In the year 17 BBY....

Tandem:

Stick it to the Man

"Don't worry. This is just a routine cargo check for this sector."

"This is all routine?" Asuna asked the young Imperial officer that kept at smiling at her. He stood at a relaxed attention in front of her. Behind him a couple other officers along with a few storm troopers boarded her lightweight freighter. Ashivod stood next to her in his full armor. Nari was next to him and in her armor as well. They both had their helmets on and appeared to be quietly watching the men boarding their ship. Asuna had a feeling they were having a secret conversation.

"We recently had to heighten security. Nothing to be concerned with though," He said with a wink. Asuna gave him an uncomfortable smile. He was watching them all like a hawk even if it didn't seem like it. She almost felt he knew that Nari and Ashivod were talking to each other. She felt like nudging them and telling them to shut up.

The Officer's com beeped and he looked down at it. He turned to face the ship and acknowledged the trooper walking down the boarding platform. The trooper gave him some sort of hand signal. He nodded and then motioned to some troopers behind him. Ashivod and Nari looked at each other right before the few troopers ran up behind them with their blasters up. Asuna looked over her shoulder and felt her stomach flip.

"Put your hands up and behind your head. Slowly," The Imperial Officer ordered them. He had a pistol out and aimed at them. Asuna did as she was told. Nari and Ashivod begrudgingly did the same.

"What seems to be the problem officer?" Ashivod asked through clenched teeth. The Officer noticed his tone and gave him a condescending look.

"Your cargo. We're holding you in detention center while we investigate it. Don't try anything flashy. You're dealing with top Imperial Officers on this cruiser," He said moving his pistol so it was aimed at Ashivod.

"Ensign Cole, take their astromech and scan its memory banks," he ordered an officer who had been inspecting their vessel. He looked down at D0D0 who's head spun around and over at Asuna. Her heart and face sunk as the droid was led away from them.

"Take them away," the officer ordered the troopers. Asuna was nudged forward with a blaster and walked away with Nari and Ashivod as she watched DohDoh go in the opposite direction.

---

"What did he mean by suspicious cargo? We were delivering machine parts," Nari said. Asuna's stomach tightened.

"There was something other than machine parts in the cargo," she admitted. Ashivod and Nari looked over at her.

"I… bought a few toy droids," Asuna said. She sat on the floor of the detention cell and twiddled her thumbs as she looked up at both of them. Nari crossed her arms and looked at Ashivod

"A few toy droids shouldn't get them worked up like this," she said as he looked back at her. Ashivod put his hands on his hips and turned to look at Asuna again.

"Exactly how many toy droids did you get?"

"Fifty."

"That's too small of a shipment but too big to be thought of as nothing, especially if our main cargo is parts and not toys. They probably think we're smuggling information or something in them," Nari deducted.

"Why did you by a bunch of toy droids?" Ashivod asked Asuna. She shrugged but he waited for a better answer. Nari shook her head.

"It doesn't matter. They'll check the out and discover there's nothing being smuggled on them," Nari said. Asuna nodded and stood slowly up.

"Right, but they have Dohdoh. And they're scanning her memory banks," Asuna said in an urgent tone. Ashivod took his hands off of his hips.

"I don't like the idea of Empire getting their hands on our droid and tearing her apart for information. If they find something the least bit suspicious who'll know what they'll do to us. Or D0," He said looking at Asuna. She didn't like the way he was talking about her droid.

"I don't like it either, but they outnumber us and they have our ship. They won't find anything suspicious on D0. Just let them waste their time inspecting the cargo. There's no reason for them to keep us here," Nari said.

"No! I'm not taking this sitting down!" Asuna said balling her hands up in fists and holding them up in front of her. She looked over at Ashivod and punched him in the chest plate. Ashivod took off his helmet and pulled off his gloves and pushed Asuna.

"Are you trying to start something?!" he provoked her. Nari backed away for the two as they staged a fight.

"You and your stupid armor! That's why they think we're suspicious!" Asuna yelled as she shoved him against the wall. Ashivod grabbed her wrists and held her away from him.

"You got a problem with my armor you have a problem with me!" he shouted back at her. The sound of boots ran down the corridor and towards their cell.

"Okay guys… you got their attention… I hope you know what you're doing…" Nari said in a quiet and cautious voice.

The door open and two troopers rushed in with their blasters up.

"Break it up you two!" one shouted as Asuna repeatedly kicked Ashivod in the shin guard. She raised her knee to give him a low blow. The two troopers flinched as Ashivod bent over in 'pain' and let go of Asuna's wrists. Nari grabbed one of the trooper's blasters and knocked him over the head with it. The other trooper looked over and aimed at her. Ashivod stood up straight, retracted his arm and let a punch fly at the other trooper's head. He fell over and dropped his gun. He picked up the gun and looked at Asuna who was taking the other trooper's utility belt off.

"Ready?" he asked her. Asuna stood up and put it around her hips.

"Ready!" she answered. Ashivod nodded and led the way out of the cell. He shut it on the two troopers after Asuna and Nari got out.

"Let's get the droid and get out of here as fast as we can," Nari said.

---

D0D0 bleeped nervously and whined as Theodore Cole knelt down to hook the droid up to the computer. He chuckled and his face broke into a small smile.

"Don't worry little guy. It won't hurt," he said as he went to plug D0 in. The droid's head swung around and to look at Thee and made an unpleasant noise. He lifted his head up and looked at the astromech.

"Girl, of course. Forgive my arrogance," he corrected himself. He hooked the droid up and stood up and went over to the computer.

He watched as files and files of data transferred from the droid over to the computer. He looked through it and breathed through his nostrils. This was a waste of their time. There wasn't anything worth the Empire's time on this droid. The same went for the crew and the ship's cargo. It was just a procedure and they had to be careful. One mistaken could cost them severely. He heard the door open and he turned around expecting to see Jim or Harroc. Instead he saw two Mandalorians in full armor and an unhappy Kiffar female. They lifted their blasters and Thee raised his hands in the air and backed away from the computer.

The two Mandalorians walked further inside pointing their weapons at him while the young woman raced over to stop the scanning process on the computer and unhooked the droid. Thee looked at their blasters and noticed they were the ones issued to the troopers. He wasn't going to fight them for a droid he knew had nothing of interest on it. Still he was a little curious as to why they seemed to be in such a hurry to get out. Thee looked at two physiques of the Mandalorians. The taller one was definitely male and the shorter one possibly looked female.

"Eyes where I can seem 'em pal," she told Thee. He lifted his head up higher and his green eyes to show her he wasn't checking her out. He heard a clank behind the two and then a spurt of angry whistles from the droid. He caught the Kiffar female regaining her balance with support from the droid. Her cheeks were pink and she briefly met his eyes and looked away. He kept on looking at her and noticed her fumbling and glancing back at him another time. Had she been staring at him before?

"How's it going back there?" the male Mando asked.

"Uh… uh… good. Real good. Just set off the det," She answered him.

"Good, we'll head out then," The female said. After she spoke the alarm went off. The two Mandalorians looked away from him and at each other. He assumed to talk to each other through their private channel. Thee grabbed his pistol and pointed it at the door controls and fired it. This would teach them a lesson not to mess with the Imperial Navy. Of course the fact that he had just trapped himself in a room with two Mandalorians was not comforting at all.

Thee felt a gloved hand from one of them hit his jaw and he fell backwards. A chair broke his fall before he slid down to the ground face first. His pistol had fallen out of his hand and he heard it being kicked away from him.

"Get D0 to open the door. Asuna!" The female ordered the Kiffar. Thee groaned and rolled over. The male in the gray armor was cracking his knuckles while the female in red armor had her blaster closely aimed between his eyes. He looked away for the end of the blaster and up at the woman.

"We were going to release you after we scanned the droid," Thee was about to add a snarky comment, but he had a blaster aimed at his head and he was sure the gray armored Mandalorian wouldn't hesitate to hit him again.

"How's the door coming?" The female asked.

"She's working on it," she responded in a worried and a tad defensive voice.

"Sunie, get his weapon," the Mandolrian female said. The man next to her bent over and grabbed Thee's shirt and yanked him up onto his feet.

"You're coming with us aruetii," he said. Thee gave him a sickening glare and looked over to see the young woman scamper over to pick up his pistol. She looked back at him with her blue eyes and then hurried back to the droid.

Instead of fearing for his life, Theodore couldn't get over how incredibly stupid this was. Was there really a reason they were acting like this? Was there something he overlooked on the scan? His gut instinct really doubted that. And of all things, why did Jim even bother taking them in? That was what really bothered him. Yes it was protocol, but the cargo of toy droids wasn't even that suspicious. It was just weird. There was no reason to take people in with weird cargo.

Thee fumed over how this was ultimately all Jim's fault and he was the one getting punched and shoved around. He wasn't really paying much attention as someone slapped binders on him.

"You're gonna get us off this ship, got that?" the man told him.

"As much as it would make me happy to see you gone, I'm not doing anything for you," Thee told him. He felt something hard hit the back of his head and then he was shoved forward. Thee cringed and stumbled. He felt the barrel of the blaster against his back and straightened up and started walking. The droid spun its head around and beeped just as the door opened. Thee got jabbed in the back again and walked out first.

"Stay close behind," the female told Asuna. Thee was a little impressed, they seemed to have an idea of which way they were going. Did they have a layout of the ship? Thee gritted his teeth. They should have run into someone by now! What was taking so long?!

Thee heard someone coming down a hallway and he sighed in relief. Thee was nudged out to where the corridors intersected and the three renegades hid behind the corner. Before he could try and get away he looked over and saw a woman, Nola, coming towards him. He went rigid and wished she had never come this way.