Common Sense
And Other Things in Shortage in the Universe
"And tell me, sir, how do you feel about the state of the war?"
Still sitting on the soft recliner, Endros rigidly turned to look at the protocol droid behind him, his dull red eyes not glowing as brightly as the automaton's own photoreceptors. Like its Chiss owners, the droid's vision had been configured to reflect the advantage their slight edge in lowlight vision over its human manufacturers at Cybot Galactica, but the eyes were still well lit—probably a calculated measure to give it an edge in its role as a military psychologist.
The general distrust of psychiatry and psychology was well-known, even among the "open minded" who considered themselves to possess a reasoned, tolerant acceptance of those practices, but were typically as distrustful as anyone else and instead chose to conceal those opinions out of self-pride. Protocol droids were not very well-liked in many circles either. So it wasn't surprising that, eventually, medical professionals came up with the idea of merging the two roles with the hope of minimizing the negative impact of either separately. Protocol droids were very intelligent and knowledgeable as a matter of necessity, as well as endlessly patient.
He put his hands together. "If you're asking if I think the conclusion is in sight, no, I don't. Not anymore anyway."
S-3PO couldn't shake his head, so he had to convey his response verbally. "No, sir, I meant how you feel about the ongoing conflict. Assuming the military situation does not change drastically in the coming year, do you think you will continue professionally as you have? Are you content to do so?" the droid spelled it out for him patiently.
This line of questioning. "The surveyor cover is getting more and more tiresome. Not a week goes by that I don't consider if having remained with the Admonitor's fighter contingent would have been a better path for me," he admitted.
"But surely you think that your service here, on the front lines, is of greater tactical importance than remaining in the reserves in the Unknown Regions."
Endros scoffed. "There are things out there, in the Unknown Regions, that pose threats you can't comprehend," he recited. "Commander Stent told me that when I was a child."
"I must imagine that's true, sir," the droid offered sympathetically. "But you decided that you yourself would not further…miss…the Civil War."
Endros sat back in the recliner. "No, not after Grand Admiral Thrawn," he admitted calmly. Both as a matter of orders, and to avoid the whole event being a wasted exercise, he needed to be truthful with the droid, and S-3PO was calibrated in such a manner that he could determine when a humanoid was lying quite competently, so long as he or she were visible. A tall mirror was placed on the wall directly in front of him so he could turn the recliner as comfort demanded. "I just can't stand those Jedi."
"There were two of them, weren't there, sir?"
"Yes, two apprentices. A Human and a furry biped, an 'Ewok'. I'd like to say, 'If they were not Jedi, they would be good men,' but isn't true," he said with a smile. "They have the best and worst kind of moral self-righteousness. If it weren't the Jedi, they'd find some other ideology to take its place, Mothmaism or some other populism."
He stood up swiftly. "I think we're done here."
"But sir, I have other…"
"We're done here, and it's rather late anyway. You've have your evaluation—I'm tired and overworked, like anyone in my position would be," he said, forcing another smile, this one that failed. "That'll really have to do for now."
Even with any facial expressions, the droid seemed disappointed. "I see, sir."
Endros dismissed himself and departed the office after he picked up his faded black flight helmet, the same one that matched the black flight suit he was wearing. The white Imperial emblems on both the helmet and the suit had been removed, making it largely indistinguishable from the style of dress worn by countless civilian, mercenary and other independent pilots who relied on Imperial surplus equipment—though more and more those parties had access to Republican surplus and used it. Endros actually preferred it that way.
By the time he got to the hangar, Jerry was waiting for him, wearing the same flight suit with the same modifications.
"Heading out, sir?" he asked, almost bouncing on his feet. As usual, he was excited.
"Yes. I'm almost running late as it is, given the travel time to Ryloth. Did you get the jump seat installed?"
"Of course I did. You're sure you won't need me?"
He took the younger man by the shoulder, holding him still. "No. Take Emfive, and get to the Ord Radama. Mariss is probably already tired of waiting, assuming she hasn't been busy fighting. I'll send word once I'm on Ryloth." He let him go and immediately set for his transport: a lone Sienar Fleet Systems starfighter sitting on its bent, dagger-like wings.
"Make sure you're ready before then!" he ordered, climbing up the access ladder to the open cockpit. Just before he dropped himself in, he saw Jerry prepared to toss something his way and paused to catch it: a large, rectangular traveling bag.
"You're not worried you'll run into a Rebel patrol?"
"No, not particularly," he replied coolly. "If I do, I think the markings and my credentials will do the job."
"And if they don't, Endros?"
Perched on the rim of his cockpit hatch, he secured his helmet down and switched on the mic. "Well, you know what the Rebels say about us TIE pilots: a lot of guts wrapped up in a little skill and no brains."
Jerry laughed—unlike many Chiss, he was comfortable laughing around non-Chiss. "They are jealous that after everything we've lost, we're still the better pilots."
Endros gave him a confirming gesture before slipping into the circular cockpit and closing the hatch. It was true that, despite the years of catastrophic losses in multiple theaters, the Imperial Starfighter Forces could still match their pre-Endor kill attrition rate of one-to-one, even with inferior numbers, like they had during their defeat at Yavin. And that was with ships the Republic believed to be markedly inferior: energy shield-less ships like the TIE Interceptor he sat in. There were various explanations, but a common one was, even as the Empire withdrew from system after system, and as the Republic grew into a permanent military presence, that the quality of pilots had constantly declined as more and more fighters were needed for patrols, policing, and general busywork. He knew that if he was ever so unfortunate to run into the infamous Rogues or Wraiths, Endros couldn't hope to win such a fight, even one-on-one. But the other 99% of Republican pilots, in their Incom X-Wing and A-Wing starfighters, didn't worry him in the least.
Even the Empire of the Hand had better pilots on average.
With permission from hangar control, he rose on repulsorlifts and exited the large hangar of the deep space military outpost located midway between the Chiss system of Nirauan and the Imperial system of Yaga Minor, clearing the defensive platforms and light traffic moving in and out. His charcoal-grey-and-black TIE Interceptor had a Sienar-manufactured modular hyperdrive for this purpose exactly, and booting up the N-s6 Navcon, he brought up his single, long-range jump to Ryloth. Traveling from the edge of the Unknown Territories to the Outer Rim meant crossing most of the galactic disc in a Class 2.0 hyperdrive.
This would be a long wait.
Endros began his career outside the Unknown Regions at Ryloth working as, just liked he claimed, an independent survey pilot. The Ryloth Survey Cooperative maintained a number of Koensayr BTL-S3P Y-Wings, better known as "ShortProbes", among their fleet of civilian recon ships. The ShortProbes, unlike their military cousins, were lightly armed, if at all, and carried no anti-ship projectiles, but were accordingly faster and more maneuverable. He and the other pilots mapped much of the Gaulus sector, which like most Outer Rim sectors had large portions of unexplored space, particularly in systems characterized by smaller worlds lacking atmospheres.
It was decent, respectable work, and the closest Endros had ever been to holding a civilian job. He'd gone straight from the junior class at Rhigar Academy to the naval school at Nirauan, taking his oath of office to the Empire. He'd been a non-commissioned officer ever since. Working for the Survey Cooperative was a valuable learning experience, not for the tedious survey work itself, but for the exposure it gave him to civilian life outside the Empire, particularly among Twi'leks. He learned to understand Ryl—or Rylothean—with its subtle body language, particularly for women, better than most Chiss or Humans, though speaking it was another matter altogether. He tried to absorb as much culture as he could, playing the observant outsider, with a steady stream of trinkets expensed to the Imperial Navy, given as gifts: pen sets, bolts of cloth, fine clothing, and jewelry. Twi'leks exchanged gifts upon first meeting a stranger, and he always remained a stranger. He was there to learn, not assimilate.
"Better to ride the storm, than defeat it." A popular Twi'lek proverb that summed up some of their outlook on life. He learned the Twi'leks, like practically any species, cared deeply about self-rule—or at least their cultural and political leaders did. This went hand-in-hand with their repeated disappointment at the overwhelmingly human ruling establishment that extended from Coruscant to the Outer Rim, first with the Old Republic, than the New Order, than the Rebels.
After all, all three governments had failed to check the proliferation of slavery. The Twi'lek was the most traded commodity in intelligent slavery in the galaxy, far ahead of Wookiees, the Mon Calamari, and humans themselves. The Old Republic's anti-slavery legislation, as a matter of practical necessity, acknowledged the sovereignty of its constituent governments and their own legal traditions. Flesh, not Republican Dataries, was the de facto currency on Ryloth itself, and effective anti-slavery would have destroyed the economy. The Empire maintained the same legislation, but its pro-business alignment made it even less inclined to pursue enforcement, outside of a few specific cases of intra-human slavery in the most ancient core worlds. Slavery, after all, was still a major part of galactic capitalism and trade. The New Republic had introduced the most stringent anti-slavery laws on the books yet, but between its ongoing wars to maintain and advance its power, it was caught up in unpredicted complexities. The Hapans, after all, relied heavily on indentured servitude, particularly of non-Hapan human males, and they had not fought skirmishes with the Empire to protect those traditions just to sacrifice them for the Republic. The Mon Calamari, victims themselves of Imperial slavery, had enslaved an entire generation of their Quarren neighbors for ideologically reconditioning as their own solution to the resistance to their political and cultural domination of their shared homeworld. This was seen as a practical necessity, the only way to avoid bloodshed, as Mon Calamari leaders tiptoed around the unfortunate hypocrisy of it. The only solution, the Quarren found, was to divorce themselves from the Mon Calamari entirely, and finally put an end to Imperial, and then Mon Calamari, domination.
Droids were another matter—products for slavery by design. While nominally-autonomous droids like R2-M5 might be found throughout the galaxy, both in the Republic and in the Empire, the constructs were overwhelmingly considered property to be owned. Endros was inclined to feel the same way even if he, personally, didn't own a droid at this point in his life.
The Twi'leks, for their part, fell into one of those categories. Endros did know his history: their very evolution had been shaped by the most human-looking Twi'leks becoming transported across space for sale. Their industrial capacity for hyperspace travel had only come about well after the Human-centric Galactic Republic had established itself. Slavery was seen by their leaders as an effective way to proliferate themselves and their culture across the galaxy without the necessary technology—and they were correct, as Twi'leks were nearly as prolific humans, and far more commonplace than, say, the Chiss, who'd relied on their own industry instead. Of course, hyperspace technology eventually did proliferate, and the need to resort to such methods diminished, but Twi'leks remained a commodity. No galactic government had been successful in reversing the trend, and so the status quo continued unswayed.
Finally dropping out of hyperspace, Endros mentally held his breath until he confirmed there were no Republican cruisers or patrol ships around the brownish planet of Ryloth. He'd been fortunate; rebel patrols were erratic for precisely that reason, and even with his own credentials, an unregistered, independently-operated TIE Interceptor was enough to warrant a full inspection. Somehow, he'd managed to escape suspicion for being a Chiss: that had taken exhaustive planning, as since the last campaign, the Republic had suddenly begun to see all Chiss across the galaxy as at least highly suspicious if not potential military threats, as though every one of them was another Grand Admiral Thrawn in the making. He didn't intend to push his luck, as Humans would say.
"Arriving Sienar Fleet Systems fighter, this is Ryloth Space Traffic Control. We're tracking you now. Identify your craft and transmit your registration and approach vector," a voice calmly announced in Basic.
Ryloth still used the old Imperial procedures for space traffic management, those in turn inherited from the Old Republic.
"This is the pilot. I'm transmitting now, and have nothing to declare."
"And your ship's name?"
"It doesn't have one, but you have my registration. I'm not a Human," he elaborated without any hint of humor. Humans were more likely than most to name their ships, even starfighters.
"Acknowledged. Transmission received, proceed or your vector to zero-five-nine, then hold for entry. And welcome back, surveyor, you should have just told us earlier."
"Thank you." He brought his fighter around swiftly and slipped into a gap in line of cargo freighters and passenger liners. Instead of being ordered to plan on the immigration platform, his ship was merely reviewed by a scanner satellite and ordered to descend to Kala'uun Starport. Endros had made the trip into the caverns so many times he didn't rely on instrumentation and piloted manually, setting down opposite the junk yard where an immigration official was waiting. Like his counterparts in space traffic control, he wore a surplus Imperial Army work uniform, light grey with no insignia other than his indigenous metal badge. The New Order's legacy on Ryloth was scuffed leather boots and threadbare uniforms left behind by the Imperial Twi'lek government. Twi'leks were a practical people—nothing was thrown away when it could be easily reused.
"Welcome back, surveyor."
"Thank you," he replied through his helmet as he climbed out, slinging his travelling pack over his shoulder.
"This used to be your home port, so I'll save you some trouble: business or pleasure?"
"What do you think?" he asked, calm in tone but still wondering if he'd caught the official off guard. He tapped his bulky helmet with a finger.
"Business then," the other replied, taking Endros' old passport, another holdover from the New Order. Practically all Chiss traveling outside the Ascendancy did so with passports printed by the Imperial Space Ministry, originally in Coruscant, including those who had no Imperial citizenry. For all its bureaucratic shuffling, the Space Ministry was still far more capable than its Republican counterpart, which was tied up in the legislature on the fears of violating local sovereignty. Passports printed by the Imperial Space Ministry still made up the plurality of immigration documents years after Coruscant fell, or was liberated, depending on one's point-of-view.
"You want my identichip?"
"No, this is fine," he replied, returning the passport after marking it. "Enjoy your stay."
"Thank you," he muttered, finally undoing the seals of his helmet and pulling it off before taking a deep breath. The official looked a little surprise.
"Didn't I tell you I wasn't Human?"
"You're Near-Human," the official conceded. Contrary to the expectation, Imperial passports didn't list species—only homeworlds, of which Endros had a false one as part of his cover story. For all its xenophobia, the New Order didn't care much about biological distinctions that it couldn't easily identify, as evidence by the officer ranks filled with Near-Humans of every kind, right up to the ranks of grand admiral, general and moff. Even the Emperor, many including Endros thought, had been a Near-Human of some variety. In Endros' experience, that sort of scrutiny only came from traditionally isolationist peoples like the Hapans, themselves also Near-Humans, who could afford to be so discriminating. Or the Chiss.
Ryloth, on the other hand, was populated by countless species—Rodians, Hutts, Bothans, and probably even a small number of other Chiss, conveniently lumped into the category of Near-Humans. That benefited Endros considerably, a reason why he'd made Ryloth his home outside the Ascendancy.
Ryloth was also dangerous: it was difficult to tell if the level of gangster warfare had really increased or decreased over time, barring the few short, orderly years of direct occupation by an Imperial garrison early in the New Order, but it was still prevalent. The Garrison Base had been abandoned, the plan to convert it for Republican use falling through. Every so often, a local crime boss would make a move to take it as a prize, succeed for days or weeks, before another retaliated. The whole planet wasn't as bad as Nar Shadda, but there were parts of Kala'uun that were as dangerous as the Correlian Sector on the Smuggler's Moon. That aspect of the world hadn't grown on him.
He ran a hand through his dark hair, looked around quickly, and strolled directly for the exit. Kala'uun was a small city, even as the political capital, and not a tourist hub. People came to the caverns with something specific in mind, usually business. He spotted an available express turbolift out of the spaceport and squeezed in just in time to catch it before the doors closed. One of the hundreds of lifts through the vertical complexes, it was packed past capacity, and Endros found himself pressed between a Human laborer and a lavender Twi'lek in a veil and formfitting gown. Crammed in herself, she hadn't noticed Endros until he yanked out his gloved arm from between the two of them and politely propped it against the nearby door, out of the way.
"Hello, handsome stranger."
He smiled back politely. In the border worlds of the Ascendancy, in the Unknown Region, where the Chiss were recognized as a spacefaring empire, non-Chiss described them as "very polite". Chiss did not commonly smile among their own outside of actual acquaintances, but Humans, Twi'leks, and others found modest, closed-lip smiles polite among strangers. Ergo, Chiss would smile while traveling.
"You here for business?" she said, batting her eyelases. Just like Chiss did not normally smile among their own kind, Twi'leks did not flirt needlessly. Both behaved following the social expectations of outsiders. No Human could resist a good-looking Twi'lek, or so the stereotype went.
"Actually, I'm here to meet old friends."
The lift car kept climbing, leaving them all trapped in place. "You've been here before?"
Endros shifted again, as someone behind the woman inadvertently pushed her into his side. "I used to live here," he told her in Twi'leki, speaking in the usual short, sharp consonants.
Her painted-on eyebrow rose. "You even speak well!" she said in the same language, genuinely surprised instead of flirty.
"It would seem so."
She gave a shrill but unoffending laugh. "You've got an accent though. We don't have accents when we speak Basic, you should work on that."
"You've had more practice," he offered as the turbolift finally reached the destination level and everyone began to pour out. Endros lowered his arm as they slipped free, and the flirty Twi'lek gave him a subtle wave that he ignored. He stepped out into another large cavern, the ceiling rising easily more than a hundred meters above him, housing the commercial district. The offices of Galactic Exotics, an agricultural company, were immediately visible from the concourse. Past that, just as he remembered, was a line of restaurants in a semicircular plaza. Wedged between two restaurants, as it had always been, was a working-class bar with its sign malfunctioning in periodic flashes of color. It was almost enough to conjure feelings of nostalgia, before Endros reminded himself he'd only left less than a year ago, as he entered.
"Seven Hells, 'never thought I'd see your blue face in here again."
As he planned, Endros turned and, holding his helmet in his hands, gave his best 'dumb Human' expression, one he'd practiced for months. "I'm sorry, do we know each other?"
The Zeltron behind the counter, pink-red with dark, wavy indigo hair down to her waist, picked up a glass and threw it directly at his face, which Endros barely managed to hide behind his helmet. He carefully lowered the helmet only to see she was still grinning and pointing a finger with a brightly-colored nail at him. She wore a laughably tight, shiny yellow bodysuit with rectangular holes cut over the chest and navel, along with—unsurprisingly—surplus Imperial Army uniform boots.
"Don't even try it, Endros. No way you'd forget me," she laughed, before one sleeveless arm disappeared behind the counter again. A second later, Endros barely shielded his face from another glass shattering against his helmet.
"'See your reflexes are still pretty good," she congratulated him. "Get over here and give Kessarah a kiss!"
"And if I don't?" he asked, peering around the helmet. She was holding another glass in her hand, eagerly. Endros clenched his jaw before giving another polite smile and walking over to the counter. He had no intention of kissing her.
"Kessarah, was it?" he asked, before she dropped the glass, took him by the shoulders and forced him down onto a stool. She was much stronger than she looked.
"Look at you, trying to be all cool!" she laughed before taking his head and sticking it into the open window on the top half of her bodysuit. "'Thought you were smart, sure, but looks like you didn't think the same of me," she taunted him, rubbing his face against her. Endros realized it was a tactic as much as it was a friendly gesture—Zeltrons had a legendary reputation for friendliness, but they possessed two unique biological traits as Near-Humans: a very limited form of emotional telepathy, and a very potent cocktail of pheromones they secreted from their pores. On mammals, the chemical had an effect to enhance a Zeltron's likability and attractiveness, though they were already attractive, or at least Kessarah was.
"You can try all you want, Kessarah, I'm not going to kiss you, even if that is a Zeltron greeting," he said, pulling himself free of her grasp against the counter before fixing his hair.
"'See you're still vain," she chided him. The moment he lowered his arms, she climbed onto the counter and gave him a quick peck. Endros was already reaching for a wet napkin to wipe his face: the pheromones didn't work as well on some people than others, and he didn't feel effected, even if he had stopped smiling. "You just walk in here in black like you never knew me. What are you, workin' for the Imps now?"
"If you mean the Empire, no," he told her calmly while wiping his face, the smell of her still with him. Maybe it was just a cultural weakness on his part, but he couldn't say for certain if Kessarah genuinely had some affection for him or was just a typical example of Zeltron culture. "I don't know if you follow the news, but now's not a great time to throw your lot in with the Empire, if you're choosing."
Kessarah gave a confident nod, her eyes closed. "At least you're not suddenly stupider now that you left. What's with the getup then?"
"I'm going into business for myself."
"Oh really?" she said, making an exaggerated 'O' with her lips.
He handed her an embossed business card from one of his uniform pockets.
"War and Ruin: a starfighter-armed mercenary organization operating out of the Ryloth System," she read aloud before twirling the card in her hands. "'Explains the starfighter, but a mercenary? How does that work?"
"Well, typically you engage in combat for payment, but…"
"No, stupid, 'mean why? Don't you Chiss have no concept of money? So you're gonna' go across the Outer Rim shooting up people for cash in a TIE Fighter?" she said, smacking him atop the head.
"We know what money is," he corrected her, rubbing his head. Kessarah had always been good at breaking his composure. "We don't rely on it among our own kind. In Chiss space, everything is owned collectively."
"By 'collectively', 'assume you mean 'the state'?" she countered.
"Yes," he told her plainly.
"Sounds horrible. No, wait, not that. Boring."
"If you're suggesting it's the reason we don't grab strangers by the head and rub them against our cleavage, I doubt the two are related," he countered evenly.
"A stranger, huh?" she asked. "'Ought to throw another glass at your face."
"Please don't."
"So you like Ryloth so much you thought you'd open a business here?" She sighed. "Well, you're not the first Chiss to try, I bet."
She rested her hand on her face, looking a little defeated to his surprise. "Why come here? You walk into my bar, act like a stranger, make me throw two glasses at you. You're such a downer, you know that? Even for a Chiss."
"Do you know that many others?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. She rolled her eyes. "I'm looking for a woman."
As if on cue, her left arm reached over her back and he heard a long unzipping sound while she leaned towards him again.
"Not you, and not like that. A local, a Lethan smuggler. I was supposed to interview her here." He paused. "Do I owe you some sort of finder's fee…is that what this is about?" he asked incredulously.
Kessarah's demeanor grew abruptly cold, her dark eyebrows coming together. "Listen, funny man. I heard you Chiss think you're so much better than anyone else, that while the rest of the galaxy was busy shooting itself in the foot with the Clone Wars and then the Jedi and then the Empire and then the Civil War, you just carved out your own little empire out in the Unknown Regions, where you can call all the shots. And maybe that's the Gods' truth. But let me tell you something about you—no amount of Chiss intelligence or ingenuity is going to make that uniform stop a blaster bolt, or stop you from getting shot down in whatever TIE Fighter you managed to steal. So I hope you're as smart as you used to be, and don't get yourself made into some military man with shinier boots and a nicer uniform," she warned him coldly and quickly.
That caught him off-guard. "I…will keep that in mind."
"You make sure you do. Your Lethan girlfriend's in the last booth in the corner, the one with the tapestries. You two ought to just do it and get this whole stupid mercenary business out of your system before you get hurt."
Endros gave her a thin, polite grin before walking through the narrow bar. His slow stroll did give him time to consider her warning. Her guesses had been close, even uncomfortably close. He'd just shown up one day as a surveyor, done a few missions, and then left. Now he was back, with a blaster and a black flight uniform. It wasn't hard to speculate that he was about to engage in dangerous business, which was being generous. The Empire in the Core Systems was falling back. Warlordism and fracturing was beginning again, just like it had after the Battle of Endor. Over time, the Republic would recover what it had lost in the Thrawn Campaigns, and perhaps go further.
Was he on the losing side? Even if he was, would that make a difference? Loyalty was a factor, but at least in his mind, it wasn't the only one. Prudence was just as importance. His loyalty could have been fulfilled back in the Empire of the Hand, flying interception missions against smugglers and raiders. Now he was going to go flying against Rebel frigates and cruisers, and possibly worse.
Classical Chiss philosophy warned against detrimental overthinking, of paralysis brought on by fear. But discarding caution was foolish. What was the proper level of caution? One man came to mind—General Moradmin Bast, the chief of staff to the commander of Imperial Army operations aboard the first Death Star. Bast was famed as one of the few survivors of the station's destruction, indeed, he still served in the Imperial Army as a chief of staff in Bastion. He was a shrewd, intelligent, and cautious man. All useful traits in a military mind. On the chance of their meeting years ago, after the Battle of Endor, Bast had shared some shared some wisdom to the much younger Endros: as a youth, his passion for big game hunting had taught him patience and cunning. Be aware of what you didn't know as much as what you did.
In the last moments of the Battle of Yavin, Bast had brought his analysis of the Rebel attack plan to the military governor, Wilhuff Tarkin, and recommended an evacuation. Tarkin, with a reputation for not just arrogant pride but personal demonstrations of his faith in the military chain-of-command and the necessity of high officers to expose themselves to the same dangers as their subordinates, unsurprisingly refused. He did not, however, explicitly forbid Bast from departing himself. Aware he might face a firing squad for desertion nonetheless, Bast and a few like-minded officers under his command left on a shuttle minutes before the station's destruction. Their group was, of course, instrumental to isolating the technological flaw in the battlestation and the Rebel plan of attack that exploited it. Bast had pleaded with his own commanding officer, the aristocratic Cassio Tagge, to evacuate as well. Tagge, whom Endros had never met, was a similarly cautious man, his mind focused on tactical soundness and a well-known opponent of the construction of the Death Star. Nonetheless, he was personally loyal to Tarkin, and valued his reputation as much as his own life.
Of this three personalities, valued to the New Order in their own respects, only one of them had survived. Bast had not explicitly stated so, of course, but the lesson Endros took from the shared story was that this wasn't a coincidence. Tarkin was absolutely committed to the New Order, a strict military disciplinarian, and absolutely ruthless—in time, it was known he had ordered the destruction of Alderaan, an independent kingdom that was secretly backing the Rebellion. Tagge, more conservative and cautious, had objected to that, despite believing the Rebellion to be far more dangerous than Tarkin or anyone else appreciated.
Take stock of what you know, be wary of what you didn't. Sound advice that sounding like an old Chiss maxim, but actually Human in origin. He suddenly felt even a little paranoid, as evidenced by keeping his hand resting on the holster for his blaster rifle.
Through the old tapestry, Endros cautious entered the booth. Sitting opposite of him, rather relaxed, was a Twi'lek woman, deep scarlet except for a small amount of makeup applied to her face. In particular, her dark lipstick sat in sharp contrast to her outfit: instead of tight, skimpy mesh outfit, she was dressed almost exactly like the image of a Correlian smuggler, with worn-out leather trousers a size too small, a half-buttoned collared blouse and the quintessential roguish vest. She even had a blaster holster with a heavy pistol sitting in it, probably a Merr-Sonn 'Flash' 4 or something similar favored by Correlians and the Rebel Alliance. She looked absolutely unconcerned to see him.
"You're late."
"I was catching up with an old friend," he admitted, pulling his travel pack off his shoulder, sitting down at the table and holding out his hand.
She looked at his hand for a moment, clad in the long glove of the black flight suit. Endros kept his eyes trained on her: he didn't care to admit it, but despite her surprising choice in clothing, she was exceptionally attractive. The red-skinned Lethans were the most valued of Twi'lek commodities, apparently for reasons of genetic rarity, and she had an angular but appealing face with a small, pointy nose and large, expressive eyes that she kept squinting suspiciously. Under her too-small smuggler's outfit, she was as endowed as Kessarah, though more slender, and her gun belt hung comically from her hips even as she sat. The one 'normal' thing she wore, he noted, was a simplistic leather headdress, like most Twi'lek women.
"They said your name was Endros."
"And that would make you Anna Vao," he answered in kind. "That's a popular pseudonym on Ryloth."
She scoffed. "Like Endros is really your name."
"Actually, it is my core name."
She finally took his hand and shook it hurriedly before resting her own on the rim of the glass in front of her. "What are you, a TIE pilot?"
"I was, some time ago, in the Unknown Regions." He cocked his head. "And yourself?"
"I can fly some," she said too quickly. "Small stuff," she said, gesturing in the air with a finger waved in a circle.
"Your dossier said as much," he told her, reaching into his pack briefly. "For our first meeting, I thought a gift was in order," he explained evenly, recalling that old Twi'lek custom while holding something wrapped in white durasheet.
She looked at his skeptically and took it. "Thanks."
"You're welcome. It's from my backers."
She unfolded the durasheet and held up a standard pre-war identity chit, inspecting it in the light. The brushed metal even had a passive hologram of her head embedded into its surface.
"If you can get off Ryloth, it'll pass inspection on a neutral or Imperial system," he explained. "Though you'll need a passport nonetheless."
"No kidding," she mumbled before looking back at him. "So you know about me?"
"I know you're a wanted criminal for committing felony murder against Republican personnel," he explained.
"I'm not a criminal!" she snapped back loudly before shrinking into her seat.
"That's an interesting part of that statement to deny," he told her after a pause.
"I didn't mean to kill him, though he had it coming," she said distantly. "If it wasn't me, it would have been someone else."
Endros rubbed his chin—a Human gesture he'd learned from his time in the Imperial Navy—and nodded. "If I may offer a suggestion, dressing like a criminal isn't helping you."
She spoke again, the pride and haughtiness returning to her voice. "'The hell do you know, blue man? I don't have a choice, I can't go back to my old life of looking pretty, batting my eyelashes and swinging my hips, now can I?" She leaned across the table at him aggressively. "Look at you—you've been in the 'Forces your whole life, haven't you?"
She titled her head and stared at him, squinting again. "I bet your dad was a TIE pilot too."
He squared off his shoulders. "Actually, my mother was the TIE Fighter pilot. My father was medic in the Starfighter Corps. Your guess was excellent though."
Anna Vao scoffed again. "I bet it was a real romantic first date."
"I wouldn't know, but if it's all the same, I'd rather keep talking about you," he said, trying to steer the conversation back. "You may not have many flight hours, but you were trained in Enchani combat back on Chandrila. I'm sure you'd have no trouble killing me with your bare hands if you wanted to," he told her plainly, causing her to roll her eyes.
"That was a mistake on the part of the Rebel instructors at Brionelle Academy," he elaborated. "If they hadn't trained you so well, you wouldn't have been able to escape detention and flee off world. You've demonstrated a very useful skill, no less so than grasping the basic techniques of starfighter combat."
"You flatter me," she replied sarcastically.
"I'm stating the facts as I know them. You're a very dangerous woman—if you weren't, you'd probably still be on Chandrila." He raised an eyebrow, another borrowed expression. "If you don't mind my asking, how did you end up on Chandrila in the first place? There wasn't a Twi'lek community on the planet, or any real non-Human social establishment."
"How much do you know?" she asked pointedly.
"Only part of the story. What you were charged with, when you fled, and how you've been here in the months that followed."
"Do I have to tell you?"
"Well, I told you something about myself. And if you're still interested in working for me, yes, you do, Anna Vao."
She'd finished her tall glass of distilled alcohol as he explained, slamming the glass against the table. "You can call me Anna."
"All right, Anna."
Her face hardened again as though recalling those events immediately upset her, and she spoke. "I was sold to a buyer on Chandrila seven years ago, right after I began puberty. You can probably figure out why they waited until then. Back then, I'd already been told for years that I'd be worth a lot when I 'matured', and it didn't strike me as strange or wrong."
Endros said nothing, a smart move, and she continued. "Chandrila was…wonderful. I can't deny that. The best childhood I could have hoped for. I was raised by my own kind, other women who were trophy girlfriends of the Chandrilan elite. They treated me like a princess, and all I had to do was be the plaything of a Senator's son when he inherited the position."
He remained silent, and Anna leaned towards him. "You're thinking why I didn't mind being the other woman, aren't you?"
"I wasn't specifically thinking that."
"Shut up. You Humans don't know how good you have it. Are you even Human?"
"No, though to your point, our courtship customs have more in common with Humans than yourselves," he offered.
Anna held her head in her hand. "Whatever you are, you're damn annoying."
"I apologize. Please continue."
Anna twisted her attractive face into a contorted grimace for a moment before relaxing it and recomposing herself. "He had an arrangement with wife—their relationship was a political partnership. Ours wasn't. It was that simple. His father treated me well for years. If I had to choose between being a slave and a trophy, I'd take the later every time."
Endros nodded silently.
"And then it happened. That…son of…" she began before her face twisted up a little once more and she swore in her own tongue.
"The new senator's aide, a commissioned officer in the Republican Starfighter Corps, a veteran of the Battle of Endor," Endros explained. "You mean him, correct?"
"Yes, him. He was…a friend to the new senator. A war hero and a dealmaker."
She stopped and the two sat in silence. Endros covertly adjusted the settings on the microphone inside his helmet, which had recorded the conversation thusfar, under the table.
"And you killed him," he finally offered.
"He was being too grabby."
"It doesn't seem like you intended to. One strike was enough. As a Rebel pilot in long service, he may have had an untreated embolism in his head or something similar that happened to surface then."
"They charged me with felony manslaughter," she growled.
"That's what 'felony manslaughter' is. It was natural that they'd seek to punish someone who harmed one of their own, just as natural as you'd attempt to escape."
Anna opened her mouth to respond before closing it. His theory seemed to please her at least a little. "I don't know what I was in more trouble for, felony manslaughter or resisting and then escaping from arrest."
Endros put his hand together over the table. "It's irrelevant. Even if your judgment was rushed, you still demonstrated very good survivalist instincts. That's what matters here."
This his surprise Anna threw her head back and laughed loudly, rocking her shoulders. Endros leaned away and said nothing, and she kept laughing, almost to tears, before she finally stopped.
"You really think I'd be good in your company, don't you?"
"I do."
She crossed her arms, the cocky look of a smuggler replacing her previous anguish. "I read the report sent to me by Thanas, your man in the Navy. What they want is a commando unit, like the ones in the New Republic that have done so well. But the Empire still has commandos, and they want one to start from scratch, not one from the years before the Battle of Yavin," she pointed out.
"Lieutenant Commander Thanas had an excellent point: the commando units still intact in the Empire were almost entirely from the Stormtrooper Corps or reserve units in the Army. They were all converted to battlefield duty to help with troop shortages. None of them were ideal for a clandestine work anymore," Endros explained. He neglected to mention a more serious point: the covert operations capability of the Empire had further suffered because the two branches outside the Armed Forces responsible for it, Imperial Intelligence and the Imperial Security Bureau, had split in the wake of the Emperor's death, and now waged a violent rivalry, with Imperial Intelligence looking more and more the victor.
"Sucks for the Empire."
"It does present some strategic problems at a very dangerous time," Endros muttered in agreement. "But despite the impression you might have gotten from Thanas, I'm not here to recruit you as a soldier in the cause of restoring the Empire to Coruscant."
She raised her eyebrows. "Really?"
"That's not a practical endeavor. I want your expertise in a different area, potentially a more dangerous one," he admitted.
"More dangerous than rebuilding your Empire," she taunted him.
He rubbed his gloves hand together atop the table. "Please tell me: how do you feel about the return of the Jedi?"
The hushed conversation continued for another twenty minutes, as Kessarah saw from the chronometer hanging from the wall above her counter.
When Endros finished, he stood up in front of an incredulous-looking Anna and opened his travel bag again. "I've got another gift for you."
"You're exceedingly generous. Is this a common trait for your people?" she jibed.
"Not particularly, no," he told her. He emptied the travel bag's contents: a black military flight suit, identical to his but intended for a woman, and an open version of the associated black helmet, capable of being worn by a Twi'lek, its shape vaguely reminiscent of one of the designs worn by Rebel pilots. He handed them both to her.
"And if I take this?"
"You'll have something to wear in my fighter. It doesn't have a pressurized cockpit."
"And what if I declined?"
"Then you've got something to wear once you leave Ryloth." He leaned forward at her. "I've never understood this smuggler obsession with style, frankly. You'd think scoundrels like that would be rather preoccupied to give so much weight to fashion."
This got a short laugh from Anna, who looked at her reflection in the buffed helmet. "Where'd the Navy get these, anyway?"
"I expect they belong to the stocks used by Imperial Ryloth's air patrol squadrons years ago. Most of those pilots were Twi'leks. In the end of the day, the Empire couldn't function without native auxiliary troops, both for effective garrison duty and a demonstration of military prestige. That's part of the reason they've suffered such defeats."
"Is that true for your people as well?"
"No," he lied. "My people are autonomous, we have our own military forces. It's just how things are done in the Unknown Regions. That's one thing the Empire didn't change."
Anna, he speculated, knew about entire realms and nations of Humans and Near-Humans scattered along all regions of space, like the Hapans, Zeltron, Sepans, Bothans or Sullustans. In that regard, whatever species she thought Endros belonged to was not terribly out-of-the-ordinary, even if she'd only seen one or two Chiss her entire life. Internal consistency was crucial in this new line of work of his.
Endros glanced at the display inside his helmet and stood up. "I have some other business in Kala'uun before I leave at midnight, local time. Give it some thought," he suggested.
"Right now, I'm just thinking how good I look in black," she announced sarcastically.
Endros smiled at her. "I for one would appreciate your contribution of common sense. It's something we lack in the military." He stood up and picked up his helmet. "For all their 'wisdom', look what a dire lack of common sense meant for the Jedi Order."
"I'll think about it," she assured him, if only to get him to shut up. Endros gave a polite nod before leaving the booth, helmet under his arm. He stopped only to pay Kessarah, who kept a judgmental frown affixed firmly to her red face.
In actuality, he had very little business to do on Ryloth, feeding on the rations he'd packed with him and stretching his legs once more before climbing back up the ladder on the side of his ship. He was still sitting in the cockpit, sorting through files uploaded from his flight suit into the ship's computer, when he heard someone noisily climbing up the ladder and looking down into the open hatch.
He was pulling gloves back on when Anna, lekku draped over her shoulders and leaning through the hatch, grinned at him smartly. "You look surprised."
"I am surprised," he assured her evenly. "What changed your mind? Something I said?"
Endros shifted in the central seat as Anna dropped herself into the round cockpit, landing on adjacent jump seat. She had changed into the black flight suit, a less-than-perfect fit with portions of it stretched out over her chest and hips, and pointed a finger at him.
"You ever heard of Zamir Deton?"
"Should I have?"
"He was a general or a marshal or something official like that in army on Zeltros before the New Order. I read that, when the Empire came, he eventually became moff of the whole sector." She crossed her arms over her head and arched her chest. "I guess the Empire thought Zeltrons were close enough that they couldn't be bothered."
"They're arguably more similar to Humans than my people are," he offered.
"Deton had all the connections, and the Empire couldn't be bothered to police Zeltros properly anyway, so Deton got to be governor. It made him a very wealthy man."
"I would imagine so," Endros said in agreement. "To be clear, I didn't personally know every officer in the Empire. Closer to the opposite."
She smirked. "Right. Anyway, Deton had a hell of a time. Lived in a mansion, drank the best wine, had parties for the all the top dignitaries across the Empire. Never had to worry about anything stupid like war or insurrection. I heard he had an entire entourage of wives that he delegated his administrative duties too."
"I've heard Zeltrons consider monogamy quaint and foolish."
She looked at him directly, matching his glowing red eyes with her own violet ones. "I'm a beautiful and bitter woman."
"I got that impression," he said agreeably.
"I'm bitter about how things have turned out, which I suppose makes me as petty and selfish as anyone," she admitted. He said nothing, so she continued. "But before I turn into an old and bitter woman, I'd like to do something about it.
"You would?" he asked.
She held up one of his business cards. "Your Zeltron friend gave me this. Who ever heard of a selfless mercenary?"
"I haven't," he admitted, taking the card back from her. He'd refrained from giving her one simply because she already knew the nature of his business better than some card could reveal.
"What kind of name is 'War and Ruin' anyway? Are you really so eager to be the bad guys on the wrong side of history?" she asked him with an attractive smile that caught him off guard. He was unaccustomed to people who could shift so easily and drastically between expressions.
He briefly considered his response before speaking again. "I suppose I've been on the wrong side for so long there wouldn't be much of a point changing now," he acknowledged calmly.
Anna stuck out her hand in the cramped confines of the cockpit they shared. Endros glanced at it before shaking it again.
"Then I guess my common sense is at your disposal."
Author's Note:
And just after I thought I'd never write the first one, here I am with a second Star Wars expanded universe-style one-shot story, set some time after the other one, 'The End of History'. As there, this one is heavily inspired by NPCs created for my player character in a tabletop game of Star Wars: Saga Edition, or at least the conversations they exchanged "off screen". As before, highly unreliable narrators relate their own view of the universe—though in this case, the Twi'lek woman fits the most conventional of 'sexy alien babe' that they're usually relegated to in the setting (with perhaps one exception—apparently, smugglers are very clearly distinguished by gender in Star Wars). In that regard, this is a more typical story.
A lot of things in this setting, frankly, don't make any sort of sense. Every expansionist empire in human history—every successful one, and many unsuccessful ones—has made some use of 'colonial troops', soldiers recruited from the subjected people. Their absence in Star Wars, hand-waved away for reasons of xenophobia and practical limitations, is another bizarre, highly 'unrealistic' thing (that's the most dangerous word you can use in relation to Star Wars I bet). It's no exaggeration to say I suspect the German Reich of 1941 feared, loathed, and reviled Slavs as much, or much more, than the Empire is described as hating non-human beings, but had no problem recruiting, or even forcing, hundreds of thousands to serve under arms to preserve their European empire. There are far more practical, believable reasons for homogeneity in military service than simplistic bigotry, including quite a few that seem to apply to their Rebel enemies (after all, the lone alien in service to the Rebellion in all of A New Hope...is Chewbacca, a smuggler and mercenary pilot). The expanded universe, for all people hate it, at least offers a few more believable explanations here and there.
I've applied that cynical reasoning to the combat performance of Imperial and Rebel starfighters. In the two films where such fights between them occur, we see that fragile, lightly-armed TIE ships have no problem cutting through supposedly better-shielded winged Rebel fighters. What they do, instead, have trouble fighting are large ships like that of Han Solo—which, for a small freighter, is actually not that particularly well-armed (it features two four-barreled turrets—compare it to a B-17 bomber, proportionally smaller versus a fighter and with a higher compliment of defensive guns), but is at least well protected. I've been told that Vader's appearance is what lets the significantly outnumbered Imperial fighters decimate the larger force of Rebels attacking the Death Star, which would be sensible if X-Wings and Y-Wings were not being shot down before his appearance. I enjoy LucasArt's X-Wing and TIE Fighter games as much as anyone, perhaps more, but in the actually films, no such discrepancy exists between the basic Imperial attack ship and a Rebel fighter-bomber. And there's a very obvious reason for that: in Second World War dogfighters, Axis aircraft with fewer high-caliber machineguns (for example, the two 20 mm guns on a Japanese A6M "Zero" aircraft) could reliably fight, and win, against Allied aircraft with more smaller guns (four or six 12.7 mm guns, like the famous "fifty caliber" used widely on American aircraft). Skill made the difference when either aircraft could kill the other in a fraction of a second, and that aerial combat stand as the model for what we see in the films.
Of course, the actual scholarly fans of the films, games, and television series could give me a very clear explanation as why I am wrong, and they're probably correct in their analysis. My main defense is that, once again, I'm writing this thing. I doubt I'll do another one-shot, but thank you for your interest nonetheless, and as always, I invite compliments, criticisms, or whatever else.