to the console. It was a simple screen terminal on a raised podium, a half meter or so shy of the a engine housings, heavy cables connecting it to both the coolant and fuel tanks. It was, of course, off-line. But, perhaps it too had an emergency activation system of some sort, a backup power cell. It would only need a jump start of some sort.

The podium, thankfully, had an easily accessed panel where the wires that connected the terminal to everywhere else could be found. Of course, it was completely dark, and Hanna had no idea what to look for in any case. All of the wires were different colors, but none of them meant anything to her. The only one that stood out was a thick black one that looked more like a power conduit than a wire for information and data transfer. She traced its path with her hand, following it down into the floor, then up into the terminal, where it connected through an obvious power cell of some sort. A backup.

Hanna smiled. She knew what to do. Every pilot trainee who flew in Empress Teta airspace had to learn how to manually reboot their craft's systems in case of a reactor overload or capacitor flux or any number of things. A number of older craft, her instructors had explained numerous times, used emergency backup power cells embedded in the workings of their computers, charged up by a day's normal usage and able to run the system for an hour or so at a time if need arose.

All she had to do, was unplug the cord from its housing in the terminal, and then plug it back in. A shudder ran through her as the terminal whirred to life, a blue glow above her telling her that the screen had powered up. She was doing it. She had found a way, her way to escape.

She clambered out from under the terminal and up to look at the screen. It displayed a standard rebooting screen for a moment, then replaced it with a simple screen showing an empty box and a digital keyboard full of letters. The system needed a password.

“Kark!” Hanna swore. She had no idea what the code could be. Knowing Trev, it would likely be a series of random letters arranged in an exacting geometric pattern that only made sense to him. And it would take a very, very long time to stand there, pressing buttons and trying to guess it at random. She rubbed both hands over her face, frustration building up in place of despair. Why put a passcode on the engine console, it made no sense.

No, it did not. Something the man in brown robes had said, just before Hanna had blacked out, came back to her. He said that he had set a code on the system. Not that it helped her any more, he had said that the code was inside his own head. Judging from the scars alone, he could well have meant that literally. But it did not bring her any closer to the solution; the man, T'ocs had called him a Jedi, his mind was even more inscrutable than Trev's. She could not even be sure if that man had been sane, let alone try to think of what he might have put in as a code.

But she had to start somewhere. She put in the word “inside” and asked the computer to accept it. Of course, that was not the answer, and the computer asked her to try again. She tried “jedi” this time, to the same avail, that being none. Hanna sighed. The power was going to run out before she could guess it at this rate.

What had he meant? Inside his head, obviously. His brain? No, too literal. These people had spoken in riddles, metaphors, thinking in terms of the physical was too straightforward for them. What else could he have meant, then? What else would be inside that horrible head of his? Thoughts? Dreams? Ideas?

No. The source of their power, those invisible punches, the telekinesis, what had T'ocs called it? The Force? She tried that, first just “force” which was promptly rejected, and then found she had room to type out “theforce”. Nothing. And there was no way “telekinesis” would fit. What else could the man have possibly meant?

She thought back to the boring history lessons she had been in as a girl, back to the few times she had ever heard the word Jedi before. They had only come up once or twice, brushed over as relics of the distant past, the ones who had run the Republic before the Emperor had decided the galaxy was better off without them. It did seem like the best arrangement from where Hanna was standing. The Jedi had a hierarchy, she remembered, apprentices, knights and masters, the former turning into the latter through direct training under a master, and eventually being promoted to the position by their peers. It was a Jedi Master, she had heard in her class, who was responsible for the horrible scarring of the Emperor's face.

On a whim, she punched in “master”. The computer accepted it with a soft chirp, displayed a welcome message, and turned over to a screen that showed a number of diagnostics of the engine systems, different error messages cluttering the readings in every direction. She hardly paused to wonder at the idea of the Jedi she had encountered saying that his “master” was the one inside his head, rather focused on finding a way to unlock the door.

She almost laughed out loud when she saw that one of the systems that was not displaying an error message was, in fact, the control for the blast door between the engine compartment and the rest of the ship. She pressed it, and turned when she heard the door behind her groan to life. The heavy blast door groaned as it unlocked and retreated back into the bulkhead, leaving the lighter standard door behind, a soft lumina bulb above it turning on to show that it did indeed have power.

Hanna almost ran into the passage, pausing only long enough to wait for the door to hiss open. When she went through, the bright light beyond almost blinded her. It was not really bright, but any amount of light would have been more than the little she had in the engine compartment. The corridor that led forward to the upper cargo bay was still lit, as was the one leading downward into the lower deck where most of the crew's supplies were stored. Hanna rushed forward along the corridor toward the main compartment and the crew lounge.

“Atto!” She shouted, calling. “Atto!”

There was no sign of him, no sound to answer her. The rest of the ship was just as quiet as the engine compartment had been. There was no sign of battle, no burns or dents or jagged holes in the sides of the ship that indicated there had been any fighting aboard at all after she had been knocked out. Still, she ran forward, a sinking feeling in her gut telling that it was too quiet, and warning her to hurry.

“Atto!” She climbed through the half-closed portal leading into the cockpit. “Is everything all...?”

The Kiffar was huddled over in the pilot's seat. It hardly looked like he had even moved since she had left the cockpit. He hardly moved when she came in, either. At least he was still breathing.

“Atto?” Hanna slid forward until she was beside him, crouching down so they were level. “Are you okay?”

His head rolled to the side and he looked at her. His eyes were glazed and did not focus on her face, and something about the angle of his neck did not look right. Hanna wanted to reach out to set it right, but the way he was breathing, the way his mouth hung open...

“No.” Hanna moved in a bit closer. She did not touch him, she did not dare to. “What happened?”

“We hit the ground.” His voice was quiet, his breathing had a hitch in it. “I didn't have my shock proofing on, I wasn't ready. I thought you'd fix it.”

“I wanted to, I'm sorry, I tried. One of the Jedi was back there, he stopped me. I had to... Your neck's broken, isn't it?”

“I think so. I can't feel my anything.” Atto tried to smile, but only one side of his mouth moved. A small stream of drool rolled down his lips and fell from his chin to the floor. “It's hard to breathe.”

“Just... I... don't try to move or anything. I'm going to try and find the others, we'll get you out of here. The Marshall Awe has bacta tanks, we can drop you in one of those and get you back to Empress Teta. You're going to be all right.”

“Sorry, cheeka. Already got one foot in the ground. Can't really stop from falling in if I can't move my arms.”

Hanna felt something in her chest explode. She dropped her head down, leaning it against his chair. “Don't die, please. Atto, please. I need you to stay. I need you here with me.”

“You don't need me, cheeka. You're already better at this job than I've ever been.”

Hanna looked up at him again. “I've already lost Ice, I can't lose you, too. Soon there'll be no one left but me.”

“You've got the boss. Blade, and Trev. They're still out there, they'll help you.” Atto tried to take a deep breath, but only got about halfway before something caught in his chest and the breath came back out in a cough. “Promise me something, cheeka.”

“What?”

“Promise me... that you won't stop smiling. You don't smile a lot. But you're cute when you do.”

Hanna sniffed, her voice cracking as she responded. “I promise.”

“Good.” Atto's head rolled back into his seat. Something in his neck made a horrible popping noise as it tried to set itself upright. “Oh. That didn't sound good.”

“I told you not to move, silly.” Hanna smiled, her chin trembling and eyes clouded with mist. “Now you've only hurt yourself more.”

“Huh. Never thought... I'd have someone else playing doctor...”

“You'll have to teach me your tricks, where you have your best syringes stashed, what painkillers to give to the crew. I'll be your apprentice, you can teach me everything you know.”

Atto smiled again. A proper smile this time, his whole mouth moving the way it was supposed to. His head rolled forward a bit, then hung limp. His chest moved once more, then, with a soft sound, let it all out again.

“Atto?” Hanna grabbed his shoulder and shook him. “Atto!”

His body shuffled under her grip, but did not move otherwise. That last smile, now frozen on his face, stared back at her like a mocking simulacrum of levity. The only mercy was that his eyes had closed.

She let him fall back into his chair and leaned back, putting her back against the arm of the co-pilot's chair. Sitting there, alone, she let the tears stream down, the soft sobs to take over, to let the grief wash over her again.

First Ice, now Atto. Why did the universe conspire to take away anyone who got close to her on this mission? Why was she the one left alive, left behind, when all of the others were falling away one by one? Why could she not be better, be able to do something, somehow, to save them, to take their place in death?

When Hanna came back to herself again, after grief had its way with her for a good while, she was out on Ome's surface, standing against a tree trunk amidst the downed foliage the Arbiter's crash had not pulverized on impact. The last minutes, hours, however long she had spent mourning Atto had passed like a blur, her memory refusing to replay anything that had happened. The humid and sticky air of the planet's surface brought her back, back to the planet they were on, back to the mission they still had to finish. Her nose was running, and her eyes ached, cheeks sticky and wet with tears.

She stood for a moment, looking out into the marsh around her and listening for something, anything that was out there. The stilted silence, aside from the soft plipping and plopping of water here or there, was broken only by muted sounds of battle somewhere distant. War cries, blaster fire, explosions. It sounded like two armies were having it out just on the other side of the trees Hanna was surrounded by. But she knew what was going on. And she knew that she still had a role to play in it.

Hanna turned back to the Arbiter, picking her way across the debris field of greenery and into the ship. She needed weapons, as much as she could carry, whatever would be useful and could kill Jedi. Too many of her new crew had died already, it was time to turn the tables back, to make the enemy the ones falling from the sky with broken necks. More death would be done that day, all of it to the ones who were taking her friends.