A Tale from Cloud City, Asilay, and Beyond: Salute

This tale served as a stopping point for a while as real life caught up to the real-life group. It brought back some old PCs who hadn't played in a while and introduced some status quo changes.

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*“It begins in a bar…”*

“It always begins in a bar.”

#### **“Three…”**

The glasses carried by the barmaid clinked when the drunk man stood in front of her. “I mean, tell me honestly, we dated once, right? Is it Zarella? Rabella? What I’m saying is that when I look into your eyes,” the tall, sweaty, dark-skinned human was already slurring his words, “I see passion. And I have to know - are you feeling this too?” He smiled a crooked smile.

“Oh ixtar,” she responded; crinkling her nose and frowning.

“I’m new here,” he said. “Is that a good expression or a bad one?”

On the other side of the bar, Blaine Hansom was cheating at cards.

“I’m not cheating, Theek. I’m just that good.” He cast a glance at the Zabrak behind him, who was wearing a large hat, covering his cyborg implants. Then he looked at the Wookiee growling at his side. “Right, Tal? I don’t think Theek really meant to insult us. Am I right, Theek?”

Theek, an overweight Rodian, threw down his cards, mumbled something about the refresher, and left the table. Blaine leaned in and scooped up the credits in his arms and kissed the pile. “I’m going to buy a lot of lum with you.” He suddenly realized he was in mixed company - Reenia Har, a red-skinned Twi’lek cleared her throat. “I mean, I’m going to give this to diseased orphans.” Clearing his throat, he looked around the bar for their friend they had walked in with. “Where is Barrett and those drinks, anyway?”

Blaine Hansom, the 283rd Baron-Administrator of Cloud City owned more than one casino on the floating metropolis but when he wanted to play sabacc, he usually came to Port Town. Although many previous Baron-Administers avoided seedy places like this - be it a fear of diminished prestige or of a sharp vibroblade - for Blaine Hansom, neither of those two things bothered him.

First, he knew that stories of how he took the title of Baron were told and retold not only in places like this, but also by upper-class businessmen like the Executive council. Even though he has had numerous bounties, arrest warrants, and a somewhat seedy, and definitely low birth past, Blaine had slowly realized that nothing is more damaging to a man’s reputation than stabbing a Hutt in the eye, and then slicing his neck open with a large sword. That was a thing you can’t undo.

Second, Blaine Hansom travelled with some of the most feared men in the galaxy. If his constant companion, a large Wookiee didn’t scare most, it was the presence of both the legendary mercenary Bota Zi and the Jedi Genos Ia’danian. Bota Zi had been his partner for nearly a decade and the old Mandalorian had gone toe to toe with the best of them, even Boba Fett. Genos Ia’danian had joined their group years ago and in that time had learned to wield a lightsaber with such a skillful hand that it was rumored that he had been trained by Master Skywalker himself. He had.

For Blaine Hansom, he didn’t worry about his reputation, but he did want the respect of a populace and community he had put so much effort and devotion into in his year and half as Baron.

At least when Elayne was around, the people loved her. Smart, funny, beautiful and -

“What’s going through your mind?” Reenia asked Blaine, pulling him out of his thoughts. She put his hand on his leg.

“Nothing,” he said with a smile. “Nothing at all.” Blaine looked around. “Let’s get the crew together and get out of this bar.” He wrapped his arm around Reenia and she kissed him on the cheek.

It had been a few weeks since The Dauntless had returned back to Cloud City for crew re-organization and training, emergency repairs and last-second modifications. The TIE racks on the hangar were proving to be especially annoying for the technicians. Individually, each member of the tech crew was pretty competent, but together it seemed like they couldn’t get anything right. Composed of members of The Crimson Oath Squadron, an angry Wookiee, a contingent of Bespin Motor Works technicians, random pirates… the list of delays continued to grow. And so did their leader, Bota Zi’s impatience.

Bota Zi earned his name with the Rebel Alliance. He emerged from out of nowhere around the time of the Battle of Yavin, confused about his past and looking for work from the Rebels. In his first mission, he was partnered up with the younger Blaine Hansom and from there they left their distinct mark on the galaxy together. Fearless; they attacked warships, killed Imperials, stole property, and blew things up – from Star Destroyers to the Imperial Bounty Hunter Guild Headquarters on Coruscant, to Imperial bases. They had even helped liberate planets like Kashyyyk and Caladon to the New Republic. He always wore his Mandalorian armor and wielded a large repeating blaster cannon; Bota Zi was feared for his tenaciousness and his cold-heartedness.

But today, he was tired.

Bota Zi wasn’t wearing his helmet today. His once-brown hair was fading to white and his bionic eye was glowing red as he surveyed the progress in the hangar from a causeway. Looking down, he saw a few familiar faces. Dashiva, his captain, was down on the floor making sure the work was being done right. He also saw Lunnis, a female bounty hunter that had showed up recently, alongside Zuckuss.

“Zuckuss?” Bota said aloud. He hadn’t seen Zuckuss since he had found out that 4-LOM had sabotaged The New Republic Bounty Hunter’s Guild and ran off with The Hunter’s Tribunal – a ship that was technically owned by The New Republic and loaned to Bota, but Bota had felt for a long time that it was rightfully his. “No one steals from Bota Zi,” he said and raced down the causeway to approach Zuckuss. Bota Zi knew that the Gand wouldn’t be here without some information on The Hunter’s Tribunal.

Bota Zi cleared his throat. “Now that we’re all here we can begin.” He was standing in what was The Dauntless’ war room: a large circular room centered around a holo-projector and a small podium. There were a lot of eyes on Bota Zi. Seated were Blaine Hansom and Reenia, Tal and Tek Krodak, Barrett - a mercenary friend of Genos and Blaine, Dashiva and Lunnis, Jack Cronn, and Genos Ia’danian. A few others were there, but Bota took no notice of them. “Zuckuss, will you start.”

He nodded. “Everyone knows what happened aboard the The Hunter’s Tribunal.”

“Yeah, your friend went berserk and tried to kill us,” Jack shouted.

“That’s not Zuckuss’ fault,” Zuckuss replied. “He attacked Zuckuss as well.”

Bota Zi motioned for the alien Bounty Hunter to continue. Zuckuss inserted a datachip into the holo-projector. A gaseous planet appeared, and he motioned to a close-up of the atmosphere. “Look carefully,” he continued. “There’s something familiar here.”

In the planet’s atmosphere, an outline of a familiar Corellian oreship could be seen.  Zuckuss isolated the image and zoomed in on the vessel. A rectangular section was missing from the hull – it was the custom docking bay installed by the New Republic.

“That’s my ship!” Bota roared. He felt his blood rush to his head. 4-LOM’s betrayal happened in his absence and the loss of the ship also had meant the loss of many of his other possessions aboard the oreship when it was stolen; his light freighter, his vehicles and a little black ship he had an odd obsession with. “I want that little black ship if I have to kill of you to get to it.”

“What’d you say?” Zuckuss asked.

“That’s my ship,” Bota repeated. “And I’m going to get it. If you’re not coming with me, get the sith off right now.”

Dashiva was the first to speak up: “The repairs aren’t complete yet and our new XO isn’t done getting the crew settled into their new roles – if we wait a few days, maybe a week…”

“No,” Bota said. “I’m leaving in three standard hours. Make the preparations.”

With that, the meeting was over and Blaine caught up to Bota as he left the room.

“That was a great meeting. I’ll try it with the Exex next time, only I’ll get a loud speaker and yell at them in a room. I think the results will be the same.” Blaine said.

Bota looked angry, then softened. “Look,” he said and backed over to a door. He opened it leaned over the same causeway that looked over the hangar. “It’s been a rough… year for me.”

Blaine leaned over the causeway as well. “It’s always rough for the group. Fighting Imperials, getting shot, aiding the Republic…”

“No, I mean with Boama. And missing a whole year. One day I’m fighting Bota Fett and the next I’m  floating around in space with a pregnant ‘wife.’ I’ve been avoiding her the last few days, it’s just too much right now. I’ve got my ship fixed with a stable crew. I’m just about to use this vessel like it was meant for.”

“You know, it was a pretty hard year for me too,” Blaine said. “I mean I really thought all of you were dead. I built that memorial on Cloud City. I didn’t know what to do with myself so I put all this effort into the city. There were days where I just didn’t do anything. Elayne would really try to help back then.”

Bota looked up. “What really happened to her? And what’s going on with Reenia?”

“I don’t even know – I still miss Elayne and even Reenia knows that. She said that after losing a year, she didn’t want to lose out on anything else. I’m not sure what’s happening… but Elayne, she left on her own. One day she was just gone. It was pretty rough and I kept expecting her to just to show up one day, but a few months later you guys came back instead.”

“I’m glad we did, but… Oh Sith!” Bota saw Boama walking towards them.

“Well, I’ll leave to two alone. You guys can talk about what color room the baby’s going to have or whatever they do in Asilay.”

“Bastard.” Bota turned to Boama with his arms open. “Well here comes the little beauty herself.” Boama was not smiling.

“It’s good to see you again, Blaine.” Barrett said, sitting down inside The Jinxed Starhawk. Blaine had set her down in The Dauntless a few hours after talking to Bota Zi, but couldn’t bring himself to leave the ship. Barrett had let himself in. “Where’s Tal?”

“I sent him to help with the repairs,” Blaine said, swinging around in his chair and resting his feet on the console. “He’s gotten a lot better with starships and tools over the last few years. How’s your new arm?”

Barrett looked up from his recently-replaced arm. “You know, I really appreciate you setting me up with a new one, especially from a cyborg heaven like Cloud City. You know, even after all this time…”

“It’s been what? Four standard years? It doesn’t even feel like that long ago when we recruited you or even when you left with Platt when you found your daughter was still alive.” Blaine scratched his head. “Whatever happened with you two?”

Barrett laughed. “She really just wanted to make sure I was actually going to try to raise her. I mean, she flew us home and stayed a few days then left after she decided I was going to be an okay father after all.”

“Where’s your daughter now?”

“I don’t know,” he said and laughed. “I’m kidding, I’m kidding, she’s at home with family.”

Blaine laughed too, glad to be around his friend again. Barrett’s presence bothered him though – it reminded him of all the people he had once worked with and now, those people were either dead or on the other side of the galaxy. Like Elayne.

“So, pal,” began Barrett, “How’s the love life?”

Blaine looked up. “Uh, hey- let’s go find Genos. Where’s that guy been lately?”

“Did I tell you I got the key to that bartender’s quarters? From the bar earlier?” He showed Blaine a small pad.

“It says here: Property of Ugloste.”

“I think that’s her name.”

“Somehow, I really doubt that,” Blaine tossed it back to a confused Barrett. “Let’s see if we’re ready to leave. Maybe we can find a group for sabacc.”

Barrett got up. “What does Ugloste mean? Blaine?” He rushed to catch up, and breathless he asked, “It doesn’t mean she was born a man, does it? Because I’m totally cool with that.”

It was actually three standard hours, 46 minutes, and 54 seconds before The Dauntless actually left Bespin. Bota Zi and Booama were discussing with Dashiva, the Captain, and Zuckuss what kind of attack they could manage to repel and how they claim the prize, his old ship, without damaging it too badly. “I always said that 4-LOM was overworked and underpaid.” Bota mumbled.

In the crew’s quarters, Blaine had just lost an Artoo droid, one of many he had in pieces on his ship, and won several cases of Corellian brandy that had been smuggled aboard. Tal was by his side, trying to get him from drinking too much of it.

Tek was still running over diagnostics on the ship with several of the other technicians. The state of the ship wasn’t very good- if there was a firefight coming up, he wasn’t sure that The Dauntless would be fully ready.

Barrett was in a bunk with another member of the crew, who had just finished her day shift. He shifted under the covers, thinking of ‘Ugloste.’ “She was a hot woman… or man,” he thought to himself.

Genos had been looking over the Crimson Oath squadron’s files. They were restless. He was restless. He closed his eyes, leaning back in his chair, imagining that a Super Star Destroyer was awaiting them. “I wish that this all just a trap,” he said before falling to sleep. “We don’t fight nearly enough Imperials anymore.”

Back on Cloud City, a sleek vessel, one that would befit a Queen anywhere, had just received emergency landing clearance. On the docking pad, Lobot was there to greet the visitor.

“I’m looking for Blaine, where is he?” The visitor lowered her plush hood to reveal long, flowing blonde hair. “I need to see him right away.”

Lobot looked her with a grim face.

“He’s not here, is he?” She walked towards the guards who led her down a few hallways and to a guest room. Her emergency was going to have to wait until he arrived home.

Their trip through hyperspace was much longer than Blaine was used to. His personal ship, the Jinxed Starhawk was exceedingly fast; boasting a lightspeed multiplier that was twice as fast just as Imperial or New Republic military ships. In fact, Blaine would regularly boast that his ship was better looking and faster than General Han Solo’s ship. For Blaine, the Dauntless was crawling through Hyperspace.

He sat back in his chair, in his ship docked in the hangar, realizing the irony of being aboard his ship but still travelling the same speed as everyone else. He looked at the ceiling and counted the things he could still do.

*Play sabacc? No, he had already gotten an undeserved (deserved) reputation for cheating. He doubted he would be making anymore money out of this flight.*

*Fix the Starhawk. At one point in his life, he would’ve been fixing this ship the entire time, only to have the hyperdrive blow out or the reverse axis vent lock up next time they were in space… but now, his ship’s well-taken care of. He’s has the credits and Tal’s got the time on Cloud City to make sure that it gets the attention and maintenance it needs.*

*Spend time with Reenia.*

Blaine moved in his seat, agitated at the idea.

*Write a letter to Zephyr and Paalvash on Tatooine.* First good idea he’s had. Blaine started to move towards his console when he heard footsteps on the entry ramp. His muscles immediately tightened up.

It was Tek and Jack.

“Thank you,” he whispered. He held his hand out to them. “How’re you two doing?”

“Fine,” answered Tek. “I’ve been running some numbers up about Cloud City’s waste management system and I think we can really save some credits here.”

“Uh, okay.” Blaine Hansom, the Baron-Administrator of the floating Tibanna Colony on Bespin was hoping this trip would serve as a vacation away from his duties. He rubbed his temples. “Isn’t it just a series of chutes that drop trash down onto the planet?”

“I’ll vouch for that,” said Jack, raising a long, blue hand. “I dropped this rabid duck in one once. All I heard was noises and scratches until it was gone.” He laughed. “I can imagine it landing on a Cloud Car.”

Tek looked confused and angry. “What’s a duck?”

Genos used the time to drill his team of pilots. “Pilots,” he mumbled. “They’ve barely even seen any action yet.” He knew that his old masters, Dask Ra’tava and Luke Skywalker would both reproach him for such thoughts, but right now he didn’t care. It seems like they used to fly all the time. It seems like every week they were fighting with the Empire. Him, Blaine, Barrett, Holla, Siv, Tal, Bota… Now that was a team. Together, they really made an impact against the Empire. Just what was he doing here? Training a team of pilots that instead of attacking the Empire would lose their credits to Blaine in a sabacc game tonight?

“Captain Ia’danian, sir,” said a voice. Genos turned and saw one of his newer recruits. It was Cynna, the dark curly-haired fellow Kuati.

“Yes, Al’tianni?”

“Chid and I are going to go through try to push the shields to output 5% more using this…” She handed him a datapad. She was not an engineer and it made him wonder why it was her approaching him with this information. “The modifications will be done before we arrive. Do I have your permission, sir?”

Genos frowned. “I can’t have all the ships experimented on right now. These specs look good, but if we’re going to enter potentially hostile territory I can’t have anything go wrong. Try it first on a single ship and after this week, we’ll know whether it to implement it on the entire Crimson Oath Squadron.”

“I understand, Sir,” she said. “Will you survey the progress when it’s ready?”

Genos answered in Old Kuati, “Valu.”

She smiled. It meant of course.

Zuckuss looked nervously out the viewscreen on the Dauntless’ bridge. He needed the ship to still be there, otherwise he knew he would be ruined if it wasn’t. Bota would tear him apart and he was penniless right now and had barely made it to Cloud City. He leaned closer, scanning with his bulbous eyes.

“It’s here, Sir,” piped up a comm officer. “It’s in the orbit of the planet in front of us.”

Bota jumped out his seat. “Give me two dozen officers, call up Blaine, Genos and Barrett. We’ll need Tek to handle the systems…”

“Bota…” Booama said softly. Bota was too excited to notice.

“I’m going to put a new power pack in my baby and blast that 4-LOM to hell.”

“Bota…”

“No other ships, huh? Great. Uh, don’t mark this finding under our claimed prizes yet officer. Not until I tell you to, which will probably be never, this is my ship and now-”

“Bota Zi, I’m in labor!” Booama grabbed her chair and was breathing heavily.

“Ah, metaphorically? Like this ship’s our baby and we’re getting it now or-”

“I’m about to push our baby through my frivvlua!”

“What, uh…” He was confused. “Where are you having our baby through?”

It would be only a few minutes later when Bota Zi would sit in the Captain’s chair piloting one of his shuttles to Asilay, where Booama could give birth to their child. While she screamed in pain, he wondered how it was that he could go from overwhelmingly happy to completely terrified in a matter of seconds.

Genos, Tek, Tal, Zuckuss, Reenia and Barrett all sat in The Jinxed Starhawk in silence together as they flew towards the floating ship.

Tek was the first to break the silence. He cleared his throat, “Have you guys ever seen someone so mad at their wife for going into labor before?”

Tal said something about Barret.

“Wookiee, you don’t even know my parents!”

“Barett, you don’t have a blaster for an arm anymore.” Blaine said.

“Right…” Barret said slowly as he lowered his arm.

“Let’s just survey the wreckage first,” said Genos. He flipped on his comm. “Michmas take the first flight past 8 klicks 0400, Kish take your flight and scan the wreckage – maybe we missed something. Cynna, follow us in.”

“Look at this leader,” Barret said. “When I first met you, you just hated aliens and had a really bad haircut.”

“Didn’t you once drug a girl at a bar?”

“What?” Barret looked upset. “That was like a month after you knew me.”

“I’m going to throw up,” Reenia looked angry.

Blaine spoke up, “Barret, that story is hardly appropriate for, uh, mixed company.”

“What do you mean? I didn’t even mention I sold her to someone else that night.”

Reenia heaved.

“She was a bounty we were after!” Barett exclaimed.

“I’m really glad I didn’t hang around you guys back then,” said Tek. “I mean, really glad.”

The group quickly found out that The Hunter’s Tribunal was in terrible shape. Moving their way down The Jinxed Starhawk’s causeway and into the Docking Bay of the listing ship, the saw scorch marks on the walls, starships overturned and in disrepair, and scattered pieces of what must’ve been the rooms above them, now fallen to the floor below them. Pipes were emitting gases and the entire ship smelled terrible.

“I’m almost glad Bota left,” said Blaine, covering his mouth with the arm of his trench coat. “He would’ve exploded if he saw this mess.”

“Remember, you owe me 10,000 creds if it’s a boy.”

Blaine looked at Barret and rolled his eyes. “Yeah, fine. Let’s focus on the ship right now. Tek,” Blaine looked over at the Zabrak, “see what you can do with the computer.”

“There’s something about being here…” said Genos, looking around. “Something’s not right, there’s something very dangerous about being here.”

“Oh Sith, count me out,” said Jack. “I’ll be monitoring your progress from The Starhawk.”

Genos laughed, “Gotcha. That always works – we’re fine. Let’s see if find out what happened to 4-LOM.”

Walking through the ship evoked different emotions for both Blaine and Genos. Blaine and Tal had been held hostage when The Dauntless was frozen in time for a year, and for them the return to battered ship brought back memories of that last year and everything that had changed since. Genos, on the other hand, felt like he had only last stepped foot from here a few months ago. To him, it reminded him of how he felt robbed: he had missed the recapture of Coruscant, he had missed the destruction of Warlord Zinsj, he had missed Rogue Squadron’s return; he had missed very important opportunities to hurt the Empire.

But Genos really was feeling something through the Force by being here, something that made his frustration go away, he had a feeling of welcoming flowing towards him. He had never felt something like this and since he had no idea what it was, didn’t feel particularly inclined to share it with the group.

“Tek, see if you can get some power to the lifts,” Blaine said. “Genos, you feeling anything?”

“Um… No,” Genos shook his head.

When they got to the control room, Tek opened the doors, revealing flashing computer screens and the head of 4-LOM mounted on the central command unit.

“That’s just nasty,” Barret said.

Clicking on his comlink, Blaine reported back to Reenia, who had stayed back with Jack. “We’ve found 4-LOM. Ah, I’ll let you know when we’ve found more.”

Zuckuss chirped, indicating that he could work on 4-LOM, while Tek and Tal assumed responsibility for getting the ship online.

“Tell The Dauntless to send repair and survey crews over,” Blaine said to Reenia. “We’ve got a lot of work to do on this ship.”

Genos really had every intention to repair, defend, and reclaim The Hunter’s Tribunal when he came along for this mission, but while he was standing in the control room, he turned and slipped out into the hallway. He had sensed something different in the Force and it was something that he was going to have to solve himself. Not one of these people here had any leanings towards the Force and the ones that they had known were either dead now or too poorly trained to be of any help in these situations.

He turned off his comlink and got into his modified TIE Interceptor.

Genos grinned and for a second, he saw his reflection in the canopy. It was him, but he had paler skin, lines under his eyes, and red pupils. He had looked that way once… and if he strayed too far again, then this image would be his future.

“If it happens, it happens,” he said to himself and piloted his spacecraft out of The Hunter’s Tribunal’s docking bay and into the atmosphere of the planet below him.

It took Tek and Tal a total of forty standard minutes to restore power. Zuckuss had 4-LOM reassembled but deactivated; Tek uploaded his memories for review into his cyborg implant. Tal and the repair crew had the ship reactivated with all necessary systems online for it to limp to a nearby planet. It would take another ten standard minutes after a thorough round of celebrations and cheers when the engines powered up to realize Genos was missing.

Genos dipped into the thick, churning gas that consisted of whatever-this-planet’s-called, Ord something’s atmosphere. *Ord Regalius? Ord Mantrico?* Genos couldn’t remember. *Ord Gallowell?*

“That doesn’t even make sense,” he said to himself. “Gallowell was the name of the station on Kuat…” He flashed back to his childhood on Kuat. “How different everything is now.”

His lights flashed red.

“Stupid,” he mumbled to himself. He hadn’t been paying attention and he was flying into a volatile gas giant, which could have a number of obstacles for his little ship – and where was he going anyways? Genos shook his head, flipped the indicator switch, and set aside power to the sensors.

“Something’s out here,” he said underneath his flight mask. “Where are you?”

“Where is Genos, anyways?” Blaine asked, far above the gaseous surface of the planet’s atmosphere. “He was here one minute ago.”

Reenia smiled at Blaine. “I’m sure he can handle himself, wherever he is.”

“I’ve got it,” Tek said. He had a thick cord from his implant plugged into a computer. “This is what really happened to The Hunter’s Tribunal.”

In front of the group and repair crew, Tek projected a scene from 4-LOM’s memory. “It looks like,” Blaine uncomfortably noticed that Tek’s voice was oddly coming from ship’s comsystem and not his lips, “that the reason he was able to hijack the ship by uploading a modified copy of his programming into the ship’s core programming. Look at what happened.”

The images projected were of 4-LOM, armed with two blasters attacking parts of the ship. He was blasting doors and control panels and… it looked as if the ship was attacking back. Security measures were raised against him, gravity turned off in rooms he was moving through, magnetic seals realigned to stop him.

“It looks like the galaxy’s only big enough for one 4-LOM, huh?” The remark, which should’ve been a joke, fell upon deaf ears because the next scene showed a massive ship coming out of hyperspace and tractoring the ship. The feed cut just after that.

“Was that a Super Star Destroyer?” Jack asked.

“Yes, it was,” Blaine answered slowly.

“Then why did it drag it here?”

“I have no idea,” Blaine said, his hand moving to his comlink. “This is Blaine Hansom, Dashiva get the shields up. We’re on red alert now and if we can’t move this thing in the next ten minutes I’m going to abandon this salvage mission.”

“I’ll see what we can do,” Tek said. The crew, who were hushed silent a moment earlier were loud and rushing around the ship; nervous and scared.

“Someone,” Blaine was shouting now, “find Genos, his com’s off!”

But Genos had already found something himself, miles below on the planet’s atmosphere. He pulled his ship into the large unshielded docking bay. It was a ship, but it didn’t show up on his sensors and it didn’t feel or look right… even more reason for him to be there, he thought.

He pulled himself out the cockpit, leaving his piloting mask behind. Dropping to the floor, he recognized the design as Imperial. “Fitting,” he said. “I’m still in the pilot’s uniform.”

After he found most of the computers dead, he started working his way up the decks – something almost impossible with the turbolifts inoperable. There was a dead silence about this place; he could feel like it was once something powerful, meaningful, and now it was just waiting for that moment again. He could sympathize.

Finally, brutally, after what seemed like hours, he made it to the control room. In the room stood a man.

“You’re Genos Ia’danian,” He said through a thick accent. He held out a hand. “I’m Boudico Leeds, the single crewman and captain of this vessel and I’ve got a proposition for you.”

Genos looked at the man. He was tall, broad-shouldered, with hard scarred features, and a nearly shaved head. He had a lightsaber at his belt. For once, he was glad Blaine or Barret wasn’t around to make a joke out of what the last thing this man had said to him.

Genos took his hand. “I am. Let me hear it.”

“All right, we’re almost ready,” Tek was saying. “I can get this thing clear of orbit and into hyperspace headed for Bespin now.” No one was answering him. Lying on his back, wires covering him, he was completing the last of the repairs. “Or I can set the coordinates to Mon Cal.”

More silence.

“Coruscant? Kuat? Corellia? Any of these sound nice?”

Reenia looked at him wide-eyed.

“You can’t hate all those places.”

“No,” she said, “look.”

He stood up to see the triangular shape of a Super Star Destroyer pull itself out of the red gases of the planet below them and onto an intercepting trajectory.

“Engines at full!” Blaine shouted. “I won’t be outmaneuvered by a Super Star Destroyer!”

Tal roared something.

“Well then, put it on screen – but first everyone get into positions that make you look like you know what you’re doing. I want it to look like we’ve got it together.”

The screen flickered and revealed an image of Genos.

“So we’ve already captured it, then?” Blaine asked, smirking to cover up his surprise.

“I think that you should come over here and bring the group.”

“Reinforcements are coming,” Blaine said. He knew that whatever it was, he wasn’t going to need his blaster or his sword.

“You can’t seriously trust him,” Blaine said to Genos after he had come aboard the vessel and heard Leeds’ offer firsthand.

“Ey, I’m still right ‘ere,” Leeds said, angrily.

“Trust isn’t the issue here,” Genos said, shaking his head. “It’s about finally putting myself in a place where I belong, where I can do the most good. Maybe I was meant to partner up with you and Bota for awhile… to learn about the Galaxy and meet Dask.”

Blaine and Genos shared a pained expression on their faces when the deceased Jedi Master Dask was mentioned.

“But,” Genos continued. “I feel I should be here now. The Force is telling me something.”

“Don’t tell me that pile of Sith-Spat,” Blaine argued. “The Force…” He said it as if he couldn’t believe it. “People use it to their own end, to further their own agendas. The universe would be better off without it.”

“Is he havin’ a laugh?” Asked Leeds.

“I’m sorry this had to happen this way, Blaine.” Genos said. “Tell everyone, Bota too, that I apologize. Make up some story about where I went - you’re great that.”

“I’m sorry about this too.” Blaine said. He looked at Leeds. “I can tell a con man when I see one because I’m a con man myself. I don’t think you’re a con man, but if you are I’ll kill you.”

Leeds ignited his Lightsaber. “Big talk for a man so small in the Force.”

Blaine smirked. “Try it.”

At once, Genos pulled out his saber and blocked Leeds. “I’m partnering with you, but if you raise your weapon to one of my friends again, you’ll find out who’s the biggest in the Force.”

A smile slowly came over Leeds’ hard face.

The repair crew successfully managed to finish their repairs by the time Blaine returned. Although the original plan had been for Blaine, Bota, Genos and the rest to continue on their privateering after salvaging The Hunter’s Tribunal, Blaine Hansom wasn’t to play Bota’s part of the single-minded General. “We did what we came for,” he said to Dashiva, the ship’s captain. “Let’s guide The Hunter’s Tribunal to a repair bay and you can take this ship to Bota on Asilay. I’m going to rendezvous with you later.” He saw Dashiva’s questioning look. “I’ve got some important business to take care of.” That important business was racing ahead of the slow hyperdrive of The Dauntless and reaching Asilay first, then going back to Cloud City. He knew Reenia would be upset. “My tour of duty on this baby’s over,” he muttered.

“You could’ve tol’ ‘em ‘bout everythin’ I tol’ you earlier,” said Boudico. “I’m being serious.”

“He can take care of himself, he really can,” Genos said.

“What ‘bout ‘is beliefs on the Force? Not very bright”

“He comes from a Force-Sensitive family,” Genos turned and stared out of one of the vast dark portals aboard the ship.

“Jealousy, then?”

“No,” mused Genos, “He’s a capable person. Perhaps The Force didn’t choose him because of what he would’ve used it for… and what he would do with the talents he would gain later by working hard for them the normal way.”

“Still doesn’t answer my first question,” Leeds grunted.

“Tell him what? That your talent in The Force is to see glimpses of the future? That a terrible threat is coming to us in less than twenty years and if the galaxy is still fragmented we’ll all be destroyed?”

“That’s ‘bout on target.”

Genos turned to look at the man. “You were really one of the Emperor’s Hand’s weren’t you? You weren’t just working for the Empire.”

“Correct,” Leeds said. “I’m surprised you know the position.”

“I do,” said Genos. “So what Imperial are we going to kill today?”

Leeds smiled. “’Ere’s a datapad.”

As soon as the Dauntless and The Hunter’s Tribunal were out of the system, Genos strapped himself into his ship, the modified TIE Interceptor The Spectre and left the docking bay. Genos started marking mental notes on what he was going to have to uprage on his ship. New sensors, maneuvering panels for the gas… too bad he didn’t have access to Blaine’s cloaking device anymore.

Thinking of his friends, he was already starting to miss them. But his new purpose galvanized him: to unite a galaxy against an upcoming threat by assassinating Imperials and anyone who got in the way of The New Republic. He would be working with this man, Leeds, from a Super Star Destroyer with access to almost infinite amounts of credits. Working for himself and helping The New Republic without them knowing, using ways they’d never approve of, and doing the one thing he had wanted most in life: revenge on The Empire.

Suddenly, three blips showed up on his radar.

“Sithsticks!” He cursed under his breath. He had let himself get distracted again. As quick as the sense of surprise and danger had washed over him, it left just as suddenly. He knew these energy signals.

“This is Crimson Oath Leader requesting IDs,” he said over the comm.

“This is Crimson Three reporting in, Sir.” Kish Tellis, the girl from Thyferra. Genos was a little surprised.

“Crimson Nine, here.” It was Cem’byl, a Twi’lek and one of the newer recruits.

“Crimson Ten, here, sir.” That was Cynna Al’tianni and Genos smiled.

“Crimson Eleven, sir.” Chid Slowras, a young Nautolan.

Genos was unsure how to respond for a moment. What would Leeds say with four more people onboard? For that matter, did he even want them working with them?

“Whomever was in charge of this ‘mission’ needs to speak up now,” he said.

It was Cynna Al’tianni. “Crimson Ten here. When we returned to The Dauntless we knew something was going on. We talked… the others I think are going to join The New Republic as pilots, but us, we’re still following you, Sir.”

Genos smiled. “Thank you.”

“Valu,” Cynna responded over the crackle of the com system.

#### **“Two…”**

Bota Zi was in shackles on a prison ship while his wife was giving birth hundreds of parsecs away, and while he had secretly wished that he wouldn’t have to present when she was giving birth he hadn’t wanted it to turn out like this.

Lined up against a wall in a small prison cell, he was only one of two prisoners. The man who was sharing the cell with him and that was chained up next to him looked at him.

“I know you,” he said in a dry, growling voice.

Bota was so angry that his spit was foaming in the corners of his lips. He had only stopped yelling death threats a few hours ago, not because he had lost his anger, but because he had been yelling and cursing for almost seven hours straight. This was the first time the man next to him said anything.

“You’re Bota Zi,” the man said. He had a rough face, as if it had been slightly burned. He also had a deep scar running vertically on his face, up to his dark hair. He was shorter than Bota, but just as stocky. “The bounty hunter, the General…but you look like someone else.”

Bota, who decided he had nothing to say to this man, was shocked when the man slipped off his shackles. He bit his finger to draw blood and painted a square on Bota’s chest. “Montross,” he said.

“I’ve heard that name before,” said Bota. He wasn’t quite sure what was going on.

“This is perhaps the only surprise I’ve had in years,” the man said. “The last one was on Tatooine.”

“What are you talking about?”

The man’s intense eyes fixated on Bota Zi. “I’m Boba Fett. The one unaltered clone of Jango Fett, the Madalore of the Mandalorians, and you, Bota Zi, you are the one unaltered clone of Montross the Ruthless, Montross the betrayer.” Boba Fett looked at the man in front of him. “Our fathers were mortal enemies.”

“And you and me, we’re practically best friends,” Bota Zi smirked. He had not forgotten the last time they met – on Cloud City, brawling with each other until it was almost the death of both of them.

While Boba Fett acknowledged that this moment was the first time he’d been surprised in years, the slow smile that came over his face was the first one he’d had in a decade.

They were two cloned Mandalorians, captured, without armor, and furious at their captors. There would be no mercy.

“I’ve got your food,” said a crewman carrying mushed rations outside of Cell 17. His raspy voice sounded like two rusted sheets of metal scraping into each other. He had joined aboard the ship only at the last port and ordinarily, he considered himself a lucky guy. Unfortunately, he had made two mistakes. Most immediately was that it had been his shift to deliver food to the cell that housed potentially the two most dangerous men in the galaxy. The second mistake was that he was on this ship when those same two men were onboard. He would die a meaningless and unknown death while the story of what would happen on the ship would become the stuff of legends, the stories that spacers told and retold in ports and bars, cantinas and gambling halls. This story would later be known as The Mandalorian’s Revenge and unlike most of spacer’s tales wasn’t exaggerated, it was played-down. It usually didn’t begin with their escape, but when the two Mandalorians took over the communications room. “See they way I heard it,” a spacer would begin, turning in his seat to a partner, his hand on his heart to prove his honesty, “Was that there was this crew of slavers. Not just any slavers, ever heard of something called ‘Llewta Arena’? No? Well, there was this like, Gladiatorial Arena for a select group of criminals. Like, Jabba when he was alive, Xizor when he was alive – yeah, all them, and they would round up all these hard-as-sith killers and throw them in there to see who’d win. So anyways, most of the crew was in the mess hall or in the ‘fresher when - these poor assholes – they hear this loud, grating voice on the comm system saying - ,” the man’s eyes light up and he clears his throat. “The voice says - ”

“ – If I could feel pity, I’d pity each and everyone of you.”

The men looked at each other confused and shifted awkwardly in their seats around tables. “What the sith was that all about then?” It was a human mercenary off of Ord Mantell, with no blast holes in him and very much alive. That wouldn’t last long.

Two men, two prisoners, walked in the room and started shooting. Two Mandalorians walked out.

It only took thirty minutes for the entire crew to be reduced to bleeding lumps of flesh. Some had been thrown out airlocks. The lucky ones died quickly.

In the command center, Boba Fett stood with Bota Zi. Reading over the manifest and ship mission, they knew why they were captured.

“I’ve never been to the Yall’ev system,” Zi said. “But I have heard of the Gladiator Arena on Ort Sak.  Don’t they know we’ve already fought?”

“I’m going,” Fett said. “We were the only prisoners and I think that these people have forgotten who Boba Fett really is.”

Bota Zi looked around at the corpses. He had an impulse to try and talk Fett into letting him keep the ship, but it was quickly crushed. He felt sick after this. It was like eating too much of your favorite food and then vomiting afterwards. At least, that’s what Zi would’ve thought if he was a more articulate man. Instead he remembered he was going to be a father.

“I can’t. I have a woman who’s giving birth,” he said awkwardly. “Well, mine.”

Boba Fett took a long time to look at Bota Zi. Then he nodded.

They each turned from each other and put on their reclaimed armor. Bota Zi’s armor was painted black and red. Boba Fett’s was a scarred green and brown.

In the most expensive – and therefore best – room in the the Llewta Arena on Ort Sak, a tall man was lazily drinking wine across a large, opulent chair. A comm whistle went off. “You’d better leave Llewta, Zann. The Mandalorians have escaped.”

Quickly finishing his wine, he stood up, picked up his custom blaster rifle and walked casually out the room.

Normally, Bota Zi would’ve been happy that through all this he still managed to get a starship. He was inspected a ratty corellian vessel, “Aren’t they all?” he mumbled, and was about to leave the Slave Ship, when he turned to Fett. “We’re allies now. Whatever happened between Montross and Jango, we are our own people. We are Mandalorians.”

Fett nodded.

After a moment, he walked in the other direction. How he was going to pilot the slave vessel to the planet to extract his revenge, Bota Zi didn’t know but he wasn’t concerned for the man. He was a Mandalorian.

“Fett,” he said. “You want to be the Godmother?”

Fett’s voice sounded deep, raspy; like metal rubbing against metal. “Heh,” he laughed. “Heheheh”

Bota Zi lifted the ship towards the Asilay system.

“What do you mean that Asilay women are in labor for three weeks?” Bota Zi said. He had hoped he that he had missed the delivery. Apparently, he was right on time. The Asilay doctor led him into Boama’s room.

“Three weeks?” He said to her. “Three weeks? We could’ve taken The Hunter’s Tribunal here together!”

His wife threw a medical scalpel at him and while it should’ve been a better throw, she got him in the leg.

“Bota Zi and Boama the 1st of Asilay welcomed into this galaxy a set of twin girls this day…” Blaine re-read the message from his quarters on Cloud City. “Amazing, isn’t it?” he said to Elayne Kuat of Kuat. “He had twin girls.”

“Twins?” she said, looking up. “I couldn’t take that, I mean with one…”

“Apparently, it’s not even normally possible… but then again, they wouldn’t even normally be able to have kids together.”

“Do you think they ever had sex before she gave birth?”

“No,” Blaine said disgusted. “I don’t think so, they did all genetically.” He thought for a moment. “I think that it’s possible.”

“Enough thinking about that,” she said and got up. “I’m going out shopping. None of my old clothes fit anymore.”

Blaine Hansom stood up. “You need protection? Let me call Lobot…”

“No, none of that,” she said, even though she knew Lobot would be notified no matter what she said. “Just watch him will you?”

She placed their newborn child in his arms and kissed his forehead. “You boys be safe, huh? No adventures today!”

Blaine looked down at the child in his arms. “When you get older I’m going to show you how to fly, and all the sabacc cards, and…” Blaine thought about his father. “And not keep secrets from you.”

He reflected on the nights, months, years he spent gunslinging, blockrunning, drinking, and partying. “Well, you don’t need to know everything.”

#### “One…”

After several months, Bota Zi arrived at Cloud City. He had been stuck on Asilay participating in meetings and shaking a lot of people’s hands. He had nearly strangled Grand Don Luancett by end of it. “Although,” he murmured, “it kept me away from these things for a while.”

He looked at the twin girls his wife was holding. He smiled. “These little girls.” Boama smiled at him. He did feel happy and not even the awful, burning dreams he had been having lately – ever since the massacre on the slaver ship – bothered him when he was looking at them.

He met up with Blaine and Elayne and after a few hours they were looking over Cloud City from the terrace on Blaine’s veranda.

“Did you know Elayne was pregnant?” Bota asked, sipping wine.

“No idea at all.”

“Explains why she ran away,” he said.

“Yeah,” Blaine said. “Have you heard from Genos?”

“No, and don’t change the subject,” he said. “What happened to Reenia?”

Blaine smiled. “I cut things off with her before I even came back to see Elayne in labor. Smuggler’s luck.”

“You should feel bad about that whole thing, right?”

“I should,” Blaine said. “But I don’t. Things just happen sometimes.” He looked at Bota, “Feeling guilty about things… that doesn’t sound like you.”

Bota drank more of his wine. “I guess having kids changes things, huh?”

“Yeah,” Blaine said, holding his glass of Lum. Inside, the women were talking to each other, introducing their children to each other. Outside on the terrace, the red glow of the sun was poured over the floating city. “Having kids changes everything.”

He raised his glass to Bota’s, clinking them, in a salute.