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

This is for Findswoman, who seemed eager to read my fic(s) even after I said they were bad.

New to the fanfic board, I spend my time on the JC boards in Lit. I've mentioned my various fics before there, but for the sake of posterity I'll give you my story. I started writing creatively in high school because I love telling stories. I used to act out stories with my action figures and my mom encouraged me to write my stories down so I'd remember them. Ten years later (give or take) I'm still at it.

This is one of my more recent efforts, telling the origin story of one of my favorite OCs that I've made. I originally put a lot of effort into making it line up with canon (now Legends), sometimes to the detriment of the story, I feel. But this is the second draft of the story and a lot of those bits have been ironed out. Either way, feel free to give all of the feedback on story, characters, plot, etc, I'd more than welcome it. It's a lengthy fic, though not finished, and I'll be posting it in chunks as feedback warrants.

EDIT: 8/17/16. Thanks to Ewok Poet's idea, this story is now available in .epub format! Just click the link below and view/download to read at your leisure!
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BzsvZ8uwzk6jMkxFLXF4S3EwMjQ

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Chapter One


Cinnagar, Empress Teta, was known from the oldest days of the Old Republic as a bastion of civilization, order, fashion, class. Highly urbanized, it rivaled the bright center of the galaxy, Coruscant, as the locus of galactic civilization. The highest class of beings, the highest rated restaurants, the most fashionable shops, all of it was there. The planet had a reputation that money simply could not buy, one earned through the years of keeping itself free from the ravages of war or economic troubles.

Students came from across the Empire to study and copy the classical architecture of its buildings. Housewives across the Core and Inner Rim envied and imitated clothing styles. Gourmets moved from restaurant to restaurant, catered to by the best of the best chefs, both human and non-human, in Imperial space. Holocinema’s greatest creators, directors, producers all built their studios and officers there, varying digits on the pulse of topics for their next big shoot. Lonely wanderlust led beings of all sorts to make their way to its gleaming streets in search of fortune.

Every city has its dark underbelly, however. No matter how gleaming and tall the citadels climbed, the shadows at the base remained. If anything, they grew deeper the further away the towers climbed. Cinnagar was not Coruscant; it did not have Coruscant’s ugliness underneath the veneer of lights. But ugliness was still there, just under the surface and, every once in a while, bubbling up through the cracks despite the city’s best efforts to hide it.

A street brawl had broken out at the foot of a large high-rise cloudcutter. Two groups of motley-dressed humans, one group arrayed in brightly-colored headbands and the others all sporting piercings through their noses and lips, had formed a circle around two of their number, one from each side. The two wiry men, each one stripped to the waist, circled each other with their hands held out in front of them. Their hands were bruised and bloody, their eyes and faces swollen, one had a torn lip, and the other was missing a chunk of an ear.

The two combatants were both drenched to the bone. Rain was not as uncommon on Empress Teta as it was on Coruscant, and the city carried on its business regardless of the weather conditions. This rain, coming down in the heat of the summer, was the warm, sticky sort of rain that brought up a dank, rancid smell from everywhere and nowhere. Mist and fog rode through the streets in parts of the city, coming and going in waves as the rain moved warm and cold currents through the atmosphere. Buckets of rain turned the blood on the pavement to a soupy mess, making footing precarious.

The man with the piercings moved in, one hand sweeping for his opponent’s midriff. The other man, who wore a purple headband and a kowakian monkey-lizard tattoo across his chest and little else, countered by not moving at all, taking the blow, then slapping the offending arm aside before punching the other man in the face. Pieces of metal flew as two of the man’s piercings were torn free from the skin that held them in. A feral snarl on his face, the man with the tattoo pursued, striking again for the pierced man’s face, only to get his hand bitten for his efforts.

The crowd was roaring and jeering, trying to urge their man on while decrying the other. Rain had done nothing to dampen their spirits or rivalry as the two champions beat and tore at each other with wild abandon.

As the fight continued below, above, thirty-four levels above in the cloudcutter, another fight was just concluding. Thirty-four levels above was a martial and combat art training academy, private, extremely prestigious and expensive. Those who attended the academy in their youth were all but guaranteed a spot in the next year’s roster at the Imperial Academy. The transparisteel window that looked down from the fighting academy into the streets, down onto the street fight as it occurred, shuddered as the body of a two-and-three-quarters-meter man who massed in the neighborhood of a hundred kilograms of solid muscle slammed into it.

The man, a fighting instructor with close-cropped red hair dressed in a loose but unobtrusive tunic, slid to the floor and lay there for a moment, eyes wide, mouth open, gasping for breath. One hand was lying next to him, useless and limp, the other was wrapped around his stomach as he tried to let in oxygen.

His opponent was stood nearby in a combat-ready stance. It was a girl, on the slight side of one and a half meters, a good deal shorter than he was, wearing a similar tunic with a slightly different cut. She had black hair lying around her shoulders and gray eyes that seemed to glow with competitive fire, fair skin that seemed almost waxen though dripping with sweat, and despite her short stature, there was no doubt that she was personally responsible for putting her instructor down on his backside. Even at one and a half meters or so, she was built from sculpted muscle head to toe, a lean powerhouse.

Her instructor managed to roll over and get on his knees, but was unable to rise to his feet. His hand moved from covering his midriff to tapping the floor, once, twice, thrice.

“Hold!” A second instructor spoke out from behind the girl. “Danvers has given himself up. Trainee Shirid is the clear and honorable victor!”

The other cadets all around them, all dressed in similar training tunics, shouted in celebration. They surged forward and congratulated the girl, patting her on the back, shaking her hand, laughing and cheering. Other instructors, those who had been watching and observing, came forward as well. They knew her from other courses, other classes; some of them had even come from other schools to watch what was going on.

This was as close to a graduation ceremony as most of the trainees would have; a final competition between them and their instructors. Some had to out-shoot their instructors. Others had to go one-on-one in a flight simulator. Still others did battle with styluses and datapads in a logistics exercise. Hanna Shirid was one of only a couple to choose to take on the academy’s martial arts instructor. And she was the only one to win.

She took it all in with a grin so bright that it may have illuminated the room by itself. She shook hands, exchanged laughs with classmates, and accepted praise from instructors old and new. It was a whirlwind of delight for her, the center of attention, the center of admiration. To be the best was what she had always dreamed of being, to be one of the foremost, the elite. Today, she was one step closer to being that.

“Trainee Shirid! Front and center!”

The crowd fell back and Hanna stepped forward, snapping to full attention, back razor-straight and arms tight to her sides. She snapped, “Yes, sir!”

The master of the academy, a wire-thin man with dark skin and patterned tattoos across much of his face, approached her with both hands clutched at the small of his back. He was dressed in a smart black uniform without insignia or ranking pips, befitting his former status as a training sergeant for the Imperial Army. Though he looked fearsome and uncivilized, he was every bit as educated and intelligent as any of the other trainers in the academy, if not more.

He looked her in the eye, frank and appraising. Then he glanced backward at where two of the other trainers were helping the one Hanna had knocked down to his feet. He was still trailing one arm. “I must congratulate you, Shirid.” He said, looking back at her. “You’ve bested an opponent few students of mine have ever beaten. All of those who did now serve our Emperor as members of his personal guard. You should be proud of yourself.”

Hanna said “I am, sir,” without changing her expression or tone from perfect military efficiency. Her cheeks flushed with pride, but little else betrayed her state of mind. The only other sign was her eyes, as they seemed to change color from a muddy gray to a warmer, lighter tone, almost as if they were smiling.

The training master may have spoken to her further, except that one of the other trainers came up beside him and pulled him away, muttering something in his ear. Hanna remained at attention. Other members of the faculty came over until all of the instructors were in a circle together, conversing in low tones. The only one who remained outside of the ring was the trainer Hanna had defeated, who was now being tended to by a pair of medical technicians. The students had turned from celebration to wondering, discussing and rumoring amongst themselves as to what else was happening.

As all of the others were talking, the trainer, Danvers, turned to look at Hanna. With a sideways nod of his head, he motioned for her to come closer. She marched over, still at attention, and stood just outside of his arm’s reach.

“Good work.” He told her, nodding toward his broken arm. “You’ve been learning Teräs Käsi from somewhere; I recognized that move.”

Hanna flushed again. “Yes, sir.”

“Not a lot of beings who know Teräs Käsi around anymore.” He commented before wincing as a one of the medics put a bacta injection into his upper arm. “Watch that!”

“Sorry, sir,” The medic said, “This arm will need surgery to reset it, a bacta injection’s the best we can do for now.”

“Fine. Just… give me a few minutes.”

“Of course, sir.”

The trainer turned back to Hanna. She gave him a slight shrug. “I…‘m sorry?”

“Don’t apologize. You used a valid move, a clean move. Just remember, when you use a move like that, it comes from an art where it’s meant to kill. This is not just a move to break limbs. The next time you use it, you might kill someone with it. It takes a certain sort of person to kill someone with their bare hands, trainee, and you have to decide whether or not you want to be that sort of person. And you have to decide.” His good hand came up and tapped the side of his head with one finger. “You have to make the decision up here, decide for yourself. Your hands are just as big a weapon as a blaster or a vibroblade now, and you have to decide what to do with them, whether to kill or not to kill. Understand that, be responsible.”

Hanna nodded. She knew when she was being preached to it was best to just nod and agree. It did plant a chilly spot in her guts to think that she could kill a man with her bare hands, though. “Yes, sir.”

He smiled at her. “I know. Smile, nod and give them a smart affirmation. I was a trainee myself once, too.”

She blushed again, unsure of what to say.

“Don’t worry. Just use your head and keep your chin up. You’ve got the makings of a good soldier, Shirid. You’ll make the Empire proud.”

She smiled back at him. “Yes, sir, I’ll do my best.”

He nodded at her, then turned to the medic. “Okay, I’m ready, let’s go.”

The medics helped him stay upright and walking, the crowd of students parting for him as they left the room through the double doors at the far end. Hanna watched him go, reflecting.

A Teräs Käsi move was not in the academy’s curriculum, it was true. She had learned the move from her father, a man who had learned it somewhere in the distant reaches of his past as a mercenary. If her father had known that she had used it… what would he think? He had taught her that move as a means of self-defense, so she could protect herself. No one would expect a girl her age and size to be capable of snapping a man’s arm with a single motion, no matter how fit she might appear to be.

Yet, if her father knew that she had used it in a training bout, more than that, she had used it against one of her trainers, he would have had a few choice words for her. He would have stormed over, taken her by the shoulders, and said,

“Hanna Shirid.”

She started out of her thoughts, turning to face the voice. The master of the academy, flanked by all of the other instructors, appraised her with his eyes once again. He took a moment to wait for the hubbub to die down around him, glancing back at some of the conversing students to shame them into shutting their mouths.

“Hanna Shirid.” He said again, “As you should remember, today’s fight was as near to a final test as our academy will give you. A test you passed with flying colors. As such, we, the faculty, have unanimously voted to add our personal references to your application to the Imperial Academy. With our names on your behalf, I have no doubt that your application will be accepted, and that you will continue to better yourself and prove your worth in service to the Emperor. Congratulations.”

The other trainees once again erupted into cheering and celebration, even louder than before, if that were possible. Hanna’s words of thanks to the headmaster were drowned out before a tidal wave of noise. She was glad, though, because the tremor in her voice made her sound every bit her sixteen emotional years. She tried to act older, tougher, bigger than she was, it was the only way she had made it through the academy. She was two years younger than any of the boys around her, and the only girl in the entire school. She had to prove herself every step of the way. She had only been enrolled because her father and the headmaster knew each other. Every step of the way, every victory, every passing grade, had to be earned against the tide.

Here, at the end of her time here, as she was preparing to leave the private academy on Empress Teta and enroll in the Imperial Military Academy on Carida, she had achieved everything she had set out to do. She had become the top of the class, the best of the best, and now she was ready to charge headlong into the future.

The head of the academy clapped his hands. “All right, everyone. Hanna’s trial has finished, we will resume with Norc’s and Jon’s tomorrow during the morning session. As always, if you have completed your final trial you do not have to attend, but supporting your comrades is something all of you should consider. Whatever the case, be present, be on time, and be effective. Clear?”

The entire student body roared “Yes sir!” in unison.

“Dismissed!”

 

Thanks ever to Findswoman - for her encouragement. This was terrific. You set the context amazingly well and vividly. I felt I was literally one of the spectators. I like Hanna's poise and competence and her pride at passing at the top Her instructor's caution is a good one though. She needs to know the range and scope and the consequences of her skill.

 

Intriguing start! I'm curious about the two fighters in the lower levels; will they be making a reappearance? Hanna is an interesting OC, and I'm looking forward to seeing how she develops. I liked the exchange between Hanna and the instructor she defeated; she should definitely take his words to heart, and consider how she will use her considerable skills.

Great work! Looking forward to more!

 

Thanks for the encouragement, all. The lower-level fighters were something I forgot about for a while, so consider them a rather cruel Chekhov's Gun for now. In the second half of chapter one, we'll see that, despite her skill and quest for maturity, Hanna is still a teenage girl at heart.

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The faculty and students alike broke ranks and headed out, some moving to collect personal items that had been scattered around the room, others moving to praise Hanna once more before moving on. She heard them, she took the complements and pats on the back, but her head was swimming with too much emotion for many of them to land.

Empress Teta was a source of much income to the Imperial coffers, through its sizable export of carbonite, and soldiers for the Imperial services, producing recruits that entered everything from the Army and Stormtrooper Corps to the Navy and even a smattering of Royal Guards. Empress Teta recruits were valued, making officer rank early and often. However, Hanna knew that, even among those, her case was special. She had shattered expectations, and grading averages, in every class she had taken.

The instructors, on their way out, came up to her, one by one, and congratulated her individually and personally. She thought, as she accepted their words with replies of thankfulness, about what she had learned from these men over the past two years she had been here as part of the school. She had trained here in every nuance of combat, from hand-to-hand to marksmanship to combat maneuvers in a starfighter. Everything she had learned was essential to her future as a soldier of the Empire, disciplining her body and mind alike to perform when she needed it to perform. Their teaching had given her the tools she needed to succeed.

As the crowd began to filter out, Hanna recovered her training duffel from the floor near the right wall and slung it over her shoulder. She put a bit of hair back out of her face as it fell in front of her eyes. The sweat was beginning to dry around her face and neck, and her hair now swung free. She took a moment to pause and tuck it back together, then swing it to her left shoulder. She did not have a tie and did not know any fancy folding or braiding for it, so left it free. Now was one of the times she regretted doing so.

Bag on one shoulder and hair over the other, she turned to go. She took three steps and stopped, mouth falling open.

“Father!” She cried.

Her father, Georg Shirid, gained a lane as he came through the thinning crowd of students. Georg was past the best years of his life by some time. He walked with a limp and a cane made to look like an old officer’s baton, smart but informal clothes covering a body scarred by a life as both a mercenary and a soldier, topped by a shock of gray-white hair. In his day, he had been a fearsome fighter, a solider of great repute for both the Empire and the Republic before it. Now, he was a father and guardian, respected across most of Empress Teta's military sector as a living legend of his time.

He came to Hanna and stopped just out of arm’s reach, both hands clutching his cane in front of him, looking at her from under his brows. She cowed a bit under his gaze. How much of her performance had he seen? What was he thinking behind his impenetrably dark eyes? Was he displeased? Was he angry? Was he proud of her?

Then he stepped through the gap between them and clasped her in an embrace that showed, despite his age, he still had strength in his limbs. Hanna hugged him back, letting her military posture drop for just a moment as she embraced the only love in her life.

Georg and Hanna released each other, and father held daughter at arm’s length, looking into her eyes. “I’m very proud of you, Hanna.” He said with a smile. “Very proud.”

Hanna felt a warm wave of emotion reach into her heart and threaten to wash tears out through her eyes. This was the only compliment in the galaxy that meant anything to her. To know that her father, the only family she had, a man who had spent his life fighting for the Empire, was proud of her … that was worth more to her than if Emperor Palpatine himself were to compliment her fighting prowess. She loved her father, and her sole purpose was to make him proud, to show him that she could be a solider as great as he had been once. Here, she had done exactly that.

She blinked her tears away and tried to speak. “Thank you, sir.” She said. But, in the middle of the word “sir”, her voice cracked, betraying the feelings she worked so hard to hide.

He smiled at her for a moment, a teasing gleam coming into his eyes. “You used the technique I taught you.”

She flushed red, hardly the first time, but the most genuine time. “Yes, sir. I’m sorry, I didn’t plan on it, but when things started to happen…”

“I understand, Hanna. You were in a fight, and you made a decision in the instant you had. I gave you a tool, and you decided to use it. Perhaps not in the manner I instructed or expected you to use it in, but you used it perfectly and I am proud of you.” His smile became teasing, almost mocking. “Now, if you had killed the poor man…”

“Daddy!” Hanna hissed.

He laughed. “Come on, I have the speeder waiting for us on the landing platform. We’re going out to the Club Corellia to celebrate.”

Hanna grinned and felt herself bounce on the balls of her feet despite herself. “Ryshcate?”

“Ryshcate.” He affirmed.

“Then let’s go!”

They left the training room arm in arm, both wearing smiles brighter than the brightest suns. The halls of the academy’s thirty-fourth floor were made up of physically training rooms: weight rooms, an indoor track for running, other rooms sectioned off for practice bouts and fighting. There were also two locker rooms here, where the trainees could go to change in and out of the loose training clothes they wore for such physical activities.

Hanna hugged her father’s arm before dodging into one such room on their way out. “I’ll be right back out, sir.”

He shrugged after she was out of sight already. He knew that she could handle herself in there alone. It had been an incident in a locker room much like this one, years ago, in her first days of education in a similar training academy, which had prompted him to teach her the Teräs Käsi move she now knew in the first place. Two of her then-classmates had decided to take advantage of her while she had been alone, out of sight of the instructors. Hanna had pummeled them mercilessly, nearly killing one by gouging an eye out and breaking another’s back in two places against a metal locker door. The fight had taken its toll on her, as well, leaving her in a hospital for almost a week. After that, Georg decided that she needed to know how to end a fight like that quickly and decisively every time.

Hanna shucked off her training clothes and threw them to the floor, undoing the seal on her duffel and pulling her clothes out. A plain pair of gray slacks, a blue shirt, a black belt, stockings, a brimless cap, her usual street attire. She took a moment to relish the feeling of letting the air out of the sweaty tent created by the training tunic, then put on her clothes starting from the bottom and working her way up. She opened her locker after putting on all but her cap, pulling out her worn but reliable pair of boots as well as some other personal effects, tossing everything she did not need into her duffel. Then she slid into her boots, did up the seal on her duffel, put on her cap, and rejoined her father.

The landing platform was abuzz as Hanna and her father reached it. Some of the students had their own speeders, other hitched rides with those that did, and still others were waiting for their rides to show up and take them away. The air was filled with speeders both coming and going, trainees still conversing and discussing the day’s events. The rain was still coming down, making everything that extra bit complex as the slickness and visibility issues had to be accounted for on top of the number of vehicles in the air.

Hanna followed her father to his speeder, parked in a spot normally reserved for faculty. From the moment they crossed the threshold of the school, she relaxed from the military stance she held for the hours she was there. She felt free to put her arm around her father’s chest, under his arms, and hug him close as they walked.

“How did you wind up here, daddy?” She asked him as they drew near the speeder.

“I was here the whole time, Hanna.” He said. “I never left after dropping you off this morning.” He smiled down at her when she turned to him in confusion. “Yag wanted me to see you fight, and he persuaded me to stay. I’m glad I did. You were really outstanding in there, Hanna.”

Hanna smiled up at him. “I take after my daddy.”

Georg’s eyes misted over, and he looked away, wiping at them with his left hand.

“Aw, did I make the big man cry?” Hanna asked, teasing. “Don’t worry, daddy. I’ll fly home, so you can sit back and have a bawl.”

He shook his head at her, pointing a small remote control at the speeder. “Just as long as you don’t drop me out of the top on a turn,” He said, “Our course should be laid in to the nav system already.”

The locking system, which projected a light particle-deflecting energy shield to keep avians, rain and prying fingers out of the open-top cockpit, disabled itself. Hanna jumped over the speeder’s door without bothering to open it and pressed her thumb to the ignition. It recognized her prints and the machine whirred to life, the control board lighting up and the vehicle roaring as both of its powerful engines went from idle to standby. She ran through the pre-flight checkup as her father moved around to the other side of the speeder, forced to move slowly on his one good leg and cane.

Hanna nodded to herself as she tapped out the course on the onboard navigational system that would project holograms onto the windscreen indicating to her which direction to fly in to reach a fixed destination in the city. Club Corellia was already loaded into the system as their next stop and all she had to do was highlight it. It was a few dozen kilometers away, the nav system said it would take them about half an hour to reach it. Hanna smirked. She reckoned she could make it in fifteen minutes.

As soon as Georg was in the speeder, the door was shut, and his restraints were on, she raced the engines and engaged the repulsorlifts, lifting them from the platform and sending them zooming off into the sky, sheets of rain spraying around them.

After centuries of prosperity and construction, much of the surface of Empress Teta was covered by artificial structures, all put together into one massive city, Cinnagar. Unlike Coruscant, though, the city had not grown tall and bloated over the planet’s natural surface, allowing the streets to remain somewhat spacious and the airlanes to be free from noxious congestion. That was not to say that the city was small, however. Around Hanna and Georg as they flew, they could see little but building after building, some falling away for thousands of meters before they came to the ground. Images flashed around them, buildings and other speeders, advertisement boards, holoscreens; the city was alive with color and light.

For Hanna, flying through the cityscape produced nothing but opportunities for adventure and fun. She enjoyed little more after a hard day’s work at school than jumping into her father’s two-seat open-top airspeeder and taking it for a howling ride. She had been running flight simulators since she was large enough to reach all of the controls, but she was not a certified space-pilot yet and there were few times she was able to pilot an actual in-atmosphere craft. It was far different to be in a sterile, artificial simulated environment than being here, soaring over the city, hair whipping in the wind, stomach fluttering with each dive, body tossed and turned with each bank and swerve.

Georg had originally been terrified by Hanna’s daredevil antics, weaving in and out of traffic and missing buildings by so little space that sparks and paint chips flew. He had even threatened to take the controls from her mid-flight to preserve both of their lives. But, after some time of this, day after day, and Hanna’s piloting becoming smoother and more confident, he was eventually able to relax and let her do the flying. The speed of it prevented conversation and the pace took his breath away regardless, but he still relished these times in a way Hanna barely understood.

As Hanna directed the speeder through the ranks and files of the city’s cloudcutters and among the frantic lanes of traffic already winding around the blocks high above the streets, Georg hung onto his armrests and simply enjoyed the ride. Soon, he reflected, they would never again happen. Graduation from the academy was finally upon them, and with it, Hanna’s adulthood. Her passage into the annals of the Empire’s armed forces would be complete. She would go away, her dream of following in his footsteps accomplished, the light of his life forever gone.

As the speeder whipped across the currents of air and dove deeper into the city, the wind shrieked across the faces of the two inside it. But it was not because of the wind in his face or the rain overhead that Georg Shirid had twin rivulets of tears coursing down his cheeks.

 

Awww, nice and touching scene there at the end. Timless father/daughter moment.

 

It was good to see more of Hanna's character and her past. It seems like everything is going perfectly for her right now, so naturally I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. After all, conflict is the driving force behind stories.

I enjoyed your descriptions of Empress Teta; it feels like a much cleaner city than Corrie. I feel for George; his little girl is growing up. I'm guessing her mother is not in the picture?

 

Unfortunately, Georg's wife left the picture some time ago while Hanna was still very young. Violently. Involving a drunk speeder driver. It's very sad.

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Chapter Two


The planet of Empress Teta, unlike many of the staunchly Imperial worlds of the Deep Core, had a sizable population of accepted non-human residents. They ranged from respectable business-beings who ran everything from clothing emporiums to ship lots and restaurants, to the more shady alleyway dealers who promised those who passed by an outstanding deal on any variety of things, to servants of the rich who made their dwellings among the planets grand spires. Though they were frowned upon slightly, they were tolerated, a welcome change for some who had come from more hard-line Imperial worlds, where non-humans were often openly persecuted.

One of these non-humans was the server who approached Hanna and Georg’s reserved table at the Club Corellia shortly after they sat down.

“Greetings, gentlebeings,” A soft voice said in smooth, unaccented Basic. “I am Vissica, and I will be your server for today.”

Hanna and her father looked up from the menu datapads they had been given at the entrance. Hanna stared in soft astonishment. Vissica was short for a Selonian, just under two meters tall, but she still towered over both Hanna and Georg. Her entire body was covered in short, thick, brown fur, with her hands and feet closer to resembling an animal’s paws than a human’s hands. Though she walked on her hind legs and spoke perfect Basic, it was hard for Hanna to shake the feeling that she was closer to an animal than an intelligent being. Her face did little to help that image, with her two black eyes shining like smoke-filled glass marbles over a face than ended in a whisker-flanked nose.

“We will have two portions of ryshcate to start with.” Georg said, unperturbed by the species of their server, “We’re celebrating a great occasion.”

Vissica nodded and smiled. “I understand, sir.” She scribbled a note onto a small dataslate she held in one paw. “Will that be all? Would you care for a drink, perhaps?”

“Two waters I think, and perhaps more later.”

Vissica nodded again. “Very good, sir, I will have those for you in a moment and the ryshcate shortly.”

“Thank you.” As the Selonian moved off back into the club, Georg leaned over to Hanna. “Well? What do you think?”

“I’ve never seen one so close before.” Hanna breathed, “What was she, a Selonian or a Drall?”

Georg laughed. “A Selonian, of course. Dralls are much shorter.”

“She doesn’t look… I mean, I didn’t expect…”

“Hush. I’ve dealt with Selonians in the past, they’re a noble race with a strong sense of honor and a high regard for truthfulness. Not many of them venture far out from their home world in the Corellia sector, but I suppose this one must have a good reason.”

Vissica came back, balancing two glasses of water in one paw and a pitcher in the other. She placed all three on the table without spilling a drop, before adding two sets of cloth napkins and utensils from the small pouch she wore on a string around her waist, the only clothing she had. “There you are, gentlebeings. Your ryshcate will be along in a moment, but be sure to let me know if you require anything else.”

“Of course, thank you again.” Georg said with a smile.

As the Selonian returned the smile, Hanna spoke up. “Are you… the only one of your kind here?”

At Vissica’s surprised expression, Georg said hastily, “Please forgive my daughter, she doesn’t see many other species face to face, you see. This is her first time here; she’s never met a Selonian before.”

“You do not have to apologize, sir.” Vissica said graciously, “I understand the child’s curiosity.”

Child? Hanna wondered, how old did the Selonian think she was? She had been sixteen for almost a month now, and looked older thanks to the weathering all of her training classes had done on her face. Perhaps, though, the Selonian was not looking at her face to try to determine her age at all.

“I am the only one of my kind here.” Vissica said to Hanna, “I came here only a few short years ago to repay a dept I owed. I stayed because I enjoy working here and meeting all of the beings who come and go through their lives and mine.”

“Are all of the people you meet here nice?”

“Not all of them. But most of them are. You and your father are gracious customers. There are others who come here every day and talk with me about life, about the weather, about the past, the future. I listen. I pay attention. They thank me. I enjoy it.”

“It sounds boring.”

“Not when you take the time to listen, to make friends with the beings around, the ones who pass through in a day, or leave and return the next evening.” Vissica gave a human-like shrug and pulled her dataslate out of her server’s pouch again. “I am sorry. I would talk to you more, but I have other tables to attend to.”

“No, of course, by all means.” Georg said, “Sorry to take up your time.”

“I will come back with your ryshcate,” Vissica promised as she moved off again, “And then we will talk more, young Hanna. All right?”

“Okay.” Hanna said. She slouched back into her seat. “Okay.”

Georg took a gulp from his glass of water. Hanna looked at him. “Was I rude to her, daddy?”

Georg hesitated. “No, I don’t think so. Just… young. I think she found you more… amusing than anything. It makes me wonder just what sort of clients she is used to seeing here.”

Hanna looked up and around. Club Corellia was one of the oldest and most prestigious restaurants on Empress Teta, known throughout the sector for its authentic Corellian cooks and cuisine, with music played by Corellian bands and decorations all hailing from one of the five worlds. Most of it focused on the achievements of the human population of Corellia itself, but the other natives of the sector, the Selonians and the Dralls, were hardly ignored.

The booth Georg had reserved for them sat against a wall away from the club’s entrance, secluded in a corner with a half-wall between them and the stage. Other booths encircled the edges of the main floor of the club, surrounding the bar and performance area, where the stage and dance floor were. At that moment a trio of enthusiastic musicians pounded out a beat on an elaborate quad-level drum set, the throb and rattle of the noise only partially muffled by the wall between them and those seated at the booths.

The club was actually fairly quiet. The lights were bright along the main floor and the bar, leaving the booths and other areas in semi-darkness. Aside from Hanna and her father’s booth, only two or three of the other booths around were occupied, all with parties of two looking very much to be left alone. The bar had a quintuple of men sitting at it, talking and laughing in loud voices, while a small group of beings stood around the edge of the stage, cheering and whooping whenever the drummers would finish a part of their set. No other groups or beings were around, giving the whole place an air of expectation, as if they were just waiting for the dinner crowds to arrive and the real party to begin.

Hanna took a deep breath, her nose filling with unfamiliar smells, spice, sugar, perfume, bodies, liquor, must and smoke. This was a place completely unlike any she had ever been in before. The closest she had ever been to Corellia before this was having pieces of ryshcate brought home by her father from time to time after he had come out to a formal dinner. He had always told her that she had Corellian in her blood from her mother’s side, and something about the sound and buzz of this place, about the sights and smells and feel, the pulse of the music and the chatter at the bar, it spoke to her.

When she was a soldier, she thought, she would have to remember to come to places like this more often.

Vissica returned with a stack of small plates in one paw and a larger plate in the other. The larger plate had a small cake on it, still steaming, a drizzle of white icing across its rich brown surface and candied nuts visible just under the surface. Hanna grinned and bounced in her seat, then stopped when her father looked at her.

“Here you are, sir and madam.” Vissica slid the larger plate onto the table and one each of the smaller plates in front of them. She produced a pair of serving utensils from her pouch and placed them on the plate beside the cake. “Would you like to cut the cake, sir?”

Georg looked at it, then smiled up at the Selonian. “Actually, would you mind? I’m not certain of the ceremony that goes on with this anymore, it’s been quite a few years since I last had a ryshcate in celebration.”

Vissica smiled. “I would be honored, sir.” She moved with lithe grace over the plate, taking up both utensils in skilled paws. “What occasion are we celebrating, today?”

“Mine.” Hanna said, “I beat my instructor in a practice bout today.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, it’s a rite of passage for the students at the military academy. Instead of having a graduation ceremony, they choose an instructor that they have to try to beat at their own game.” Georg put a hand on Hanna’s knee and smiled at her. “Hanna chose the hand to hand combat instructor, fought him and won, using a technique I taught her.”

Vissica carved two neat, angular slices from the cake in silence. She picked them up from the plate between the two utensils and put the first one on Hanna’s plate. “You must be very proud.”

“I am.” Hanna and Georg said in unison, causing both Georg and Vissica to laugh and Hanna to blush.

“Now that you have that victory under your belt, young Hanna,” Vissica put the other piece of ryshcate on the plate in front of Georg and set the utensils down. “What do you intend to do now?”

“Enroll in the Imperial Academy.” Hanna said proudly, “I have top marks from every training school and academy I’ve ever attended, they’ll accept me for sure.”

“And then what? Become a solider?”

“Mmhm, just like my father.”

Vissica nodded. “Like your father. I see.” Her bright, round eyes gazed into Hanna, causing her to blush a bit. “I can hardly give you any advice, Hanna, I hardly know you. But I would urge you to remember my words if or when life decides to change your plans for you, when something out of your control takes the well-laid path in front of you and scatters it to the wind.”

Hanna paused for a moment, unsure of what to say except “I’m listening.”

“Good. Remember, Hanna, that life is not out to get you, but it is not out to help you, either. Life is what you make of it from where you sit or stand every day. Every day you wake up, in a familiar place or in a place totally new and alien, remember that you are the one in control of your destiny. Your actions and your choices define who you are, not who your family is or your profession or your loyalties.” Vissica gestured to indicate herself. “I am Selonian. My entire brood is at home on Corellia, my mother, my sisters and brothers. There, others like me surrounded me, who talked like me, walked like me, behaved and believed what I do. Here, I am alone, surrounded by beings who dislike and distrust me because I am not human. My life has turned upside down. But I still am who I am. Life is what I choose to make of it, here, now. Home is where I choose to live, not where my heart aches for. Time has taught me these things, and I hope that you will learn them from me.”

Hanna absorbed all of this without a sound or even moving. Life? Time? Choices? The words of the Selonian only barely scratched the surface of her understanding. Life was what Hanna had planned for since she had been old enough to comprehend leaving her home one day. She had always had the same goal, the same target in mind. There had been bumps along the way, certainly, nothing was done easily or for free. She had to earn her way to success every step of the way. The idea that something might stop her completely, keep her from ever reaching her goal… it boggled her mind. Nothing could stop her from reaching it, nothing would dare.

“Wise words.” Georg said, snapping Hanna out of her reverie. He was nodding, eyes half-closed, a look of heavy remembrance on his face. He turned to Hanna. “Today, though, we’re celebrating what’s been done, what we’ve accomplished. A celebration of life, with all of its twists and turns.”

“Indeed.” Vissica said with a warm smile. “Then share this ryshcate in the same way you share your celebration of life.”

Georg took up his fork and plunged it into the slice of cake he had. It came up into the air with a corner of the cake now impaled on it, warm vweilu nuts still steaming, the smell of Corellian whiskey and spice filling the air. “To the celebration of life.”

Hanna followed her father’s lead, cutting off a corner of the cake and holding it up in the air. “To the celebration of life.” As she plunged the warm, fragrant pastry into her mouth, letting its aroma fill her nose and the riot of flavor rampage across her tongue, she noticed that Vissica was gone.

 

The ambience of the eatery definitely has the Correllian feel. Vissica is wise indeed.

 

And now it's time for the other shoe to drop...

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Chapter Three


The small two-seater airspeeder came to rest on the top-level landing, easing down on repulsorlifts and settling to the ground with a groan of engines winding down. The two occupants stayed aboard for just an extra moment, collecting their thoughts and keeping emotions in check. Around and above, traffic was light. This was a no-fly zone, permission to approach and land sought and obtained by air traffic control on a case-by-case basis. Those few speeders, buses and other vehicles that were in sight were all personnel of the Imperial Academy recruitment office, clerks, training sergeants, cleaning staff, beings with business and purpose to being there. Most potential recruits waited for specific days or months to apply, the recruitment drives giving them a goal to shoot for in terms of preparation.

Hanna Shirid was ready now.

She was almost trembling with anticipation, only the desire not to look childish in front of her father keeping her from melting into the seat. Clutched in one hand was a datapad filled with all of her records, notes and letters of recommendation, training badges and honors. She had her hair back in a neat and efficient fold behind her neck and dressed in a formal, neat outfit, almost uniform cut but not quite that strict, trimmed to let her move easily but not so to show off her figure. The issue was, the fabric was designed to look neat, not for breathability, and her forehead and back were already running with sweat. The wind and rain had done little to cool her down.

Tension made her nervous, and when she was nervous she tended to sweat. Hanna rubbed her hands on her pants, trying to get her palms dry. Then she got up, climbed out of the speeder and stepped out onto the platform, tugging her shirt front down to straighten it. The datapad in her hand was thereafter tucked under her arm to keep it dry. The rain had slacked off a bit, but hardly ceased, meaning the platform and everything on it were quite wet.

Georg was climbing out of the other side of the speeder, walking stick splashing in the puddles of water their landing had created. Even the Imperial Academy’s recruitment office, in the heart of Cinnagar, had an open-air landing platform. Janitorial staff would likely come out at some point to sponge down the platform, but, for now, the puddles remained. He turned to her, one hand clutched behind him, face impassive and firm.

“Well, Hanna. Are you ready?”

Hanna turned to her father with a confident grin. “Never more ready, daddy. Let’s thrust.”

They headed across the platform toward the main entrance, Georg walking a bit behind his daughter, supporting her but not presenting her. She walked ahead with a confident stride, not backing down or away from her choice. Inside, she might have been trembling, but outside she was the picture of calm assurance. Under her arm, she held her passport to the Academy, all of the things that would speak one sentence together: Hanna Shirid will make the Emperor proud.

The outer doors were sealed, but opened as they approached, parting in the middle and receding into the walls to give them clearance into the entrance hall that led to the main doors. The entranceway was filled with flat-panel holograms, each one cycling through images of the different branches of the Imperial armed forces. The Navy, the Army, the Stormtroopers and Storm Commandos, the Diplomatic Corps, Engineering Corps, even the Surgical Corps and COMPNOR. The one that caught Hanna’s eye, though, was the largest: the centerpiece directly in the middle of the entranceway on both left and right walls. It was nothing but a panoramic still-shot holo of the Imperial Academy facility on Carida as seen from around twenty kilometers away or so, gleaming, framed by a bright, orange sunset.

Carida. Hanna’s wildest dreams fulfilled. Carida was the pinnacle of prestige for someone being initiated into the Empire’s armed services, save perhaps only the academy facilities on Raithal or Corulag. From Carida came officers of every one of the services, from the Imperial Navy to the Engineering Corps, but it specialized in the training and production of the Stormtrooper force. There, Hanna would be among the elite of the elite, and she would at last be recognized for what she was, not what others thought of her. It would be full vindication, of both her and her efforts.

Georg, walking behind her and to one side, caught the direction of her gaze and whispered to Hanna as they approached the entrance to the office. “Do not let your confidence cloud your judgment, Hanna. You must be calm and cool, quiet and confident. No need to brag about yourself. You are the consummate soldier, the one that will make the Empire proud.”

Hanna felt the familiar warm and fuzzy feeling of surety well up in her chest. She knew that she was the best. She knew that she would be accepted, and made into one of the Empire’s finest. She knew that she would make her father the most proud man in the galaxy when he read of her in HoloNet news reports. She knew it.

The double doors at the end of the hall parted for them as they entered. The recruiting center’s antechamber was modestly and tastefully decorated, colored grays and whites, with several potted plants and comfortable seating along both walls. Soft, casual instrumental music was playing through hidden speakers and the furnishings all gleamed with polish. However, all Hanna saw was the broad, wall-spanning desk at the far end, where a short, unattractive, balding man sat with a data-screen in front of him. He was the recruiting officer, and his job was to get her into Carida.

Hanna marched straight down the room toward him, Georg pacing her, remaining slightly behind and to her right. The man glanced up as she came close, looking her over. His face was expressionless, but his eyes spoke volumes. He saw her as an intrusion, not as a soldier. She did not care in the least what he thought of her. Her records spoke for themselves.

She stopped and offered the man her smartest, most crisp salute. “Sir, my name is Hanna Shirid, and I would like to apply for entrance into the Imperial Academy.” She held her hand out the man, datapad proffered. “My records of training are here, and my letters of recommendation as well.”

The man looked from her, to the datapad, then back to her. His eyes, to Hanna’s disbelief, registered first amusement, then dismissal, then professional detachment.
“Application denied.” That was all he said, and his eyes went back to the data-screen as if she had already left.

Hanna stood there, frozen in disbelief, hand still outstretched to offer him her datapad. Her mind could not wrap around the rejection at first, and she stood absolutely still, barely even breathing. She felt as if her whole world had suddenly come crashing down on top of her, and yet she was still alive. She could not comprehend being dismissed, rejected, out of hand this way.

The man glanced up at her again, noticing that Hanna had not responded. He mistook her disbelief for insistence, and his response was to become coldly disapproving. “Miss Shirid, all things aside, we are not accepting applications at this time. Approved days for registration are listed on our main HoloNet database page. Good day.”

Hanna found her voice at last. It emerged from her mouth as a squeal of indignation. “Damn your recruitment days! If you’d actually look at my records, you’d see that I’m the best soldier candidate on Empress Teta no matter what day of the week it is!”

The man’s face darkened with sudden anger. “Your application is denied; now get out of this office before I summon the guards.”

“Bring them on!” Hanna slapped the datapad down on the desktop with all of her might. She was beyond angry now. She was ready to kill. “I’ll tear them limb from limb! That’ll prove that I’m the best!”

Georg grabbed Hanna’s arm. “Hanna, you are acting like a child. He said to leave, so we leave.”

Hanna shook her father’s grip off. “Let go of me! I’ll make him accept me, right here and now!”

Georg grabbed her arm again. Hanna attempted to strike out at him, but her father avoided the blow and twisted her arm around the wrong way, forcing Hanna to her knees with a strangled gasp of pain.

“The man said to leave, so we leave.” He said to her, voice calm and level. “We will come back another day.” He then half-led, half-dragged his daughter from the office, out through the entrance way and returned to the speeder, all the while keeping a tight hold of her arm. Hanna glared laser bolts at the recruitment officer the entire way. The man at the desk looked after them for a time, then returned to his work, shaking his head.

As soon as Hanna and her father were gone, the door to the inner office, in the wall behind the reception desk, opened and two men came out, causing the recruitment officer to straighten up in his chair out of instinct. One was the model Imperial officer, tall, straight, with a face shaped of angles and corners, dressed in a gray uniform and hat with bars of rank on his left upper chest. His form and manner breathed of regality, as if he were a level above all other men around him. Imperial in every sense of the word.

The other man was much more ragged looking, but no less impressive, dressed in a two-piece black fatigue suit that had all sorts of things, weapons, tech and other gear, strapped across it. He was a bit shorter than the other man, but somehow managed to look just as tall, had dark hair that was graying and a round face that was lined, marking him as middle-aged. Instead of looking like royalty, he looked, despite his years, like a soldier, from head to toe.

“No, no, forget it.” The second man was saying. “You’re trying to pass me the dregs. I don’t want the dregs, Commander, I want the best. Only the best for my group, no matter what species, gender or political leaning. I don’t want your trouble students or rejected profiles, I want your best.”

“And as I told you before, Letim, you cannot have our best.” The officer said coldly. “The Empire reserves the best and brightest for itself. You had best take what you can get, or you will wind up with nothing, just as you always have. Count yourself lucky that the local governance looked favorably on your records enough to let you choose from our trainees at all.”

The second man placed his hand down on the desk to lean off one leg, landing it on what seemed a stray datapad. “And you’re trying to pass me the ones you don’t want for a mission that we have a contract for. What do you think the local governance would have to say about that?” His eyes went to examine what he had under his hand as the officer replied.

“No one in authority would care about such a petty matter as this one. However, if they did, they would agree with me. As highly as you regard yourself and your motley collection of mercenaries, Letim, your contributions to the Empire are minimal at best, and resources will be denied you if they would be better put to use by the Empire itself.”

“Stubborn idiot.” The other man said under his breath. “Unruly as a reek, with none of the brains.” He had activated the datapad and was looking through the information the front screen contained. What he saw made his eyes light up. “What’s this?”

“What is what, Letim?” The officer sighed melodramatically. “Honestly, your changes of subject make me feel as if I were conversing with a child.”

“You can keep your child,” The man switched the datapad to display another page of documentation. “And the rest of your so-called trainees. This is the one I want.”

“Who?” The officer looked at the datapad. “Strange, that is not one of our record files.”

“Obviously, this one’s too good for you.” The man reached over the desk and tapped the man behind it, who had been diligently working his station despite the disturbance, in the middle of his bald spot. “Hey you. Who dropped this off here?”

The man looked up at him, his disdain for the undignified manner of address plain on his face and the memory of Hanna’s departure fresh on his mind. “A girl.”

“A girl!”

“Yes. She said she wanted to apply to the armed services outside of the scheduled time. Per our standing orders on such matters, I turned her down. She made quite a scene, though, she-”

The officer had taken the datapad from the other man, after a short struggle, and was looking through the information himself. “Did you even look at her records, Sergeant? We may have been willing to make an exception for this one. Her records are quite remarkable.”

The balding man blinked. “No, sir. I did not think-”

“Obviously.” The man dressed as a mercenary took the datapad back and went through Hanna’s notes of referral. “Looks like she has top-percentage scores from the best combat training school here on the planet, across almost every subject. High marks in flight training, martial arts, marksmanship… notes of recommendations from her instructors in all fields are here as well.”

The officer’s face had twisted with anger, and the man behind the desk quailed. “This girl is perhaps the best candidate for the Imperial armed services we have had in this office in years. And you did not even bother yourself to look through her records, or to consult me on the matter.” He paused a moment, as if thinking. “I cannot even come up with a word close to describing how stupid you are.”

“I can.” The other man was gathering the materials back together. “He’s a di’cut. Pure and simple.” He tossed a salute to the officer. “Thanks for your gracious hospitality, Commander, but I have better things to do right now than argue with you about something petty.” He began to walk away, with Hanna’s datapad under his arm.

“Where do you think you are going?” The officer asked before the man had gone five steps.

The man, who had before been mostly expressionless even during the argument, now smiled and tapped the datapad. “Since you obviously don’t want this girl in the Empire, I’ll take her instead. Poor thing probably had her heart set on joining the Imperial armed forces and you crushed her dreams. Well, we’ll see if she settles for my humble mercenary band instead.”

He walked out. As the doors closed behind him, the officer turned, shaking with rage, as the man behind the desk trembled in anticipation of what would be coming. The officer turned to face him slowly, hands clenching into fists.

“You should begin packing your things,” He said softly, “You are done here.”

“B-b-but sir,” The man stuttered in disbelief, “I’ve only followed regulations-”

“In this recruitment office, stupidity is a punishable offense.” The officer clarified. “And you, as our comrade the mercenary so aptly put it, are more than stupid. You are a di’cut.” He turned and stormed away, leaving the man behind the desk shuddering in anticipation as to what exactly would wind up happening to him. If there was one thing about officers of the Empire, they were not given to grossly elaborate threats without the full intention of backing them up with appropriate action. He began pondering with dismay at just how much he would have to remove from his desk on his way out the door for the last time.

 

I enjoyed meeting the Selonian in the previous chapter, and the insight into some Corellian culture.

Hanna...sigh. Following basic instructions is SOP when applying for a job or to a school. She has a strong sense of entitlement, doesn't she? I'm curious to see how she will develop; one day, she'll come across someone who won't put up with her 'tude. I'm very curious about the merc! The use of Mando'a, in particular, caught my eye, and I'm looking forward to learning more about this fellow.

 

Well, the first half of chapter four gives us a better look at just what sort of man the mercenary is. I'm breaking this chapter in half because, like chapter one, it's long. Second half will go up tomorrow.

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Chapter Four


Georg’s hand trembled a bit as he poured more whiskey into the glass. He had meant the drink for a celebration, for the party he and Hanna would throw before she shipped off to an Academy facility somewhere. Now, he needed the drink just to calm his nerves.

Of all things, he had never expected Hanna to be rejected out of hand like that. He had been sure, had assured her, that her records would stand on their own merits, that her recommendations and marks would be enough to get her in. He knew that, if he were able to take it to the head of the recruitment facility instead of the low-level clerks, they probably would.

It was not a difficult problem to solve, in all honesty. All they had to do was to come back another day, one of the approved days. The nearest one was several months off, however, and Georg knew that there was no way Hanna would ever wait that long.

A thudding sound from elsewhere in the house almost caused him to drop his glass, and he downed the contents before it could happen again. The hard, smoky liquor made him grimace and smack his lips. Corellian whiskey was not a favorite of his, his stomach could not take much of it at a time anymore, but it did have a certain bracing effect that he felt he would need soon enough.

He had never seen Hanna explode like that before. He knew that she was capable of violence, her bout against her instructor had shown that, but for her to lose all semblance of patience and snap in the manner she had… she looked ready to throttle the clerk at the recruitment center where he sat, as well as the guards he threatened to summon. He had no idea she was capable of being so… psychopathic.

He had taught her better than that. Her instructors had taught her better than that. She should have known better. They might have been able to talk their way into the recruitment office’s bureaucracy, hope to find an ear or two that were willing to listen, or an eye willing to read. But when she had cursed and threatened the Sergeant at the desk, all of that had vaporized like so much smoke in the wind.

Another thud. Georg looked over his shoulder at the far wall of his trophy room. Hanna’s workout room was the next room over, and odds were good that she was working off that head of steam she had built up. He pitied her training dummies and equipment. At least she was taking her aggression out in a somewhat constructive manner, rather than throwing a tantrum, and fragile objects, through less reinforced and padded sections of the house. Still, her anger would avail her nothing beating foam dummies to a powder, and nothing was teaching her how to deal with rejection amidst the aerobic trainers and weight machines. Georg sighed to himself. It was time for one of those moments where the parent had to instruct, not just stand back and feel proud.

He reflected, as he stood up from his chair and set his glass back on the table, that these were the times when he missed Hanna’s mother the most. She had always had an understanding that Georg lacked. How she would have dealt with Hanna, he really did not know, because if he did he would know how to emulate it. He only knew that she would have done it better than he ever could. Hanna loved him, he was the only parent she had ever known or expressed a desire to know, but there were times. Most of those times had resulted in Hanna backing down, compromising, saying that he knew best even if she did not understand why. This time… she had worked herself into such a frenzy, he had no idea what his attempts to calm her down would mean.

He grabbed his prop from beside his chair and set off across the room, into the hall. A single main hall united the entire house, residence chambers on its left hand from where Georg faced, other assorted rooms like his trophy room, Hanna’s workout room and the main entranceway were on the right. The house was in a quieter section of Cinnagar, quiet enough that a retired mercenary could afford a spacious single-level freestanding home for himself and his daughter on the combined funds of his pension from the Imperial services and his own savings. It was not large, but it was big enough for them and that was all that mattered.

The hall, once he had exited his trophy room and entered it, closing the door behind him, rang with sound. Not just the commotion from the training room that he had expected to hear, either. The front door chime was ringing with its usual annoying high-pitched insistence. Georg debated. He needed to speak with Hanna, certainly, but they had no one else to go to the door and see who was calling. It might be important. It might even be a representative of the recruitment center seeking an explanation of some sort. That thought chilled Georg a bit. No way could he let Hanna answer the door in that case, she would probably rip the poor man in half.

He hobbled his way past the training room and along the hall toward the main entrance. He had long been used to needing a prop to walk, but there was never a day that went by where he did not wish he had his youth and mobility back. A life lived as roughly as his did not lend itself to a body that stood the test of time, and he knew he was fortunate to have escaped to old age with only bad knees and a hobbled hip joint. But seeing young people like Hanna spring around like monkey-lizards made his heart ache for the days when just walking up a hallway without a cane was routine.

The entranceway was the most ornate part of the house, an arched passage with decorative sculptures against both walls and a patterned tile floor that suggested an ancient temple of some sort. It was all very much for the benefit of any guests they had; Georg and Hanna most often came and went via the speeder hangar entrance, on the opposite side of the building. Aside from the regular sweeping and dusting by maintenance droids, no one used it except on the rare occasion a visitor arrived. This was such an occasion, apparently.

Georg reached the entranceway and activated the security system terminal built into the wall just inside it. The holocam outside came to life, filling the small screen with the image of a man standing on their doorstep. He was on the shorter side, fit, dressed in clothing that suggested military but was not formal or Imperial, and had a familiar-looking datapad under his arm. Georg puzzled for a moment. The man had obviously come from the recruitment office, there was nowhere else he could have gotten Hanna’s datapad. Yet, he dressed less like a representative of the Empire and more like a simple hired soldier, covered in weapons and the equipment needed to maintain them. Who was he?

Georg activated the comm system built into the terminal. “State your business or be on your way.”

“Is this the master of the house I am speaking to?” The man asked, looking up in the direction the voice had come from, away from the holocam.

“It is.”

“I have something here that belongs to a Miss Hanna Shirid. I would like to return it to her, if I may.”

Georg gnawed his tongue for a moment, thinking. “Who are you? You’re not from the recruitment center, that’s plain to see.”

“No, I am not. I am… well, it is somewhat facetious to say a soldier, which is not entirely accurate.”

“A mercenary or bounty hunter, then. What do you want with Hanna?”

“To talk. To discuss… matters. Her being turned away at the recruitment center, a possible opportunity I might present her with as an alternative, at least in the short term.”

“And what makes you think she’d listen to what you have to say?”

“Because she sounds eager for a fight, if the clattering I heard through your front window as I arrived is any indication. It does not sound as if she takes rejection well.”

Georg paused again. He needed to think this through. A mercenary, offering his daughter a job? That was nowhere near his projected path for her, not even close. He had walked that road once himself, the life of a mercenary was hard and cruel at the best of times. He wanted to spare her that sort of hardship if he could. Besides that, this man, he knew nothing about this man. Not even his name. While he had no doubt that Hanna could take care of herself, he felt the need to protect her even still. This man might be capable of anything.

He clicked the terminal’s power switch. He would have to see this man face-to-face, talk it out with him, try to figure out what his game was. If it did not satisfy him, he would have Hanna throw him out on his ear, or face, or whatever she chose. After recovering her datapad, first, of course.

He went to the door and pressed the key to unlock it. Responding to his bio-signal, the door creaked and slid aside. “You’ll give the datapad and the sales pitch to me, first.” He told the man, both hands driving his cane into the floor in front of him and face set in his best officer’s scowl. “Not just anyone can come in here and try gallivanting off with one of the best prospective soldiers on Empress Teta.”

“I should hope not.” The man’s voice was haughty and well-bred, but his accent reeked of the Outer Rim. “May I come inside?”

Georg retreated a handful of steps to the edge of the entranceway, allowing the man inside before he closed the door again behind him. “Now.”

“First, I believe this is yours.” The man presented the datapad back to him, which Georg took in one hand. “Or perhaps your daughter’s?”

Georg’s grunted response to the question was not as convincing as he had hoped. He had planned to avoid connecting himself and Hanna by blood to keep the negotiation and interrogation at an arm’s length. The mercenary’s perceptiveness would complicate things. “It’s hers.” He admitted, setting the datapad down on one of the side tables. “She had her heart set on joining the armed services and built up her records to prove she deserved it.”

“Perhaps it was for the best she was rejected.” The man suggested callously, causing Georg to frown even deeper. “Imperial armed services tend to look down on women seeking combat roles. They tend to wind up as speeder drivers and cooks instead.”

“Speaking from experience, are you?” Georg snapped back.

The man raised an eyebrow at him and said nothing, though the slight twitch of one corner of his mouth showed he had not taken the snipe in bad humor.

“Besides, my Hanna’s no cook.” Georg went on, “She’s a soldier, trying to follow in her father’s footsteps.”

“I see.” The man looked Georg over. “You seem to have lived a life of hardship for your Emperor, would you really wish that upon your daughter?”

“I lived my life my own way, making my own choices. I fought for the Republic, and the Empire, on my terms. All Hanna asked for is to do the same.”

“And I would never do anything to stop her. That is why I am here and not someone from the recruitment office. They could care less about the prospects of a single recruit, no matter what her records are. The Empire values volume and order, they would not break the rules for a young girl trying to upset their precious schedule.” The man held his hands out in front of him, open. “I, on the other hand…”

“Yes, what about you? What stake do you have in this?”

“Perhaps we should go somewhere else to talk about this. Somewhere stories can be shared, not crowded in a doorway.”

Georg grunted again. He did not appreciate the way this conversation seemed to be going, but he needed more information out of the man. “This way.”

He led the man back through the hallway toward his trophy room. As they passed the door into Hanna’s training room, they heard another loud thud, followed by a shrill, sharp scream. The man turned to look at the room, but his expression did not change. Georg paid the noise no mind, but had to fight to keep his embarrassment off his face. Hanna making a ruckus was the last thing he needed for this discussion to go off correctly.

“Through here.” He nodded toward the last door on the left side of the hall. “My room.”

The door opened and the man with Georg immediately nodded. “You were not lying about having fought for both the Republic and the Empire. I recognize some of these weapons you have here.”

Georg looked at him in a bit of surprise. “Like what?”

The man pointed to one of the centerpieces, a massive weapon with its trigger behind the main body and a handle on top to brace it, a blade spike on the front dirty with blood and oil despite numerous cleanings over the years. “An LS-150 heavy accelerated charged particle repeater gun, if I am not mistaken.” He said, “Used during the Clone Wars almost entirely by Trandoshan mercenaries. The fact that you have one surprises me.”

“Not as much as you surprise me by knowing what it is. How old are you? No one has used a weapon like this in at least a decade.”

“You would be surprised how desperate some parties become on the fringes of the galaxy. Anything that can be made to kill, will be.” The man turned back to him. “As for me, I am old enough to remember the Clone Wars well. I was young then, young and prone to mistakes. My mentor brought me along to help him in training the clones for war. I did that, and it tore me apart to know I was doing nothing more than throwing meat onto the grinders of the Republic’s war machine. Then the armies of young, bright clone soldiers began to give way to more motley troops. I stepped away from formal service and now work for the Empire on my own terms.”

“Hmm.” Georg looked the man over. He was middle-aged, his hair graying and hands speaking to a good deal of weathering and broken fingers over the years, but still fit and strong. Nothing that contradicted his story. Georg went to his bottle of whiskey, still on the table. “What’s your name?”

“T’ocs Letim. Though, not many beings call me that.”

“No?” Georg poured himself another drink and filled a second glass for his guest. “What do they call you?”

“Mercenary, scum, boss. I have a number of titles.” The man accepted the glass from Georg with a nod, then took a deep sniff of the contents. “Corellian whiskey.” He said appreciatively, “A good vintage, as well. You have good taste, my friend.”

“My wife’s taste, I’m afraid. I know nothing about what makes good liquor.” Georg sipped the edge of his glass. “She had this bottle and a few others set aside for special occasions. Right now, I’m using it as a prop, trying to steel myself for talking about my daughter about how to deal with rejection.”

The man took a sip from his glass, nodding as he let the drink rest in his mouth before swallowing it. “You have a Morgukai war staff as well. Impressive.”

Georg nodded with a smile. “I earned that one, had a staff lay me out and crush both knees. I brought it back, though, blew his head apart with a laser rifle.”

“Good work, hard enough to kill one, or so I heard.” The man turned to the only other piece of seating in the room aside from Georg’s favorite chair: a battered old couch with torn cushions and faded fabric. He sat down and put his feet up on the small table in front of it. “We may as well get down to business, then.”

“We may.” Georg took a deep drink from his glass. “What do you want Hanna for?”

“To give her a chance at being a soldier on a temporary basis.” T’ocs took another slow drink from his glass. “I am the leader of a small team of mercenaries who work for the Empire in a variety of wet-work situations. Most often, we deal in situations brutal and nasty enough that most Imperial citizens have no idea such events even occur. Because of the variety of the jobs we take, we often hire on additional help if we think it necessary. A bounty hunter with experience going after a particular target, a pilot who knows a particular sector well, you understand.”

“I do. But what does that have to do with Hanna?”

“First, allow me to explain what I am doing on Empress Teta and why I even know of your daughter. I was in the recruitment office around the same time you were, speaking with the head of the office, one Commander Breen, about recruiting one of their trainees into my group for the mission I have contracted to take next. I need an extra pair of hands, you see, but do not currently have the funds to hire on another mercenary out of pocket.”

“So you want a body to take up space with another blaster. Hanna will never do it.”

“It’s exactly the sort of work she’d be doing for the Empire. Going into a semi-hostile environment, sorting out dangerous rebels, protecting the sanctity of Imperial rule in the sector. And she would be in good hands, much better than those of the Empire’s commissioned officers.”

“Really?”

“Yes.” The man put his boots on the floor again, looking up at Georg from under his brows. “You see, my time in the Clone Wars taught me something: the value of an experienced and tightly-woven team. When the cred-chits are down, so long as you have someone there to watch your back, odds are that much better that you make it out alive. The Empire is so vast you have no guarantee that the officer she is ultimately commanded by will have any respect for her life as more than a blaster and pair of boots. I, on the other hand, treat my team with the utmost respect and care, since I depend on them to fulfill my contracts. If I were to lose someone on my team, I would be losing more than just an extra pair of hands. I would be losing a business partner, a bodyguard, and a friend all at once.”

“But you just told me that you only need an extra pair of hands around the ship, not any particular skills. What makes you think Hanna would be willing to start from a place any cadet could fill?”

“Because sometimes you have to start at the bottom to reach the top. Reputation is not something schooling in a military academy can buy. In my business, you have to earn your way to the top, the hard way, the old fashioned way, by taking jobs and finishing them. If your Hanna is so fixated on leaping from her classes straight into Darth Vader’s arms, then she will inevitably be disappointed, and today’s tantrum will only be the first of many more.”

Georg flushed with anger and embarrassment at the mention of his daughter’s lack of self control. “So, what then, she’d be a part of your team for the rest of her career, spinning around the Outer Rim like a glitbiter without his fix?”

“I did say it was a temporary position. I require her for this job, nothing more. She comes with me, she does her part, she is paid for her efforts and, if she is strong and skilled enough to survive, she comes home to you, wiser, more experienced, and with some of those sharp edges chipped away. Think of it as an… internship of sorts, a temporary situation that fills two needs at once. I have the extra pair of hands I require, Hanna gets a taste of what life is like outside of a military training school.”

“And if something happens to her?”

“Then you would have to accept my condolences.”

Georg had to pace. Something about this still did not sit well with him, and he could not force himself to stay still as he puzzled it out. He paced behind his chair, cane clawing for purchase against the polished flooring, going from his cabinet of smaller trophies against one wall to the mounted head of an acklay of Felucia on the other.

What the man said was hard, harsh and callous, but it also had a core of reality to it. To Georg, everything they had said made sense, almost too much sense. Hanna would benefit from having time spend outside of the home, outside of the circle of praise and success she had built up around herself. She had earned those victories, every step of the way, but T’ocs was right about one thing: victories in a learning situation meant little out in the everyday of life.

However, he knew that he was not the one who would ultimately be making the decision, nor the one who would throw T’ocs out if it came to that.

“I can’t make any sort of decision.” He said, still pacing behind his chair, “Hanna’s a young woman now and she makes her own choices.”

“Of course. By all means, invite her in, I would prefer speaking to her directly rather than relaying the messages. Misunderstandings are so difficult at times.”

Georg nodded distractedly. He did not know how to approach this. Hanna would still be in a high temper and likely in no state to receive a guest or hear out what he had to say. On the other hand, he was not sure he wanted her to go with the man in the first place. Mercenary work was even more dangerous and dirty than being a rank-and-file soldier in the Imperial Army, with no backup and no government weight behind your actions. If she got the taste for it on a blue milk run, she might be lured away from her dream. And if something were to happen to her…

Georg put his glass back on the table. “I’ll just be a moment.” He left the room and T’ocs behind, heading to the training room’s door.

 

Interesting proposal from T'ocs. If it goes well, I can see how it'd be a good opportunity for Hanna to grow up a bit. I do worry about a barely-16-year-old girl being tossed in the midst of a group of mercs who essentially don't answer to anyone; though she is a strong fighter, she is still young and naive, and could still be overpowered. But the Empire is pretty ruthless, so there's no telling she'd be safe among their ranks, either. It's a tough choice for a parent!

It's always nice to see a sympathetic view of the clones.

Very much looking forward to Hanna's reaction to this latest development. Great work!

 

Tox has the pragmatic stance of a mercenary but also appreciates skill and cohesiveness as any leader would. Both enhances overall and individual survival. This 'internship' will teach Hanna some valuable lessons I think. Having read of a tight and efficient bounty hunting team with very likeable characters by SabyneAmberle, I have a feeling this group of mercenaries won't hold to any cliche

 

Here's the rest of chapter four, where we learn Hanna has a bit of a potty mouth in addition to entitlement and anger issues. And we get to see more of just the sort of man T'ocs is...

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“Aaaaaahhhhhhh!”

Hanna rushed the combat dummy at her full speed. Without breaking stride, with a single incredible punch, she knocked the dummy one way and its head another. Without pausing, she turned on another unfortunate foam dummy, a roundhouse kick sending bits flying in all directions.

Then she stopped, panting, and put her sweat-matted hair out of her face. She looked around at the training room. There was not a dummy left in one piece, and foam was everywhere. These dummies were specifically made to take the rigors of combat training, of punches and kicks. Hanna had used most of them for years, practicing her forms and techniques against the dense yet soft impact foam.

Today, in less than twenty minutes, she had completely demolished every last one of them. Most had bits of wire sticking out where their metal skeletons had snapped under the force of her assault. Some were merely in half, others had their limbs torn off, and one unfortunate foam soul was a mere torso now, lax its limbs, head and everything from the waist down.

She picked up a large piece of foam that lay near her position, examined it a moment, then hurled it across the room with all of her might. “Kark you!” She kicked another piece after it. “Kark you! Kark, kark, kark, kark it!”

“Hanna!”

She turned, to find herself facing her father, who was standing just inside the training room’s doorway. His face was stormy.

“What, daddy?” She asked, folding her hands across her chest. She did not care if he had heard her ranting and cursing, they were hardly new words to come out of her mouth.

His eyes bored into hers. He seemed far from the crippled and aged veteran he had always been, standing straight and without a sign of weakness. “Hanna. You’re acting like a bratty little girl, not a soldier.” He shook his head. “Things like this are what make you a soldier, Hanna. You have to be able to handle adversity and unexpected failure or rejection. Do you think I had everything go exactly right when I joined the Republic’s armed services all those years ago?”

“You actually got into the armed services, dad!” Hanna shouted at him. “The… the son of bantha didn’t even look at my portfolio!”

“Hanna, wrecking the training room will not make them change their minds.” Her father turned into an officer for a moment, firm and authoritarian. “Now, there’s a man sitting in my trophy room who came to us from the recruitment office. He’s here to make you an offer, and I want you to hear him out and decide if you want to go along with him.”

“And what if I don’t want to hear him out?”

“Then you can throw him out through a window. But promise me that you’ll listen to him, even though I know you don’t want to. Put your anger and pain away for a bit and listen. For me.”

Hanna did not question him. She loved him too much. But she was still enraged, and stormed past him toward the door. “Fine.”

Her father sighed and arrested her with his voice. “Promise me, Hanna.”

Hanna paused a moment, then said “I promise.” She resumed her walk. Georg followed her through the door, down the hall and into the trophy room.

Having only been in the trophy room on the rare occasion previously, often when her father had a story to tell and wanted a visual aid of some sort, Hanna was surprised that their guest had been invited inside. Most often, it was where her father retreated from the world, insulated by the remembrances of the past. Now, there was a man sitting on the battered old couch across from the doorway, dressed in worn, utilitarian clothes and with all sorts of pouches and belts and other things strapped to him. He was old, not as old as her father but still fairly old, and looked more like a thug or spacer than a representative from the recruitment office.

He got to his feet as she entered the room, putting a glass of something down on the table. “You must be Hanna.” He said, voice smooth but not like anyone she had heard on Empress Teta before.

“I am.” She affirmed, not giving ground. “And you are?”

“T’ocs Letim, mercenary tied to the Imperial special forces."

Hanna’s expression closed. “You aren’t a representative of the recruitment center. What do you want?”

“Indeed, allow me to explain. My current mission has brought me to this sector and impressed on me the need for additional help in order to complete it. I went to the recruitment center under the order of this sector’s governor in hopes of recruiting that help. Unfortunately, the head of the office refused to give me access to the records of any but the least-qualified trainees. It was fortunate that I discovered the datapad you left behind at the office, or else my trip here would have availed me nothing.”

“Well, you obviously didn’t come here just to return my datapad, you’re after something.”

“Perceptive. Yes, I am after something. I want to extend an offer of employment to you. You see, I am reluctant to leave Empress Teta without something to show for my efforts, and I heard from one of the clerks at the recruitment office how disappointed you were at being rejected, a story I affirmed when I arrived and heard the commotion you were causing in the adjacent room.”

Hanna flushed, but said nothing.

“I have a crew of four mercenaries not counting myself, and for the operation we’re going to be undertaking, I do not believe that is enough. I want you to take a spot on my crew as well to bolster our chances.”

“You want me to join up with you. A scummy mercenary who thinks he deserves the best the Empire has. I guess you think I should be flattered instead of disgusted.” She turned on her father. “And you, dad. You had me thinking that this was going to be a discussion with a representative of the Imperial armed forces. Look at him. He’s not even from the Core, let alone an Imperial soldier. How could you think I would ever want to go with him?”

“I wanted to give you the chance to choose for yourself.” Georg said, sitting down in his favorite chair and looking too old and tired to argue about anything. “You’re a woman now, Hanna, you had to hear the man out for yourself and make your own judgment call on whether to take him up on his offer.”

“Why would you even think I’d consider him?” Hanna asked in genuine disbelief. “Don’t you know me better than that? Don’t you love me enough to throw the scum outside where it belongs instead of making me do it?”

“I do love you, Hanna.” Georg insisted, taking up his glass in a shaking hand. “Enough to let you go and live life for yourself.”

“Love, hmm. That has never been a problem for me.” The mercenary sat down and picked up his glass again. He took a slight sip of his drink. “I learned a good lesson about love from the man who taught me how to be a soldier. If you want the ones you care about in this galaxy to survive in this life, in the profession of fighting for a living, you have to harden them. If you really love them, you’ll brutalize them to prove it. I cannot say I have always agreed or played by that rule, but I am here and alive to prove that it works.”

Georg seemed shocked at the man’s coldness. “You’ll brutalize Hanna to…”

“To give her the skills she needs to survive out in the real galaxy. She has classroom skills now. I would start her in learning real skills, the ones she will actually use.”
“Would you?”

Georg and the mercenary both turned to face Hanna again. She was standing between them at the end of the table, arms folded across her chest. She betrayed nothing of her thoughts, expression as emotionless as if she were carved from stone.

“Yes, I would.” Letim replied.

“How?” Hanna asked. “By beating me? By dumping me off at some forsaken planet and leaving me to die? By-”

“I have found,” The mercenary interrupted, “That experience is the best teacher. And if your horrible ideas of experience are in any way related to your perception of my profession, let me rid you of the illusion now. I am a mercenary, a soldier up for hire on his own terms, not a piece of scum scraped off the boots of Imperial troops. I work for money rather than for a government, true, but that does not mean I have to sacrifice my integrity for my work. Money is only a necessity, not a way of life.”

“Then why aren’t you fighting for the Empire directly?” Hanna asked, the tone of her voice betraying nothing but her words filled with disdain. “Someone with your skill would surely be welcome in-”

“For one thing,” He interrupted again. “I stopped listening to the propaganda spewing from the mouths of Imperial brats. The Empire may be holding all of the cards in the sabacc deck, but they are not the utopia they claim to be, not by a long shot. For another, I believe in being my own man, as opposed to a drone without a face. As a mercenary, I still work for the winning side, only with larger end benefits and a greater chance of making retirement.” The man took another sip of his drink. “Not to mention that my services are valued as those of an individual, something very, very few in the regular Imperial military can boast about. If you choose to work with me, you would see that for yourself soon enough.”

Hanna let the silence linger for a moment. She tried to meet Georg’s eyes, but he was looking down at the table and ignored her.

“What do you think, dad?” She asked. “Can I throw this… pile of waste out on his ear?”

Georg met her eyes now. “Hanna, if Mister Letim is waste, then so am I. What he does now is almost exactly what I did before you were born.”

“But you’re different, dad, you’re…”

“I am not different, Hanna. If I were still a young man, without a daughter to care after, I would be doing exactly the same thing he is. In fact, I’d probably have a group of my own to rival his.”

“I would wager you might have co-opted me into an army of your own by this point.” Letim said with a bit of sardonic wit.

Hanna felt trapped. She had not expected her father to dodge the question. Georg’s eyes returned to the table, looking into the glass in his hand.

“Do you want me to join up with him, dad?” She asked, her voice a small child’s.

Georg shook his head. “It’s your choice, Hanna. You’re a young woman now. I can’t make your decisions for you.”

Letim was looking from Georg to Hanna with faint interest on his face, loose fist resting on his left cheek. He looked so infuriatingly detached, Hanna wanted to jump over the table and strike him just to change his expression.

“You have the makings of a very good soldier, Miss Shirid,” The mercenary said, “But you still have a lot to learn. If you join my organization, I will teach you what I can in the time we have. You will be tested to the utter limits of what you can or cannot do, and then learn to go past them. Our work is hard and there is no guarantee you will survive. To do so, you must be decisive and deadly.”

He turned his head to the side slightly, mocking her just a bit. “Can you handle deadly? I think not. You’ve probably never killed anything outside of a simulation, aside from foam dummies. And a few insects, perhaps. Well, we will see whether you’re a real soldier, or just a little girl playing one.”

Hanna lost it. She charged the man, screaming, all of her emotions ripping loose at once. Georg tried to get up and intercept her, but he stopped cold, clutching at his chest and shouting “Stop, Hanna! Stop!”

But Hanna was not the one to be stopped. She was less than an arm’s reach from the man, less than a millisecond from diving on top of him, when Letim made his move, faster than a lightning strike. The remainder of his drink splashed into Hanna’s eyes, causing her to close them out of reflex and turn her head away.

Then Letim was on his feet, a single right-handed punch to the jaw putting Hanna out flat on the table and sending the bottle of whiskey and Georg’s glass to the floor. Both shattered. Georg tried again to get to his feet, but before he could defend his daughter he was looking down the barrel of a blaster carbine, which stopped him cold once again.

Letim looked over the top of the barrel, brown eyes utterly calm and cool. “You are in no condition to be exerting yourself like that, Shirid.” He said, “Please remain seated while your daughter and I discuss this matter.”

Georg remained where he was. His hands were shaking, and he had a muscle twitch in his left cheek now. He went into his pocket and pulled out a small packet of pills, taking out two white, round heart stimulants and swallowing them dry.

Hanna, her eyes clear, exploded up from the table and slammed her right shoulder into Letim, knocking his blaster away. She hit him in the face, and the mercenary and the girl fell backwards, missing the couch and hitting the hard floor instead. The two tussled, fists flying. It was pure melee, as each were unable to wind up effective blows in the close quarters but unwilling to draw back for fear of leaving themselves open.

“No!” Georg, shouting, managed to get to his feet this time. He stumbled toward the fight, cane in one hand, the other still holding his chest.

At the moment he was about to reach the fracas, Hanna caught a knee in her midriff, stunning her. She was thrown upwards and off Letim, turning over and striking her head on the floor. Further stunned, she rolled over, knocking her father’s cane out from under his grip. The two of them fell to the floor in a tangle, Georg on top of Hanna, neither one able to rise.

By the time Hanna had worked her way out from under Georg and regained her feet, Letim was standing over them both, blaster back in his hand. He let her up, but did not allow her to step forward as she attempted to do. The blaster carbine whipped across her face and sent her spinning to the floor again, a gash along her cheek.

“Don’t worry, she’s not dead.” Letim told Georg as he rose to his knees, “Only stunned.” He smiled suddenly, nodding toward his left arm, which hung limp. “She was lucky, though, or just good. If she hadn’t dislocated my shoulder with the initial impact, I may have killed her.”

Hanna, blood now running from her cheek, rolled onto her back to look up at him. “Why don’t you fight fair?” She sounded very much like a spoiled child, and felt just about as impotent. “You wouldn’t be able to beat either of us if you fought fair.”

“At my age, I can’t afford to fight fair.” The man explained, “I’d lose. But no one says I have to, so I don’t.”

Hanna was nearly twitching with rage as she slowly sat up. “I’d like to snap your neck.” She said.

“Good.” Letim nodded to her. “There’s hope for you yet.” He holstered his blaster, then used his now free right hand to clutch his left. With a harsh, jolting movement, he yanked his arm out of place, then let it reset itself into its socket. He endured it with only the slightest hint of hurting, the flesh around his eyes tightening and his mouth turning to a grim line. Then he looked at Hanna as he spoke without a hint of pain. “Shall we go?”

 

Chapter Five


Hanna had no idea what to make of her new employer. One minute he was fighting like a savage, with no restraints or rules, and the next he walked, talked and acted like a man who came from aristocracy, formal and refined. He was a man of contradictions, of two halves, a civilized man and a brutal soldier. Which was he, actually? Was the civilized part of him an act, or was his savagery put on during battle? Just being around him made her uncomfortable. She could not predict what he was going to do or say from moment to moment, and that made her nervous. Being able to predict what people did was usually simple, tracking their goals and wants and figuring out what they had to do to get there. This man… she had no idea what he wanted.

T’ocs had brought his own speeder to the house and taken her away in the same, a closed-cockpit four seat rental craft that lacked any of the speed or maneuverability Georg’s speeder had. He had ushered her inside, tossing her duffel bag into the back seat, and then taken her off into the sky above Cinnagar. He told her that, though she had some of the clothes that she would need in the field, they would need more, and none of her new crewmates were her size or inclined to share. Hanna hardly thought she had much of anything; her duffel held two changes of clothes, all plain gray or black shirts and pants, and two sets of underwear. Aside from that and the clothes on her back, a patterned maroon shirt under a leather jacket with multi-pocketed brown pants, she had nothing. No gear, no equipment, not even so much as a commlink or datapad.

T’ocs took her across the city toward one of the spaceports, flying high above most of the traffic and buildings in the city. Because the speeder had a closed cabin that could be pressurized, they were able to fly on the lowest fringes of local aerospace, high enough that T'ocs had to seek clearance from the aerospace traffic controller for his course. Neither he nor she spoke to each other during the flight; the only sounds the squawking of an occasional voice through the dashboard mounted commlink and the drone of the engines. T’ocs had the former set to sweep local frequencies for security force updates or emergency bulletins, something Hanna was not even aware a civilian model vehicle commlink was capable of.

Hanna watched out the window as they flew. She had never been in this part of the city before, closer to the spaceport. The buildings were shorter here, allowing traffic greater clearance, and the traffic itself was made up of more than just speeders. She saw full-fledged starships coming and going from the spaceport facilities around them: freighters, star liners, passenger ships both public and private, even Imperial commerce flights. Though she was still on Empress Teta, indeed, still in Cinnagar, she felt as if she were entering an unfamiliar world.

Their speeder banked and dove downward in the direction of a public docking platform. It was the central location to a large shopping district, but not any sort of shopping district that Hanna had ever been in before. This one was full of rough shops and trade stations, made by spacers for spacers, low-class and low-brow. This was for the visitors to Empress Teta, the ones who came in for a day or less and stayed only long enough to refuel and gather supplies.

“We will go to a couple of shops I am familiar with.” T’ocs addressed her for the first time since they had left the ground at the Shirid house. “Cinnagar tends to price their materials higher than most, but the quality is always assured, a fact I appreciate.”

“So this is where you’ll get me some new clothes?” Hanna asked.

“Not clothes, necessarily. Belts, equipment packs, perhaps a weapon or two will catch your eye. The merchant district here is versatile enough to meet our needs and wants. And whatever we do not find, we can procure aboard my ship or while we are in transit.”

“Where exactly are we going on this mission of yours? Somewhere else in the Deep Core?”

“Unfortunately, that information is classified until we are actually in transit as per my contract. Though, saying somewhere in the Deep Core would be a fair guess.” T’ocs banked the speeder down a bit further, then leveled out and descended into a spot on the landing platform. “This neighborhood is not usually the rough sort. All the same, I would advise you not to wander too far afield.”

“Don’t worry about me; I can take care of myself.” Hanna said defensively.

“Perhaps you can. But can you find your way back to the speeder, or to your home, without me, any credits or any sort of navigational device?” He looked at her with one eyebrow tilted upward. When she did not answer aside from flushing red, he went on. “You may be able to break arms with ease, Miss Shirid, but you have a long way to go before you are truly the independent sort you try to be. Until you do, stay close to someone who knows better.”

The speeder set down on the platform with a soft lurch, then eased down to rest on its landing skids. T’ocs powered down the speeder and opened the door on his side. Hanna followed suit on her side, climbing out of the speeder and looking around. The landing platform was built above most of the surrounding buildings, so she could look down into the marketplace around them, at the shops and the beings in and around them.

Her impression from above was the same as it had been while she had been descending in the speeder. This part of the city was the sort of place her father had always told her to avoid. Not because he doubted she could take care of herself, but because he did not want her getting into trouble with the local prefecture. The sort of beings who hung around here would not take no for an answer unless she added broken limbs on top of it. She saw motley-looking humans through most of the streets, alleys and by-ways, but she also saw Gran, Aqualish, Weequay, Jenet, Anx, Trandoshan, and many more species that she could not identify. And none of them looked friendly.

“Are you going to jump?”

Hanna started and looked behind her. T’ocs was reading information off a datapad and looking at her out of the corner of his eye. “If not, I would advise coming away from the edge, there is no repulsor cushion between here and the ground.”

Hanna flushed, realizing that she had wandered right to the edge of the platform. She had intended it just to be able to see better into the city, but realized how vulnerable she was in such an exposed position and stepped back from the edge.

“I have our destination.” T’ocs said, “Follow me.” He started walking from the platform, causing Hanna to pursue.

They walked from the platform’s causeway into the marketplace. It was loud and wild, beings running and walking from place to place and shopkeepers shouting to passers-by. Neon illuminated signs screamed out the sorts of wares the multicolored shops beneath them had in stock. Music blared from speakers and storefronts, clashing and colliding, a riot to the ears. Smells filled the air, spices, meats, vegetables, foods cooked fresh, hailing from worlds far from this one; oils, fuel, the tang of rusted metal, ozone from discharged blasters and running engines; the collective stink of hundreds of unwashed bodies from dozens of worlds gathering in a few square kilometers of space.

Hanna soaked it all in as she followed T’ocs. She tried not to act like a tourist, she had lived on this planet her entire life and there was no reason for her to gawk and wonder at everything she saw. The beings she passed gave her a glance or two, but nothing else. She did not mind being more or less ignored, since it allowed her to observe everything around her without feeling too bad about staring.

T’ocs paused for a step and tapped her on the shoulder as she moved up beside him. He nodded toward a small shop along a side-street with a number of sets of body armor hanging in the front window. “In there first.”

“An armor shop?”

“An equipment shop,” He corrected, “One where I happen to know the beings that run it. Follow me.”

The front of the shop, battered and worn, followed to the status of the interior. The equipment shop was old and musty, but meticulously organized and neat. The walls were lined with perforated wood, metal hooks embedded here and there to hold up the merchandise, and a few half-walls where smaller items were kept on display. The shop had a good variety of items for sale, some of it body armor, but most being belts, equipment packs, multi-tools, portable lumina lamps, folding tents, canteens, all sorts of exploration and survival equipment. A store meant for the outdoors, for those planning an expedition into a hostile environment, or for those wishing to be ready for anything.

“Find a belt or equipment pack you like.” T’ocs charged Hanna, “As well as any kit that strikes your fancy, so long as it fits in whatever carrier you choose.”

“Got it.” Hanna moved away from him and started to browse the shelves and racks of different sorts of kit. She did keep half an eye and ear on T’ocs as he moved across the shop toward the sales counter, where a Rodian in a faded orange shirt was watching them. The two conversed in low tones and move off into the back of the shop, leaving Hanna alone.

She ran her hand along the length of a leather belt. It was made from a pale green, scaly material she was not familiar with and, judging by its price tag, had probably originated off-world. It was also large and felt rather heavy, and the last thing Hanna wanted was to be weighed down by the belt she chose. She would need something lighter, easier to move around in, something more her size.

Her eye caught a smaller, less expensive belt along one of the shelving units in the middle of the store. It was made of a black synthetic material and, on its tags and shelf-mounted information bulletin, boasted of having all of its pouches attached via pull-away fabric adhesives that could be attached or removed on the fly. And, when she picked it up, Hanna realized that the synth material made it fantastically light. She put it around her waist and held it where the straps would let it ride. It fit her just right when she narrowed it as far as it would go. She was able to connect the clasps and pull the strap tight, leaving the belt snug against her hips, just above her waist line.

She nodded to herself. A perfect fit. She tried moving. The material was light, and it allowed her close to full flexibility. She bent over and touched her toes without any trouble, then flattened her palms against the floor and dropped her weight onto her arms, lifting her legs into the air. The belt stayed in place as she did the handstand, shifting a bit but not moving or sliding up onto her torso. It would undoubtedly do so when fully loaded with gear, but the belt itself was light enough to be worn at all times.

Hanna dropped to her feet again. She could, in theory, load the pouches with all of the different sorts of equipment and kit she might need, then only bring along the ones she needed at a given time, keeping it as light as possible. She checked the tag on the belt. It was not expensive, and it suggested that additional pouches and other accessories could be found that would work in the same way, including a belt loop for large tools and a holster for modestly-sized blaster pistols.

She found the accessories without trouble, they were clustered at the base of the display she had taken the belt from. There were a lot of different sizes of pouches, most copies of ones that came included with the belt itself. But what caught her eye were the holsters. One was meant to ride on the belt itself, the other was a thigh-mounted design, attached to the belt but hanging below it and strapped to the wearer’s leg via an independent belt around the thigh. Though Hanna was fond of the idea of her blaster riding lower and leaving more of her belt free for other equipment, the extra strap would constrict her movement to some degree until she got used to it.

She took the hip-holster, moving the pouch currently on her right hip to her left side and putting the holster on in its place. It was no bigger than the larger sized pouches, and had a system of adhesive strips and narrow straps meant to allow her to customize its shape to whatever weapon she carried. She nodded, playing her fingers over the fabric and imagining drawing a pistol. The snap of the fabric, the cold weight of the weapon in her hand, the hum and buzz of a full power pack ready to discharge upon her foes. She mimed the motion, finger-gun pointed at the wall of the shop as she drew.

“Bang.” She said to the wall, letting her hand fall slack to her side. Yes, this belt would do just fine.

Hanna started looking over the rest of the things in the shop. All sorts of equipment and things were strewn about the shop, and all of it looked interesting, but little of it seemed essential to her. She picked a die-cast multi-tool from a shelf, it seemed solidly built and an ideal sort of thing to have with her. It had a dead-blade knife, pliers, a wire cutter, measurement tools, a spanner and a pair of bolt drivers. Any one of those things might come in handy at some point, and quite a few could be used as improvised weapons. She also found a pair of sun-shade goggles that tinted based on how much light was hitting them. They had a leather strap and adjusted to fit her comfortably.

She was still browsing, but not finding much of anything interesting or important, when T’ocs and the Rodian re-emerged from the back of the store. The Rodian went back to the sales counter, and T’ocs came over to Hanna. She showed him the things she had picked up without saying anything about them. He looked the multi-tool and the goggles, nodding his approval but not saying a word. Then he motioned for her to take off the belt and hand it to him, which she did.

“Why go with this one?” He asked, looking it over from end to end.

“It’s light and won’t get in my way. I can take the pouches off and swap them around if I want this gear or that gear. And it fits me.”

He handed it back to her. “Good reasons. I’ll pay for your things and we’ll move on.”

“What else will we need to get?”

“You will see.” T’ocs nodded to the Rodian. “We’ll take all of these things.”

The Rodian emerged from the counter with a small datawand in its hand. It waved the wand over the items Hanna was holding, a soft beeping noise ringing out four times. It burbled something at T’ocs in Huttese, and what sounded like a monetary figure.

“Good enough. Take it from the same account.”

The Rodian nodded, tapping a command into the small keys at the base of the wand. It beeped again, and the Rodian said something else.

“Very well.” T’ocs nodded back, “We will be going, then.”

He turned and left the shop, Hanna following him as she put her belt back on. She put the multi-tool into her new belt and put her new goggles on her head, not lowering them over her eyes for fear of obscuring her vision. It was still dark; though the rain had ceased the clouds still blocked the sun, and her tinted goggles would only serve to make it even harder to see. For now, she used them to keep her hair from falling into her face.

“That shop sells a number of useful things at competitive prices,” T’ocs said as they walked deeper into the market district, “But I would never buy anything from their pitiful stock of body armor.”

“Why not?” Hanna asked, “What was wrong with it? They seemed to have a lot of different sorts, and people must buy them if they’re in the front window like that.”

“Morons, maybe, but no mercenary or bodyguard or any other knowledgeable being looking for body armor would ever be satisfied with those cheap fabric weaves. Blastvests like those would only protect you from impact weapons, slugthrowers and grenade shrapnel and the like, and only from direct attack as well. Anything that comes in at an odd angle, or using an energy or high-frequency vibro weapon, would go straight through it.” T’ocs turned to face her as he walked. “Buying armor is much like buying a speeder: you get what you pay for. In our line of work, that can mean the difference between a heady payday and a quick, ignominious death.”

Hanna pondered this for a moment. She had not looked at the body armor much, she did not want the extra padding slowing her down. But from T’ocs’ words, it sounded as if she would not have much more choice in the matter. “What would you recommend, then?”

T’ocs seemed taken with the topic, speaking more in a short time than he had through the entire excursion to that point. “Plasteel isn’t bad. Hardy, a good balance between function and protection, easily moved about in, on the lighter side and able to defuse small-arms blaster fire and shrapnel pretty well. Though it won’t stand up to precision shooting, or to most heavy weapons or slugthrowers. Stormtrooper armor’s made out of the stuff, and they designed it to keep you alive more than keeping you from getting hurt, and most mass-market armors followed their lead.

“No, what I would recommend is something no one can get anymore. Full body armor, made of durrasteel or duraplast alloys, enclosing you and keeping you safe from every angle and environment, mounted with weapons and tools and everything a mercenary might need.” T’ocs sighed to himself. “Of course, no one makes it like that anymore, outside of the Empire. Next best thing, though, is a mixture of a mesh suit with armor plates, alum or duraplast, which gives you flexibility and protection in equal measure without sacrificing either. The Verpine make sublime mesh armor along those lines, but it can be difficult to find outside of the black market.”

They walked in silence for a few long moments, Hanna waiting to see if T’ocs would resume talking. When he did not, she tried to prompt him. “So?”

“So, we are going to buy you a set of the next, next best thing.” He replied, “There is an armor dealership not far from here that deals in exotic armor plating and suits from across the galaxy. I happen to know that they have a suit of Echani make on hold after the previous owner met with an unexpected and sudden end. Hopefully, you will find it to your liking.”

“But how do you know it will fit me? I’m not exactly an average size for someone wearing body armor.”

“That will not be an issue. I have been assured in the past that the shop’s facilities tailor to customers of all sizes and species, which I presume covers you as well.”

“What sort of armor is Echani? I’ve heard of Echani martial arts, I learned some of their stances at my training school. Very defensive, but really fast when they need to move.”

“Echani armor, from my experience, is light and flexible, usually made of thickly woven fabrics to allow greater range of movement. This set, so I have been told, is a heavier sort, hence, it being for sale. Most who look for Echani armor are looking for the lighter sort, not one with metal plating and armored sections built in.”

“But it should still be light and flexible, right?”

“Probably.”

Hanna looked hard at the back of T’ocs head. “Did you really think I was going to join up with you that much? I mean, I doubt any of the other trainees or cadets at the academy would care about how easy it is to move around in armor.”

“I will tell you, Miss Shirid, I did not expect to come out here with just any Stormtrooper candidate. A brutish, raw thug of a man or even woman for that matter, I could find one of them in any of the cantinas or bars here around the spaceports of Cinnagar. No, I went there looking for the profiles of the truly exceptional. I used to train soldiers for a living, soldiers who everyone on the outside saw as identical, carbon-copies of one another. I learned to pick out details in training records and scores, the little things that would mean one would be better in the sniper corps, or the marines, or an ideal candidate to undergo officer’s training.”

“So how did you get ahold of my file? I’m not in their system.”

“They did not allow me access to their records at all. The office’s commander blocked my access and told me, politely, to go to hell. I happened upon your records on my way out of the office.”

“But how does that line up with you having the armor already picked out?”

“I intended to choose from a very select group of candidates: those I thought would be more adept at commando and unorthodox missions. Of course, that went up in smoke, so I am forced to deal with you. Fortuitously, judging by your choices of equipment I purchased for you in that shop, it does not matter that the choice was made for me. You are already thinking along the lines I want.”

“I’m not sure I like the sound of that.”

“Suit yourself. The versatile will always have more work to do than the specialized, being able to cover your bases is a good survival policy.”

“I just picked up what I thought would be useful.”

“And you were correct in doing so. Most of the gear in there is the sort of thing that seems useful until you realize how little use you might get out of it from day to day. Planning for a contingency is good, but not when it takes up space in your equipment and weighs you down. The more functions you can force out of a single tool the better.”

“So if I’d picked up one of those fold-down tents with inflatable sleeping pallets…?”

“I would have stunned you and dropped you back off at your father’s home with a note pinned to your chest about putting you into the Agricultural Corps. I don’t need you along on this mission badly enough to hold your hand the entire way.” He turned to look at her, as if he felt her eyes on the back of his head. His gaze was so cold Hanna felt a chill inside her stomach explode through the rest of her torso and nearly choke her. “You have gained my indulgence for the duration of our time here on your home planet. As soon as we are aboard my ship and in space, you become one of a team, a cog in a machine that must function with perfect efficiency if we are to survive. If you become more of a liability than an asset, you will be dismissed. Understood?”

She nodded, unable to say anything.

“Good.” He turned and nodded toward a small shop on the end of a main street they had been traveling down. “We’re here.”

 

Interesting couple of chapters! Okay, I kind of love that T'ocs used to train clone troopers. Is he one of the Cuy'val Dar, by any chance?

It was good to see Hanna taken down a peg or two; she needs to learn that things don't always go her way. It seems like T'ocs can handle her, at least; he's making quite an investment in this girl, so I'm definitely wondering what his true motives are.

 

Ialoga, T'ocs was one of the Cuy'val Dar, though he was young and under the apprenticeship of another, more experienced Mandalorian at the time. It's never stated explicitly who, but it's apparent enough if you read a bit into T'ocs philosophies of life (and the color of his beskar'gam). Maybe another story for another time...

Anyway, time to meet the crew.

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Chapter Six


Trev Naver was not a man to go fooling around dirt-side. When the Arbiter found a station, unless he had a mission and objective to accomplish on the surface, he remained aboard. Being the ship’s sole dedicated mechanic, engineer and weapons’ technician meant that he was often the sole line of defense between the rest of the crew and a horrible death in the vacuum of space.

Trev loved what he did. The Arbiter was a good ship, solid and adaptable. He also loved being the weapons’ tech, since it allowed him to play with highly destructive implements for hours on ends in the hopes of making them even more destructive. He would often take a late model blaster rifle apart, work his way through the components and put it back together, inadequate parts replaced with better ones and non-essential parts removed outright. Other times, he would simply disassemble a blaster down to its barest component parts and use them to modify other projects, adding a new wire here or a bit of cooling vent there.

He was not only a mechanic, though. Trev had worked hard to be just as good a shot as he was a repairman; since he would be modifying weapons to optimize their lethality, he needed to know what made a weapon effective when it was being used. Though he was far from the best marksman on the crew, he could hold his own with anything from a DC-15 up to an LCP array blaster and higher. He could also pitch a grenade with decent precision, a benefit of having an engineer’s mind for angles and the physics involved. And the fact that most of the grenades he touched had a higher explosive yield and shrapnel output than standard, or packed completely different and far more creative surprises, meant he was the team’s unofficial explosives expert as well.

His tinted work goggles pushed up against his hairline, causing his short streaky-blond bangs to stand straight up, Trev was tooling a heavy repeating blaster back together with a small arc welder and a hydrospanner. He had stripped the weapon down to the frame, discarded some of the unnecessary weighting and balanced the components. It was not his best work, he did not know this model of blaster all that well and did not want to try to completely re-tool the firing mechanism and laser focusing array, but it would definitely be lighter and easier to carry, aim and fire.

Behind him, a rather daunting game of sabacc was continually threatening to break his concentration. From the cutthroat intensity, it was easy to assume that the three beings involved were strangers, possibly even enemies. The truth was, the three were longtime crew-mates, Trev’s comrades aboard the Arbiter. The reason the game was so cutthroat was because this was a pay-in game, with a sizable pot assembled from the trio’s collective purses, and all three were playing for keeps.

“I’ll take two.” The speaker was tall, wiry, pale-skinned, with chiseled-thin features and a short shock of black hair on his head, his voice like the rasp of metal on leather. His name was Bresialinavo Werathignai, but everyone called him Blade, both as a simplification and as an indication of his weapon of choice. He was an expert with bladed weapons, a bandoleer of assorted knives, vibroblades and other sharp objects never far from his reach. Aside from his name, no one knew anything else about him, his age, his past, even his species. There was no doubt in his role, though; he was the consummate professional of the group and the unofficial second-in-command due to length of experience and time aboard the Arbiter. He reached his hand across the table and scooped up the two new cards dealt to him, putting them in his hand without a flicker of change in his expression.

“Three for me.” Dark skinned and with long black braids of hair hanging loose all around his head, the melodically-voiced Atto Juwai was a Kiffar. The other (possible) non-human of those aboard, he seemed a personality type ill-suited for the grim and gritty life of mercenary work. His sun-is-always-shining-in-some-system outlook and irreverent manner were exasperating at times, but also gave the group an often-needed breath of fresh air. Not only did he take to their work, he fit in quite well. He was a jack-of-all-trades, equally capable with a blaster, a knife, a bomb or the flight stick of the Arbiter itself. Though his natural bent seemed more toward irreverence, he was a competent shipmate and had proven himself many times in the past, enough to stick on the crew. “What about you, Ice?”

“I’ll play these.” The only woman of the group, alto-toned Ice was also the most enigmatic. No one asked her name, no one asked where she was from, no one even asked if she were fully human. Everyone assumed she was human because if she was not, they had no idea what else she could be. Ice’s skin and complexion were so dark she was almost a pure black, even her eyes. Her nickname and specialty were tied together, in that she was a largely emotionless sniper who saw everything in life the same way she saw them through her sniper’s scope: targets, friendlies and non-combatants. Nothing else concerned her. If her marksmanship were not almost supernaturally good, her abrasiveness would have lead to a departure from the team long ago. “Wonder how much longer we’re going to be sitting on this dirt pile waiting for something to kill.”

“Got any word from the boss, Trev?” Atto asked without looking in the direction of the mechanic.

Trev shook his head, likewise without turning. “Nope. Nothing since he called saying he’d be back with a new member.”

“Wonder what he’ll be like.” Atto wondered aloud as he looked over his hand with his three new cards. “Some stuffy Imperial type that won’t get along with anyone, I’m sure.”

“Won’t be much worse than dealing with you.” Ice said. “Bets.”

“I’ll raise by three.” Blade said, tossing three credit chips from a small stack by his hand into the pot.

“Uh…” Atto looked over his cards again. “Eh, I call.”

“Same here.” Ice slid her credits in on top of Atto’s. “For your information, gentlemen, there are now more than fifty credits in the pot, considering the carryover from the last two hands.”

“Ooh, with that kind of money, I’ll get myself a big ol’, tricked out gunbelt.” Atto said, eying the pot enviously as he withdrew his hand.

“Put ‘em back, Atto.” Blade said without looking up.

“Huh?”

The pale humanoid looked up at him, then indicated Atto’s hands with a nod. “Those chips you palmed. Put ‘em back.”

Atto grinned ruefully and tossed three credit chips back into the pile. “Can’t pull anything over on you, can I, Blade?”

“Practice with your own money.” Blade said, returning to his cards.

Trev shook his head. They had been at the game for over an hour, nearly a hundred credits changing hands at various times. Trev disliked sabacc, it was too random for his tastes, and though he appreciated his comrades and their fighting abilities, he did not trust them not to cheat against him. They were all too willing to cheat against each other as it was, and his inexperience at the game meant he would lose the few credits he had managed to stash away for himself.

Their team was experienced and tough, but they were also just mercenaries, and not particularly famous or prestigious ones at that. The Empire had imposed strict regulations on any and all mercenary activities, most of which served merely to make those mercenaries dependent on the Empire itself for work. They also kept the rates for mercenary work at a median, meaning few if any could get rich enough to go independent of Imperial services. Jobs paid in the thousands of credits, but most of that went into the hands of Imperial Governors, information brokers and the purchases of necessary supplies, leaving mercenary teams like the crew of the Arbiter to split a few hundred credits between them each job they performed.

Thus, this sabacc game being played over a mere hundred credits stood for a substantial financial gain for the winner, and likewise important losses for the losers. All parties involved were in to win. That sort of brutal competition meant Trev would lose whatever he set down. He preferred not to gamble for his future.

Beep, beep, beep. Trev set the unfinished blaster aside and picked up his beeping commlink, put aside due to his work. The game stopped for a moment as all eyes in the hold turned to him.

“Trev receiving.” He said into the microphone.

“T’ocs here, Trev.” Their leader’s voice said from the speaker. “Company’s here, open up.”

“Right.” Trev set the headset aside and got up, headed for the control panel in the far wall of the hull. He pressed two buttons before flicking a lever from left to right. “Company’s here, people. Shine the deck, comb your hair.”

Atto groaned aloud as Ice and Blade put their cards down. “Two Pure Sabaccs! Keepuna, I’m sure one of you has got to be cheating!”

Blade split the pot and slid half toward Ice. “The leader’s going to want to take off as soon as the new man’s settled in. We’ll settle this later.”

Ice nodded. “Count on it.”

Trev moved back to his spot, taking up his tool and the weapon once again. He stopped work for nothing, even his employer, unless it was absolutely necessary. While it may have been nice to greet the newcomer, few of those who came aboard the Arbiter stayed for long. He had more important work to attend to now. He just could not bear to leave a project all messy and unfinished.

The side hatch to the ship’s hold came open with a hiss of equalizing air pressure and whoosh of hydraulics engaging. Ice, Blade and Atto cleared the sabacc deck away and stored the money amongst their gear, split evenly.

“I don’t know where we’ll put him.” Atto lamented. “There’s barely room for the five of us as it is.”

The hatch came open, the ramp went down and the Empress Teta sunlight came in, dulled by the heavy clouds of the receding storm. There were two sets of steps coming up the ramp as it finished setting down. One the heavy, booted foot of their leader, the other a lighter, quicker step.

“Choy!” Atto exclaimed as he looked. “A girl!”

Trev glanced up in astonishment, in spite of his work. Their leader, T’ocs Letim, entered the hold, and he was indeed followed into the ship by a girl, one who could barely have been sixteen. She was short and slim but muscular, dressed in a form-fitting dark gray armored jumpsuit and black utility belt that looked mostly empty, with shoulder-length black hair held back by a pair of tinted goggles and a duffel bag of gear over her right shoulder. She looked, from Trev’s first glance at her, capable but very green. She took in everything and anything as if she had never seen the like of it before, but tried her best to disguise the fact.

“Men and women,” T’ocs said to them as he looked over the hold, “This is Hanna, our newest member. She’s never been away from home before, so play nice.”

Trev instantly felt sorry for the girl. She was not only younger than anyone else in the hold, but for this to be her first time in the larger galaxy, that was almost painful to hear.

But Atto, all he saw was the opportunity for fun at someone’s expense. He went to the new girl’s side before she could do anything. “Don’t worry, boss, anything we do will be in fun.” He grinned at her. “Right, cheeka?” One of his hands moved in behind her back, towards her hips and backside.

Hanna moved so fast, no one else had time to react. She spun in place and put her left hand into Atto’s stomach with enough force to make him double over with a groan, then struck him across the back of the neck with a stiff-fingered blow from her right. The Kiffar fell to the deck on his hands and knees before rolling to his back.

“Ugh,” He said.

Hanna looked down at him. “Touch me there again,” She said, voice steady and full of steel, “And I’ll kill you.”

The hold was silent for a moment, aside from the ragged gasping of Atto as he tried to breathe. Everyone looked at Hanna, Trev included, trying to figure out what her game was. Trev noticed, as he looked at her, that her eyes were gray, an odd color in humans.

Blade spoke first, smoothly defusing what could have been an awkward situation. He came forward and offered his hand to Hanna. “Allow me to introduce myself; my name is Blade, unofficial second in command of this motley family of mercs.”

Hanna looked at him a moment, almost as if she were sizing him up for an attack, then shook his hand. “Hanna.”

Blade nodded. “You have good hand-to-hand strength for a being your size, you must have trained at it extensively.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I have.”

“I hope you realize,” Ice said from the wall of the hold where she stood apart from the others, “That just training won’t be enough out in the field.”

“Yeah, so I’ve heard.” The girl cast a resentful look in T’ocs' direction, one the boss chose not to notice.

“If I were you I’d curb that tough-girl attitude. We all know you’re green, no point trying to hide it. It’ll make you more enemies than you need right now.”

Hanna looked back at Ice without expression. “I’ll keep your suggestion in mind.”

Ice stared laser bolts at the younger woman and said nothing more.

Trev spoke up next, drawing Hanna’s attention and her gaze. Those strange gray eyes threatened to enchant him and make him forget his words mid-sentence. “I’m Trev, I’m the mechanic and weapon mod expert, so I’ll be the one checking over your weapons and gear and making sure they work better than they should.” He pointed with his hydrospanner to where Atto was still lying on the deck. “The Kiffar is Atto, our resident smart-alack and the odd-jobber around here. He does everything none of the rest of us wants to do. His hitting on you is just part of his humor, so don’t take it too seriously.”

“But you have our permission to kill him if he steps to you again.” Ice said. “He’s not that important to the team.”

“I love you too, Ice.” Atto said as he got to his feet, rubbing the back of his neck, holding his stomach and giving Hanna a wide berth. “Since Trev was nice enough to introduce me, I’ll just go cry in the corner until we decide on something to do.”

“Let me clue you in a bit as to how we work around here.” Blade said, gesturing around the hold. “We all do an equal share of everything, work, play, jobs, everything. We each have our talents, but that doesn’t mean we’re allowed to slack off if it isn’t our best subject. After that, the only real other rule is that the boss’s word is law. Whatever he says, you do. If he decides to give you a choice, it’s your decision, but if he gives you an order, you follow it.”

Hanna nodded. “I understand.”

Ice moved out from her spot against the wall and toward to Hanna. “C’mon, cheeka, we’ll find you a space near me until the boys get used to you being around and lose interest.”

Hanna turned to her, gray eyes now seemingly carved out of flint. “You too?”

Ice gave the new girl a look so cold it might have withered a plant or caused a lake to freeze. It made Trev wince just to see it turned on. “A nickname’s bound to come sooner or later. Want to make something of it?”

Hanna returned the look with one that seemed even harder than before, her eyes now looking like storm clouds hanging low on the horizon. “Want a broken nose?”

Ice folded her arms across her chest, staring the much shorter Hanna down. Trev, Blade and Atto all watched their confrontation with mounting interest. T’ocs had moved off into the cockpit, seemingly unconcerned.

“Look, kid.” Ice was being surprisingly patient, her tone even but still frosty. “You think you’re hot stuff, and you just might be. But it takes more than hot stuff to make it with our bunch. Did the boss tell you how many sixth members have come and gone before you?”

Hanna shook her head. “No.”

“How many does she make it, Blade?” Ice asked without looking away from Hanna. “Twelve?”

“I’m thinking thirteen, if you count the bounty hunter who tried to leave us on Ord Ibanna.”

“I am. I was thinking about that time we worked with that Bossk character. Does he really count?”

“No, I suppose not. Twelve it is then.”

“Twelve in what?” Hanna asked. “Since it’s been the five of you?”

“No, in the past year.”

Hanna’s face went from reserved and angry to startled and shocked faster than an eye blink.

“Beyond that, I don’t bother to keep track.” Ice noted Hanna’s expression without a change in her own. “Still want the job?”

Hanna’s face changed again. She tried to regain her former demeanor and failed. “Yeah. All I want to do is fight for the Empire. That’s it.”

Ice nodded once. “Well, we do a lot of fighting, and some of it’s for the Empire, so you’re in a better place than most. But, like I said, it’ll take more than raw skill for you to survive here. It takes teamwork. We might act like we hate each other’s guts sometimes, but really we all rely on each other. When you work with someone in this profession, you have to be able to depend on them. If we can depend on you to save our butts, you can depend on us to save yours.” She bent her head to look into Hanna’s eyes. “But you have to be willing to let us correct and critique what you do. If you don’t, you’ll wind up dead. It’s that simple.”

“Really?” Despite her naivete, Hanna seemed determined to give nothing away free. “That simple, or just the only way your mind can grasp it?”

“Udesii, girls. It’s early yet.” T’ocs spoke from the entrance to the cockpit, having re-entered the conversation and the hold at the same moment and missing nothing. “Hanna, you’ll take our comments and like it. Banter is part of the job description. Everyone else, know that she is not fair game. If you do something untoward, Atto, she can rip your arm off and slap you with your own hand until you spit blood and I won’t say a thing about it. Clear?”

Everyone nodded. Ice and Hanna both nodded affirmation without looking away from each other.

“Do you really understand, or are you just nodding to fit in?” Ice asked. “Because then you’ve got some hard learning to do soon.”

“Don’t worry. Your boss taught me some of what it means to learn hard.” Hanna turned her head to show off a horizontal cut running along her cheek, before hidden behind her hair. “He gave me this love tap with one of his guns. This before I’d said I’d take the job.”

Ice looked at her a moment, then reached to Hanna’s shoulder and patted it, almost affectionate. She seemed to have acclimated to Hanna far more quickly than she had ever shown any sort of attachment toward the other members of the team. And considering how cold the two had been moments before, it was a rather rough switch to throw. “You stick with me, kid. Let’s go find you a billet space.”

Trev watched as Ice led Hanna out through portal at the rear of the main hold and through the passage that led into the rear section of the ship, including the crew quarters. Putting his forgotten project to the side for a moment, Trev went to the cockpit where T’ocs was setting about warming the ship up. He sat down in the copilot’s seat and rubbed his hands together absently.

“Got something on your mind, Trev?” T’ocs asked without facing him. “Something about our newest member in particular?”

Trev nodded with a huff of escaping breath. “She’s… she’s painfully new, boss. No experience, never been off the planet before. She’s a casualty waiting to happen, no matter how good she thinks she is.”

T’ocs nodded, and the Arbiter lurched as he turned the repulsorlifts on and readied them to lift. He turned a switch on the main control panel. “Cinnagar control, this is freight vessel Arbiter. We are ready for departure from landing berth CL99815. Please advise.”

There was silence and crackling as the aerospace controller digested the message. T’ocs turned to Trev. “I know that. So does she. I’ve put the entire matter in her lap. It’s completely up to her whether she lasts or not.”

“Arbiter, you are cleared for departure along course Aleph-niner-twelve. We hope you enjoyed your visit to Empress Teta.”

“That remains to be seen, control. Arbiter out.” T’ocs switched the comm off and put power to the engines. The Loronar freighter rumbled through to its bulkheads as its engine array came to life. The deck lurched again as the repulsorlifts kicked in and sent them upward way from their landing pad.

Trev watched at Empress Teta’s surface fell away beneath them, the Arbiter lifting away from the capital city and making for the upper atmosphere, where they would remain in orbit until their departure clearance arrived, a secondary security measure employed in local aerospace to keep unknown or unauthorized ships, basically anything that was not flying the Imperial flag, under scrutiny. “So, what do we do to help break her in?”

“We don’t do anything. We just do what we always do. It will be up to her if she breaks in or not.” T’ocs touched a control, the engines increased their thrust, and the ship’s rate of climb grew steeper. “And I think she will. She has fighting in her blood, I can see it. She just needs to get rid of the… politeness and restraint she has in her.”

Trev nodded again, chuckling a little, as he felt the Arbiter’s powerful engines take them up, higher and higher and faster and faster toward the edge of space. “Do we have a job lined up?”

“Yes, but I can’t tell you much about it at the moment. I will brief everyone once we’ve reached orbit.”

A crash came from somewhere behind them, causing both Trev and T’ocs to turn and look back toward the hold. Nothing seemed to be going on; the sound had come from deeper within the ship somewhere. Trev keyed his commlink, but T’ocs was faster.

“Blade, what’s going on back there?” He asked into the ship’s intercom.

“Acceleration newbie, leader.” Ice’s voice came forward. “Hanna just had some equipment dropped on her head from a shelf. No worries.”

“Keep me advised, and don’t let her into the painkillers just yet.” T’ocs turned the intercom off again.

Trev snickered. “I hope she didn’t hurt herself.”

“If she did, all she bruised was her ego.” T’ocs looked neither amused nor worried. As usual. “Almost to escape velocity already. Your little modifications to our number three engine did exactly what you said, Trev. Good work.”

T’ocs’ compliments were normally few and far between, and Trev felt that warm and fuzzy feeling he normally got as T’ocs pushed one of the many objects of his tinkering to its limit and it held true. “Don’t give out praises yet, boss, we’re just now testing it, I’m not sure how long or hard you’ll be able to push it.”

T’ocs looked at him, slowly. “You didn’t test it?”

Trev’s warm and fuzzy feeling went and turned into ice water faster than lightspeed. “Uh, no.”

T’ocs looked at him a moment, completely expressionless, then turned back to the controls. “Tell you what. If it fails in the middle of this job, at any time, you can go out in the exo-suit and repair it.”

Trev swallowed. “With all of the other engines still running?”

T’ocs nodded solemnly. “You’d better hope for two things. One: that you got it right the first time you touched it. Two: that we aren’t in hyperspace when and if it fails.”

“Yes, sir.” Trev got up from the copilot’s seat and went back, hoping against hope that nothing of the sort happened. One thing about being a merc in T’ocs Letim’s crew, he was not above getting rid of someone if they were slowing the team down. The number of sixth members they had gone through showed that. Of all of them they had ever gone through, most had been killed on the job. But two or three Trev remembered had been too incompetent, or too stupid, too many times to suit T’ocs. Would he get rid of his chief mechanic just because one thing had gone wrong? Trev had no idea, and no desire to find out.

 

It was neat to meet the other members of T'ocs' team. Seems like he's got a good mix of talents and personalities. One thing to look out for, especially when introducing a lot of new characters, is the infodump. Most of the information you want to convey about these characters, (personality, job, background, etc.), can be conveyed through actions and dialog, rather than description.

In a way I was glad to see Hanna "handle" unwanted attention in the manner she did. Best nip that sort of behavior in the bud.

Loved this line!

 

Yeah, infodumping is something I try to avoid, but I just couldn't work the backstories about the whole crew into the story. I figured giving them a rough personality outline and visual description was good enough, since even the other members of the crew don't know much about each other. I like the next chapter because it's where the characters all had a chance to flow. And where the plot really gets going...

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Chapter Seven


“All right, ladies and gentlemen, here’s the four-one-one.”

T’ocs pressed a button on his wrist-mounted communications hookup. The small table in the center of the Arbiter's main bay sprang to life, the central section sliding aside and exposing a holographic projector. All of the mercenaries, the new girl included, were standing around the table, each with a sixth of the circumference to themselves, waiting to hear the briefing. Atto was tapping his hand along the edge of the table, Ice and Blade stood back with their arms folded across their chests, Trev shifted from foot to foot, unsure of what to do with his hands without having a tool of some kind in them, and Hanna, on T’ocs’ immediate right, alternated between looking at all of them and at the table in front of them. She had a small bruise on her forehead where a falling toolbox had struck her when it fell from a shelf during takeoff, but refrained from rubbing it.

The projector sprang to life with a soft humming noise, displaying the image of a sphere in three-dimensional space above the table. The lights in the hold had been turned down to allow the image better clarity, and they could all see a large planet with little visible topography, most of the surface obscured by clouds aside from the occasional glimpse of greenery far beneath. From this view, it was impossible to see any cities or other sort of settlement, so there was no telling if the planet was even inhabited. The only visible satellite the planet had was a small triangle-shaped one orbiting almost exactly on the equator.

Everyone studied the planet in silence for a moment. T’ocs looked at them all for another second, his gaze lingering on Hanna a moment longer than the others. She had abandoned looking around the table and was wholly absorbed in the hologram, as if it would hold all of the answers she was looking for, to a question she had never asked.

He began. “This is Ome, a planet here in the Deep Core, in the Zamael system. It is uncivilized and out of the way, not much of a place for anyone to go. Except beings who do not want to be found. The biome is wet and rainy, without many settlements or cities, because there are no major industries or natural resources of much use. The capital is a spaceport, here.” He poked a finger into the hologram to the upper-left hemisphere relative to his own location. “It’s called Ome City, creatively enough. There is a small Imperial presence, but only because the planet itself is in the Deep Core and His Highness does not want an untamed world sitting on his back lawn. The local governor is a man named Isol Gevere, Imperial to the last but also fairly dense, enough so to think that he’s actually important.”

Ice huffed. “Typical small-world governor.”

“Indeed. His existence is somewhat important, as it is tangentially related to our mission.” T’ocs pointed out the triangular satellite orbiting the planet. “This is the Star Destroyer Marshall Awe, under the flag of Captain Breen Dreviss. He put in a call to his superiors about two weeks ago reporting that, somehow, an anti-Empire cell has sprung up on the planet, one strong enough to threaten the local government for control. He’d interdicted the spaceport and requested personnel experienced in these matters head in to investigate. The Empire sent in some of their crack Storm Commandos, and lost contact with them after less than a week. The intel they sent back suggested that the resistance cell has infiltrated right up to the governor’s office, but came up blank on names or faces.” He paused for a moment, allowing his next works to have the weight he thought they required. “Our job is fairly simple: go in, take out the head of the cell and whatever else we can, and then leave the rest to Dreviss and his men.”

“Why us?” Blade spoke up the moment T'ocs stopped, “The Empire isn’t exactly short on troops or agents, why tag a mercenary team for something that should be an internal affair?”

“I can’t answer that question, Blade. All I can say that is the message I received when I was contacted with the job implied that we were particularly well-qualified to take out the cell.”

Atto scoffed. “I know a dead ranat when I smell one, boss.”

“Me too, Atto. Believe me, I don’t like this any more than you do. Any of you. But I have a hard time believing that they would be afraid to toss in more of their own troops if they thought they would get them killed. There is something else going on here. What, I don’t know.”

“It’s more than just that, though, isn’t it?” Hanna said. Their positions were reversed; now she watched him closely. “If it were just that they were sending you… us, instead of going through normal channels, that’s not usually enough to raise suspicions. There’s something else you’re not telling us.”

“I was about to, Hanna.” T’ocs shut the hologram down and leaned forward, hands on the table and arms propping him upright, looking around into the eyes of all of his mercs. “There was something else in that message. The payment. They’re offering six hundred thousand credits to us, or one hundred thousand per being necessary to the completion of our objectives.”

The hold went dead silent. Every eye was on T’ocs, startled, wide, and suspicious.

“A hundred thousand apiece?” Ice asked in disbelief. “That’s over ten times the usual rate for a merc job.”

“That’s more money than we’ve ever made in one go, boss.” Atto said, “By a long shot.”

“Exactly, I know, that’s why I am suspicious. But it’s also why I do not think we can afford to pass this up.” T’ocs straightened up. “I will understand if some of you want to back out, to stay here on Empress Teta while we fly out. I still do not like going in with so little intel to go on. We might be walking into something where we wind up way over our heads. Just say the word, and no hard feelings. We will pick you up on the backend trip.” He leaned forward again, his voice a harsh and intense whisper. “But think for a moment how much you'll miss. A hundred thousand credits are more than one of us can make in a year. More Rim systems and governors are being annexed and appropriated as we speak, and the Empire is not giving out jobs like this every cycle. Eventually, we are going to be out of business. This mission will give all of us financial security for years to come if we play our cards right.”

“Won’t do us any good if we’re dead.” Ice noted.

“True.” T’ocs straightened up again. “Very true. Nevertheless, is this not a chance worth taking? We walk the line of death every day, what would one more mission be if it means we are able to quit this business one year, maybe even sooner than we hope? Or give us the clout to leave the Core behind and be the best merc unit in the Rim? Poor intel or not, there is nothing in this galaxy that one isolated Deep Core planet can throw at us I have not fought and killed before today. And I for one am willing to do whatever it takes to put that money in the bank.”

“Me too, boss.” Atto said, planting his hand on the table. “For that kinda money, I’ll follow you to Chaos’ gates and back.”

“Good, Atto. That’s one.” T’ocs looked at the faces assembled around the hold. “Anyone else?”

Ice stepped forward and put her hand on the table as well. “There's a trap here, T’ocs. You’ll need me.”

“Of course I will, Ice. I would rather have you running cover than any being out there.” T’ocs made eye contact with Blade, Trev and Hanna. “You three?”

Trev nodded, planting a firm hand on the table. “Oya mando'ade, T’ocs, let’s go for it.”

Blade sighed heavily, laying his thin, pale hand on the table’s edge. “I still think this is a bad idea. Nevertheless, I will not leave all of you to try on your own. You will need me on this mission as well.”

T’ocs gave his longest-lived and most experienced mercenary a curt, formal, but thoroughly grateful nod. Then he turned to Hanna. He saw her indecision, her hesitance, the fear and uncertainty in her eyes. Her bottom lip slid up between her teeth. Everything in her body language screamed her regrets at joining their team.

“What about you, ad’ika?” He asked, urging, but not gruff.

She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and shook her head. But she planted her hand on the table and said, “I'm in.”

“Having second thoughts?” Trev asked.

“Thirds and fourths.” She answered, looking at him. “But I’m not about to be the only one left behind on my first mission.”

“We could make you the pilot, cheeka.” Atto offered, “Usually I’m the one who gets stuck playing getaway driver. You at all good at flying a ship like this one?”

“I’ve logged fifty hours in fightercraft flight sims, and ten hours of shuttle sims.” She recited by rote. The others all looked incredulous or shocked, but T’ocs had seen her file, he knew she was telling the truth. However, that was not the whole story. “My actual flight time is inside of ten hours in small two-person airspeeders.”

T’ocs shook his head. “Not enough. Besides, this mission might take days, I’ll not leave you aboard by yourself for that long. Not on your first mission in a ship you’ve never flown before. Maybe next time, Atto.”

“Echuuta.” The Kiffar said, only half-joking.

“So what do I do, then?” Hanna asked.

“Well, we’ll probably be splitting off into recon teams while we’re on surface. We need to gather some more intel of our own before we just star shooting beings and demolishing buildings.” Trev looked at T’ocs for affirmation of his assessment, and upon receiving a nod, continued. “If Atto’s still the pilot, you’ll probably be put with T’ocs and me.”

“How come?”

“Well, you’re new, he’ll want to keep an eye on you.”

“I get that, but why you and not Blade or Ice?”

“Because they’re the two most experienced members of the team, they can be trusted to be self-sufficient.”

Blade fixed Trev with a blank stare. “That’s not a reason.”

Trev shrugged. “I thought it was.” He was blushing a bit, T’ocs noticed.

“This isn’t about you trying to spend time with the new girl, is it?” Ice asked him, “Because if it is, I’ll take her with me, and you can take Blade. Of everyone in this room, I think she would benefit the most from teaming up with me.”

“Agreed.” T’ocs said before anyone else could jump in, “Trev, you can get to know the new girl on the way over. Ice and Hanna are a recon team, Blade, Trev and I are the other team, and we’ll work out an exact assignment detail as we go. Speaking of which…” T’ocs checked his wrist comm controller again. “We have around a three day trip through the Deep Core to get to our rendezvous with the Marshall Awe. We are also making a stop along the way to pick up some more supplies; we have plenty of time to figure out who is going to do what.”

“How about the transit, boss?” Atto asked, “What’ll we do for three days while we just sit here?”

“Trev will outfit Hanna with whatever spare weapons and equipment we have. There will be plenty of time to work things over and have Trev make modifications if need be. Blade, you, Ice and I’ll work on a loose action plan for when we make planet side. As for you…”

“You want me to check the medical supplies, ammo and arms to see what we’ll need to pick up on our shopping trip.” Atto said with a carefree shrug. “Same as always.”

“No. I need you to show Hanna around the ship and familiarize both of you with the cockpit systems. Trev made some modifications, and I want to make sure we don’t have to wait for your sorry shebes on exfil when you’re having a hard time just finding the landing gear switch.”

Trev gave Atto a friendly smack across one shoulder, causing the Kiffar to swat his hand away.

“Anyway, we have plenty of time in transit but not a lot of time to get there. The Empire has a hard-deadline to meet. So let’s batten up and get set for the ride.” T’ocs motioned to Trev. “You head up front and get us warmed up, Trev, the coordinates for our shopping trip should be in the navcom. Hanna, you go with Atto to secure the hold and cargo, we’ll be making the first jump out pretty soon. Ice, Blade, stand by the weapons stations as per usual. Move out.”

The crew split off, Trev headed forward into the cockpit, while Ice and Blade headed to the two weapons stations built into the sides of the ship’s main hold. The two turrets they controlled, both heavy dual laser cannons stripped from an Imperial surplus project in years long gone by, were stationed outside on the hull and controlled via closed-circuit stations safe inside. They had been installed to protect the most vulnerable parts of the boxy wedge-nosed Loronar freighter: its virtually unprotected broadsides.
Loronars were not particularly fast, well protected, or well armed, but the Arbiter had been modified over the course of at least two decades by three different crews, gradually being transformed from a stock light freighter into a capable and deceptively quick battle gunship perfect for quick insertions and exfiltrations from combat zones.

Aside from the two turrets, the stock front-mounted laser cannon positioned under the wedge-shaped cockpit section had been stripped out and replaced with a rotary laser cannon array designed to work against infantry and lightly-armored vehicles. The decrease in firepower that created was made up for via an upgrade T’ocs had installed himself: forward and rear-facing proton torpedo launchers. Torpedoes were expensive, but putting one into the unshielded hull of a target, or through an armored bunker, created a satisfying deep-bodied explosion that was well worth the credits. Provided nothing inside it needed to be taken alive or intact. They were a worst-case scenario weapon only, but a potentially nasty surprise for any overly aggressive targets.

T’ocs paused on his way to the cockpit to watch Hanna and Atto. The latter was showing the former where all of the gear and other things were stowed in the hold when the ship went into a flight or combat situation. Everything in the hold was designed to be fully modular, able to change from a meeting room to a combat center to a troop deployment rack in seconds. The Kiffar pointed all of this out with his trademarked cheer and wit to Hanna, who absorbed it all with only the occasional question and nary a comment. She still seemed regretful. In fact, she looked as if she were trying not to be sick to her stomach.

T’ocs motioned to Atto, who made his way over to him and left Hanna working on folding the table back into the floor. T’ocs grabbed the Kiffar around the shoulders and pulled him close enough to whisper into his ear.

“She is already on the ropes with this mission as things stand. Now, I want you to play nice with her from here on out, or I’ll let her take out all of her frustrations on your body. And not in the nice way. Understand me?”

Atto looked at T’ocs sideways for a moment, a half-smile playing across his face, before he shrugged and said “Okay, boss, you’re the boss.”

T’ocs nodded. “Yes, I am. Now go get back to work before she pulls that panel off because you forgot to tell her about the latch.”

They looked over to where Hanna was trying to pull the half-open floor hatch open further, jerking and tugging to no avail. Atto grinned, a bit more sheepishly than before, and headed over to her. T’ocs shook his head and went into the cockpit.

Trev was already there, doing a last-minute check over all of his newly installed systems to make sure that nothing was wrong or out of place. The little tiff they had incurred upon launch from Empress Teta’s surface had put him into a rather please-you mood, eager to do everything right. T’ocs liked Trev; he was eager, enthusiastic and a good mechanic. The problem he had was that he was sometimes a bit too eager to please, as if disapproval somehow put him at risk of being cut from the team.
Trev had been fascinated with T’ocs ever since their first job together. It had been… stars, that long ago? Years before, when Trev hard barely been old enough to have a mechanic’s certifications in a dirty Rim shop that did not deserve him. The boy had been awestruck at the figure in full beskar’gam striding into the shop in search for a replacement part for the Arbiter’s main coolant line. A few days and some hours spent pouring over repairs later, and the boy was a part of the crew, eager and almost reckless in his naked desire to be Mando.

T’ocs knew better than to promote himself as a Mandalorian. His advertisement lay in efficient, reliable work, in experience and capability. But the fact that he had lived most of his life under the shadow of Mandalore, that he had been raised and trained by some of the most feared unaligned combatants in known space, was a fact that simply could not be kept at rest. Having that sort of pedigree gave a mercenary that extra competitive edge over so many other groups. He had a reputation even if his body of work was not known.

And Trev worshiped him for it. The boy, now a young man, had a hero fixation on anyone who wore Mandalorian armor, and the fact that he had become part of a crew led by one only encouraged him. T’ocs had nothing against the lad idolizing him or his culture, if anything he relished the idea of taking on an apprentice. But when it mean he hung on T’ocs’ every word and scrabbled for approval like an akk pup, it became more annoying than anything. Flattery only got most beings so far.

T’ocs moved forward into the pilot’s chair as Trev slid into the co-pilot spot. “Any contact?” He asked.

“Nothing.” Trev reported, still concentrated in checking over the ship’s systems. “We could call them and ask for clearance.”

“No. Procedure’s strict in this sector. We hold orbit until they contact us and tell us we can go on our way.” T’ocs ran a hand across his lower lip as he leaned back into his chair. He looked over at Trev. “What do you think about our mission, Trev?”

Trev stopped what he was doing, turned slowly and looked at him. He blinked. “I… thought we covered that in the briefing.”

“You agreed with my mission plan and you seemed enthused about going along to Ome. What I want now is your reasoning.”

Trev hesitated for a moment, still looking at the controls in front of him. Beyond, the starfield turned and shifted as the Arbiter’s orbit moved them from pole to pole, their course high above the planet’s surface to reduce even Cinnagar to a gray splotch of color on a pristine globe. The soft beeping and pinging of the consoles, along with the muted humming of the engine array, were the only ambient noises to be heard. The main hold was quiet, all preparations for hyperspace now at the ready and the crew at their stations.

“I think… I think it’s going to be rough.” Trev said, with far more frankness than T’ocs had expected. “I mean, going in like this, almost blind, we don’t know who we’re trying to kill, who’s going to try to kill us, we hardly know anything.”

“Indeed. But?”

“But, I feel like we can do it. We’re a good team, me, you, Ice, Atto, Blade. The new girl, Hanna… I think she’ll do fine. I feel like we can do it.”

“Why so confident in her all of a sudden? Before we’d even started this flight you seemed to doubt that she would live past the first few minutes of the mission.”

“It’s like you said, boss. We’ll let her decide for herself whether she’ll stick. We need to focus on the mission, not on patching up the weak part of the wire.”

“Hmm.” T’ocs watched the star field swirl and spin outside of the cockpit viewport. “So you are not attracted to her?”

“What?” Trev, who had been fiddling with a scanner readout, flinched back as if he were shot. “No, I… that’s not it.”

“Really? So you are attracted to her?”

“No, well, yes, I mean… she’s cute.”

“Cute.”

“Yeah. She’s got cute eyes, they’re a funny color.”

“And that’s all?”

Trev flushed. “Well, she isn’t exactly the prettiest girl, boss, I’m not that young and desperate.”

“Good. I would prefer that the two of you kept your distance anyway. We do not need the distraction or drama a teenage relationship would bring to the crew.”

“Don't worry about it, boss, I'll keep my mind on the job.” Trev poked a thumb back toward the hold. “I'd worry more about Atto.”

“He's just having fun the same way he does with the rest of you. He tries to figure out where the buttons are that he can push to get a reaction. I am more worried about Ice or Blade falling for her than that goof.”

“Seriously, boss, don't worry about it. This is too important to everyone for me to let something like a crush get in the way.”

“See you keep it that way.” The commlink squealed. “Here we are.” T'ocs bent forward and adjusted the comm frequency to match the incoming hail.

“Freighter Arbiter, your departure has been cleared by aerospace control and you are free to go.” The official-sounding and slightly listless voice of the ground-based controller squawked from the speaker. “Thank you for visiting Empress Teta and come back again soon.”

“I am sure we will, control. Arbiter out.” T'ocs flipped the switch on the commlink, switching from the external frequency to broadcasting over the ship's internal address system. “Everyone strap in, we have clearance. Hyperspace jump coming up in two minutes.”

Trev had increased throttle to the ship's main engines as T'ocs had been talking, and T'ocs, acknowledging his work with a nod, took the flight controls and piloted the Arbiter on a course that took them through the spacious ring of ships, stations and skyhooks around the planet and toward the deeper recesses of space.

“All our sensors are clear,” Trev reported, “Engines all green and good, hyperdrive responding nicely. All systems are go, boss.”

“All right, Trev. Plot me a course for Nuvve Ring Station, we'll make a final stop there for supplies and fuel on our way to our rendezvous with the Marshall Awe.”

Trev worked away with the navicomputer. Normally, plotting such a course was easy enough, simply putting in the two sets of the coordinates and letting the computer puzzle out the details based on its star charts. With both their starting point and their destination lying within the dangerous Deep Core sectors, where gravitational masses and anomalies were often clustered so closely together that stars went nova with almost clockwork regularity due to opposing forces ripping them apart, Trev needed to check and re-check the course the computer had plotted versus the latest shipping and transport courses they had pulled from Empress Teta's controller while they had been in dock. While none of them had a straight course from Empress Teta to the Nuvve Ring, from the spider's web of paths through space he was able to assemble a course that would be both safe and relatively fast, taking only a day or so out of the three they had originally anticipated.

“Course plotted, boss. A single jump should get us there.”

“Good. I hate long waits.” T'ocs let the mechanic feed the coordinates into the ship's course log, brought the Arbiter's nose around to line up with the direction they needed to depart from, and brought their throttle up toward its upper limits as they cleared Empress Teta's gravity well. “Stand by for hyperspace in five...four...three,” He took hold of the ship's hyperdrive control lever. “Two.” He brought the control down toward him. “One.”

The Arbiter's engines accelerated them forward, forward, faster than the speed of light, leaping across vast distances of space in an instant, their presence in the Empress Teta system gone in a flash and leaving nothing but a faint ion trail in their wake.

 

And they're off! I enjoyed the briefing, though I share the crew's reservations that there's more going on here than meets the eye. No doubt many adventures await them. It was nice to get a better sense of the crew as well; I feel like I learned more about them from their interactions here than in the previous chapter. Each character's approach to the mission was different, and gave a clearer picture of what sort of people they were. Great work!

Welp, that's one way to definitely ensure that the two younger folks will get together - tell 'em they "can't." Looking forward to what happens next!

 

Well, Trev was being truthful, he's not all that interested in Hanna aside from that "Oh, a girl who's not psycho!" phase. He has a crush on another member of the crew that's, needless to say, unrequited.

Also, this is the last of my pre-written chapters. I know where the story is going from here (since this is the second draft), but I still have to actually write it, so updates will be a bit more sporadic from here on out.

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Chapter Eight


Hanna had never seen so many guns. Every spare hatch and locker aboard the Arbiter had guns in them, most of them half-finished and missing essential parts, but enough of them complete to arm a mercenary group three times the size of the crew. The captain of the Arbiter obviously took pride in keeping them fully stocked and ready for any and all circumstances. She mentioned this thought to Atto as the Kiffar showed her all of the spare equipment they had and allowed her to choose her favorites.

“Eh, that's Trev. He's obsessed with tinkering, and most of the time he just picks scraps out of trash compactors, welds them together and calls it a blaster.” Atto shrugged with an easy smile. Despite their initial disagreement, he and Hanna got along nicely. “Most of us have our own weapons we don't let him touch unless they really break.”

“What sort of blaster do you usually carry, Atto?” Hanna pawed her way through a hard-shell case full of blaster pistols, looking for one that fit in her hand.

“I don't. In addition to my innumerable other skills, I'm the team medic, and it's hard to carry more than a hypospray and bandages. I'm really a pacifist, you see.”

She arched an eyebrow at him without saying anything for a moment. He nodded, face full of sincerity.

“A pacifist. You.”

“Yeah. I saw horrible things in my time on the Rim, beings blown into bloody chunks, kids getting their eyes ripped out, and now I try to respect all life. Of course that means I can't actually carry a blaster.”

“Really.”

“Yep.”

Hanna folded her arms across her chest and leaned back. “Really.”

Atto grinned. “Kark no, I'm the craziest of the whole team. Except Blade, since he's a knife nut. And Ice, she'll blow peoples' heads off with her sniper rifle. And Trev, since he's so obsessed with explosives. And the boss...”

Hanna rolled her eyes and sighed. “Okay, I get it. So what do you carry?”

“A grenade launcher.” Atto said with a smirk.

Hanna blinked. “A grenade launcher?”

“All I have to do is point and shoot. Quick and easy, and whatever I point it at tends to die pretty soon after.”

“So what do you recommend for me?”

“Well, if you're going to cover the bases, I'd say give you something that sprays a lot of light quick is our best bet. It won't matter how good a shot you are if you just hold the trigger down and wave the barrel in the general direction of the bad guys.” Atto pulled a large blaster rifle out of the locker. “It's not flashy, but a repeater like this one will mow through pretty much everything in your path.”

Hanna looked at it for a moment. The rifle was not too long, but it was massively broad and round, the barrel large enough to fit her entire hand inside. “It's too big. I don't want something that'll slow me down, I want to be able to move around.”

Atto shrugged. “Okay,” He put the rifle back and pulled out something else, an off-model blaster that had two grips, one on the front under the barrel and the other back by the trigger. “This is the next step down. It's lighter, quicker, doesn't give you nearly the bang the repeater does, but you can still spray light pretty far and fast.”

Hanna took the blaster and looked it over. It was not familiar to her at all, she had never seen any other blaster quite like it before. Though she was admittedly unfamiliar with most aftermarket blasters, the twin-grip configuration was completely alien in any class of weapon she had seen that was not a projectile launcher. “It this one of Trev's custom jobs?”

“Yep. He calls it the KRB, don't ask why. You can ask him how it works, I don't have the faintest idea.” Atto was digging into the locker again. “But, if you're going to go with that, you'll need some sort of backup weapon too. That's the thing about being able to spray a lot of light around: you use up charge packs pretty fast. And once you're empty, boom, next thing you know you've got a blaster in your face and the boss is looking for another replacement.”

“So, I'd need a sidearm, something smaller, for emergency use?”

“Or just another blaster.” Atto shrugged. “This isn't Imperial regulation, cheeka, you can carry whatever you think works best for you, no one's going to tell you not to.”

“Why do you keep calling me that?”

“What, cheeka? It's Huttese for woman, any reason I shouldn't call you that?”

Hanna rolled her eyes. “Fine.” She pulled another blaster out of the locker, a narrow-nosed model with a large scope on top. “A DC-17, I believe?”

“Yep. Good choice if you're looking for accuracy instead of straight killing power.” Atto looked at her. “Kinda wimpy, but perfect weapon for a girl I guess.”

Hanna glared at him.

Atto put his hands in the air between them as if warding off an incoming punch. “Okay, okay, it was a a cheap shot.”

“More like that and I'll start ripping those dreadlocks off your head one at a time.” She threatened.

Atto cowered, hands over his head. “Okay, okay! Chut chut! I take it all back! Just leave my precious locks alone!”

“Just because I'm a girl doesn't mean I can't feed you your own teeth.” Hanna proffered a fist in his direction. “Remember that next time you want to make cracks.”

Atto remained cowed, though a wry grin was visible under his arms. “Mercy, master! Mercy!”

“Okay, shut up, we're done.”

“Yes, ma'am.” Atto put his hands down, still grinning. “So, you've got your weapons, and that bodysuit has armor built in. All you need now is a look at the commlink gear we got.”

Hanna nodded, putting her new blasters to one side. “Headsets?”

“Yep.” Atto nodded toward a different equipment locker. “Go take a look in there and pick one out.”

Hanna went to the locker and opened the lid. Inside was a layer of foam padding with a number of little slots cut into it, each slot holding a commlink headset unlike any she had seen before. They were so small that they would fit onto the pan of a normal human ear, without the adjustable mic or any sort of headband to keep it in place. Hanna picked one out, they all looked the same to her, and examined it closer. It had a clip made of a softer material, a small speaker that fit into the ear canal, and a pair of buttons on the opposite side. There was no visible microphone or any sort of frequency control.

“This doesn't look like a commlink. It's just a speaker that clips onto your ear.”

“Yep.” Atto motioned her toward a wall locker. “Follow me, I'll explain just how brilliant our boss is.”

“Yes, please do.”

Atto led her to the locker along the forward wall of the hold, inputting a short combination as he spoke. “See, boss says there's nothing more important for a team of mercs like us is communications. For my part, I could care less about hearing everyone else whine, but he's the one with the creds, so...” The locker door swung open and Atto gestured toward its contents. “Here's his solution.”

“What... are they?”

Atto removed one of the eyepiece visors from its secured mount and held it up to show her. “Basically stripped-down helmet heads-up-displays. Infrared sensors, real-time environmental analysis and threat detection, and it links in with your communication equipment to allow instantaneous burst transmissions within most planetary hemispheres.”

“How expensive were they?” Hanna asked, taking the visor with great care in both hands, looking over its frame's dark metallic contours and display screen, black on the outside, bright blue on the inside. It was light, too, lighter than it looked. “Even the Stormtroopers don't have equipment like this.”

“Naw, too expensive for most Imp troops. They're expendable, we're not.” Atto closed the locker and turned back to her. “Put it on, I'll show you how it works.”

Hanna slid the visor over her head and tightened the strap in the back that held it in place. All she saw was a washed-out vision of the same room, walls and decking that she had seen before. Then the visor danced with lights as the display came to life, the image sharpening and outlines appearing over Atto and Trev, who was two rooms away working on something. Green colors indicated them both as “friendly”. A circular display in the top-right indicated where they and the other crew members were amidst the walls and hull of the Arbiter, giving her a top-down wireframe map of the whole ship.

“This is...” Hanna waved her hand in front of her face, watching as it lit up with the same friendly signal the grinning Atto was giving off. “Wow.”

“I know, right? Boss likes to spring for the good stuff.” Atto pointed to her upper right, where the map was in her display. “The visor has a floorplan of the Arbiter loaded in, so it gives you a map and scans it in real time to show you who's onboard and where they are. It can do the same thing with buildings after it's processed the space it's in.” He gestured to himself. “It tags me as a friend because it matched me with a profile it has, it'll do the same thing for the rest of the team and for Imperial soldiers. Anyone else will show up as gray, unknown, at least until they start blasting.”

“And it picks up people through walls thanks to its infrared sensors even if it doesn't know whether they're friendly or not, or even if it doesn't know the layout of the location.”

“Yep. It's pretty karking sweet. Things 've saved my life a few times, lighting up fools lurking in cabinets or 'round corners who think they're being sneaky. They have a pretty limited range, though, and they suck battery power worse 'n mynocks.” Atto took the visor off Hanna's head and turned to replace it in the locker. “Comms are pretty much useless without 'em, too.”

“You have backup commlinks in case those lose power, I hope?”

“Yeah, we usually buy a few cheap before each mission and toss 'em afterwards, saves time on encryption 'n stuff. We'll probably pick them up at our supply stop on the Nuvve Ring station.” Atto closed the locker and jerked a thumb toward one of the other corners of the hold. “I've got to check over the other supplies we need for the mission, if you've got any other questions or whatever, ask Trev.”

“Sure thing.”

Atto wandered away and Hanna was left by herself. She looked back at the locker that held the visors, running her hand along the cold, metal edge. She still had misgivings about this. She had never been this far away from Empress Teta before, and having to leave to go on a dangerous mission like this for people she had only just met made her stomach churn. How had it come to this? How had she gone from a promising career as an Imperial soldier to being a hired gun?

She was the youngest member of the crew, the tag-along kid the boss had only just broad aboard, and only then for his own reasons he did not feel he needed to explain to anyone else beyond having some odd faith in Hanna and her abilities and potential. Atto was nice about it, but there was no telling what his kindness was based in. The others seemed more distant and cold. None of them really expected her to stick around, it seemed. Or to survive.

It was a challenge. Hanna liked challenges. The issue was, she did not like taking on challenges that were extraneous or unnecessary. And this whole mission reeked of being unnecessary to her.

She went forward to the larger hold where she had first met the crew. Trev was still there, it seemed to serve him as a workshop more than a storage area of any sort. He had taken a moment while the ship was in transit to catalog all of his equipment, as it was spread across the room in neat columns and rows, sorted by type, size, even color. As messy as such an activity might be, Trev was nothing if not organized.

Hanna leaned against the doorframe for a moment and watched him work. Trev was slim with thin hands, brown eyes under blond brows scanning through each section of parts and pieces of parts for something or other. He was clean-shaven, he looked too young to have ever dealt with facial hair, and had a rather softly-lined face. He did not look all that much older than Hanna was, in fact. But, then, looks could be deceiving, and with as scrawny as he was, he probably looked younger than his age.

“Sorting through everything?”

Trev looked up when she spoke, but only for a moment. “Yeah. Every time I get new parts I organize everything to make sure it's all in the right place.”

“The others mess it up, then?”

“No, not really. I just want to make sure the new things are in the right places.” He glanced up at her again. “Atto found you some weapons, I guess?”

“Yeah, we discussed them and he gave me a couple he thought fit my style.”

“Hmm. Is that my KRB?”

“Mmhm.”

“Shiny. Want to see how it works?”

Hanna stepped into the room and handed it to him. “Sure.”

Trev took the weapon and started working its various bits and levers, taking out the energy clip and showing it to her. “It uses standard E-11 power packs, so you'll find extra rounds just about anywhere. Fire selection and safety are here on the right side, clip release is here on the left.” He grabbed the rear of the blaster, depressed a lever, and pulled the stock out a few extra centimeters. “Extendable stock if you want that extra bit of accuracy, retracts when you need to run and gun. Selector goes to single shot and full auto, but I'd advise against the latter, it eats power pretty fast.” He slapped the power pack back in and handed it back to Hanna. “It's rated just below an E-11 power-wise, so it'll blow through Stormtrooper armor at pretty much any range except max, which is around three hundred meters or so.”

“How'd you recommend I use it?” Hanna said, hefting it in her hands. “Spray and pray?”

“Eh, you could do that. It's a versatile little gun, not my best work, it'll do whatever you want short of sniping.”

“Good enough.” Hanna tucked the blaster up over her shoulder and placed it against her back, where the magnets in the back of her armored jumpsuit kept it in place. Then she folded her arms and looked at Trev again, before he could return to his work. “Can I ask another question?”

“Sure.”

“When T'ocs laid the mission out for us and asked if we wanted to go, you said oya mando'ade when you put your hand on the table. What is that? It's not Huttese, is it?”

“No, it's Mandalorian. It means let's hunt, Mandolorians.”

Hanna scrunched her face up. “Wait. Mandalorian? Like, the guys with the weird helmets who fight for a living?”

“Pretty much.” Trev looked bashful for a moment, glancing toward the portal that lead to the cockpit before continuing. “T'ocs is a Mandalorian, or at least he was. He's taught me a bit about what they're like, the language, the planet, things like that.”

“Why? I mean, they're just guys in helmets, right?”

“No, no, there's a whole culture, a language, everything like that. It's just... not a lot of them are around anymore.”

“Yeah, well, when your whole thing as a culture is being fighters, a lot of people tend to kill each other.”

Trev gave her a look that spoke of unvoiced disagreements, but said nothing. Instead, he went back to his spot and started working again on getting his parts sorted out. Hanna sighed, rolled her eyes, and retreated toward the rear of the ship. She wanted to go over her choice of armament with Ice, get the older woman's opinion before they reached the space station for supplies.

She filed the information about T'ocs away. Maybe it would be useful later, maybe it would never come up. Or maybe it would just help her to put the picture of her new employer together. What sort of man he was, what had turned him into the enigma he presented himself as. And she made a mental note to do more research into Mandalorians.

 

I enjoyed Hanna and Atto's exchange, especially when he tried to mess with her head. I like that guy. Her talk with Trev was interesting as well; I expected Trev to offer some more argument when Hanna dismissed the Mandos, but maybe that's just not the kind of guy he is.

Looking forward to the mission!

 

Enjoyed the interactions with Atto and Trev. The equipment - weapons and visors etc. seems top of the line.