XXX

Lysander Folen

He kicked another loose rock on the road, ran his hand through his hair. Oh man, oh man… Dad's gonna kill me if he finds out about this.

Vash had been silent for most of the walk back. The four same stormtroopers hung a respectful distance back, while the rest of the garrison had long since dispersed for the night. No moon hung in the sky; Ommas had none, and Lysander had only heard of the existence of such floating orbs from the old stories Vash told him when he visited the house.

"Why were you with those children, Cody," the old man asked at last, when they were only meters from the marble house at the center of the residential area. "You don't belong with them! Is this where've you've been, sneaking out every night?"

He remained silent, though he ran another shaking hand through his hair. How long have they known I was slipping out?

"You don't belong with that crowd of people."

"Why?"

"You're the son of the police chief!" Vash said angrily. "You don't belong with that riff-raff- basically criminals! All these years they've been leaching off the people of Cindra."

"You said it yourself! What else are they supposed to do! Shouldn't people like us be helping them?"

Vash gave a sound between a snort and coughing up phlegm. "Help? Cody, have you seen this blasted town? There's no one around to help."

And while Lysander swelled with inner frustration, the evidence was around them. Cindra was filled with maybe three hundred people; most of the apartment complexes were empty, the individual houses meant for the wealthy equally absent. No one wanted to stay on Cindra, or Ommas, or even the Argos Alignment. Who wanted to stay in a dying state clinging to the old ideals of the Empire?

"People have to fend for themselves," Vash said with disgust. "I don't like it, you know that. Neither does your father. But the way things are now are better than if Rellius or some New Republic official took an interest in us."

"Well, I think it would be a lot better if someone actually came here to help!" Lysander lashed out. "Since you and dad have done such a wonderful job so far, what would be the harm, how could this be any worse?"

The garrison commander stared impassively at him for a good while, and Lysander gave an equally cold look back. "I don't think being with those children is a good idea any longer, and I imagine your father wouldn't be approving either. Now get back in the house and sleep, Cody-"

"My name is Lysander!" he shouted back. "Stop treating me like you're my uncle or something!"

Vash's lips parted, then closed. He turned away without another word, walking in the direction of the garrison base at the West end of town. Lysander watched him go, half wanting him to come back and restart the argument.

Old fool, stupid old man! He thought furiously as he entered his home. Doesn't he know they're barely surviving? Does he care? He thought of his little holorecorder that he had purchased a few years back from one of the visiting merchants, where the message of the Princess Leia had boldly stated the death of the Emperor and the Empire, and the success of the Rebellion. Could the New Republic be right? Does the Empire really not care about anything but itself?

He crawled into bed, hoping that Vash would keep his word and keep the encounter away from his Father. Eventually, he slipped into a sleep where he dreamed he was saving the group from a pack of slazer cats.

XXX

Chief Pacem Folen

His nightly rounds went without problem like usual, and with the added comfort of Vash's promise he would finally crack down on the thieves plaguing Cindra's stores. All that was left to do under the twinkling starlight was to make sure no one was inside the mines still.

The police speeder, the only one they had, came to a quiet halt at the foot of South Tip, the only remarkable thing around for miles. It was a cliff that hovered over the enormous hole that had, according to the legend, been plowed when a giant starship had plunged like a knife into Ommas's crust, creating the artificial mine and opening up the land for the enormous quantity of marble beneath the blank surface.

No one really owned or regulated the mine. The owners had long since departed when they had had enough mines. They owned it only in name now; people came in and out as they pleased, selling whatever they dug out to the occasional spacers who came to Legio, the closest town to Cindra with landing pads. But he still managed it, mainly because it was one of the only things to do now.

He turned on his glowstick and activated the elevator down into the depths of the mine. His trusty DT-29 heavy pistol was tucked securely in its socket, and it gave him a reassuring weight in his side. His large hands easily wrapped around the handle; he had won the quickdraw event every year for the past twenty. He imagined it was one of the most attractive features about him.

Folen knew he was not that handsome to look at. His face was boxlike and scarred from haunting memories he tried to forget. His frame was tough but not athletic; too much time spent sitting and talking with Vash instead of chasing criminals. Not that there were any; Cindra had not had any issue for years, which was partially why the police station now housed only himself and his deputy Asinus.

"Anyone still in the mine, it's time to close up!" he called as the elevator's slow descent finally ended. The mine was quiet but not eerie; the daylight sensors miraculously still worked after a decade of use, lighting up the walkways and tool stations.

Chink. Chink. Chink. Someone was still down here, however. "I'm locking up South Tip, time to stop," he called again, advancing toward the sound.

"Wait, Chief!" a hoarse voice called. "Wait, you have to give me a little more time, just a little! I know I've found something big!"

Folen resisted the urge to berate the other. Sanjin was crazed in the mind, after a near-death experience in the infinite mountain range surrounding them. He claimed to have met the native Crist people, though Folen never found any wound on him from the barbaric people. Ever since then, he had repeatedly stated there was something below the ground, great treasure to be found.

Four years of the gibbering nonsense. But Folen felt pity for the man. It was not his fault, whatever had happened to him. He had been abandoned by his family like the group of orphans who survived on the edges of the town. When life went that way, sometimes it felt like there was no way out. He had seen it, all too many times.

Besides, it was just apart of the regular cycle. "Another day, Sanjin," he called firmly. "Let's get you up back to town, you can tackle the treasure hunting another day."

The former blinked up at him from the glare of the glowstick, in one of the deepest sections of the mine. "Chief, I know you're trying to look out for us, but this time it's here! It's just another few inches below the rock here!" He swung his pick down again, chipping off some marble.

"That's enough, son, like I said, another day!" Folen said encouragingly.

"But-!"

"Now!" he said with sudden authority, which he had long grown used to adopting quickly. "Not going to stay waiting for you to finish. When I say now, it does mean now!" The other didn't move, and Folen said with a bite of impatience, "Don't make me come down and get you myself!" Please, he added silently to himself, rubbing his back. Pain had been building up there for a while again.

Sanjin hesitated, then whacked the pickaxe down with mindless determination.

Blast it, boy. "Alright, I'm coming down to get you," Folen said frostily. He began to trace the footholds down into the deeper section as Sanjin began to furiously whittle away at the white rock. "Just- blast it, stop making this hard on yourself! I will throw you in the cells if you don't come up!"

"Stars of Endor, it's here, like they said," he heard the lost soul whisper.

"Is what here?" Folen said furiously, finally jumping down and landing next to the other. He grabbed him by the shoulders and roughly shoved him out of the way, his patience at an end. "Find another clump of-"

He bent down. No there was no mistaking it. It wasn't some discolored marble, or rough sediment. Something else was here, some different ore.

"They told me it was below here, the Crist," Sanjin said excitedly. "The sacred stone, they said! They didn't want me to find it, but I knew if I found the sacred stones, it would help the town! Help Ommas!"

"You've really… what, what is this, Sanjin?" Folen asked quietly, standing up from the familiar ore.

"The sacred stone-"

"No, what really is it? Or do you not know."

"What do you mean, Chief?"

Folen chewed the inside of his cheek. Was it getting hot, or was it just him? Probably just him; Sanjin was looking at him innocently, with obviously no clue what it was he had just stumbled onto.

"This stuff is called plastoid, Sanjin. It was a very sought after metal by both the New Republic and Empire, but especially the Imperials. You see, it's the main material that's used in the production of stormtrooper armor."

Sanjin beamed. "So I was right? This will help the town? We can give Ommas a place on the star charts again!"

Folen looked at the other. There was no way he would stay silent, it was not in his nature. His hand robotically fell to his belt, where his comlink was. He unclipped it, put it to his mouth. "Vash, I need you at South Tip. Now, don't bring anyone. Just come yourself, as quickly as you can."

The other didn't question why he was calling in the middle of the night. "On my way."

He reattached the comlink to his belt, then turned to Sanjin. "Alright, let's go tell the people, Sanjin," he said politely. "When Vash gets here, you can explain it all to him first, and then he'll escort you to the town in his nice speeder. That sound good?"

"Absolutely!" the other said, thrilled. He went to the footholds, still clutching the pickaxe. Pacen Folen followed, the pain in his back suddenly very reduced. Sanjin lent him a hand up anyways, which he took silently. They entered the elevator, the poor boy almost shaking with excitement.

"Finally, people will believe me," he said, mostly to himself, his face pressed against the elevator cage. "They never wanted to believe the new Ommas was beneath our feet, all this time!"

"Don't worry, Sanjin," Folen said to his back. "I believe you."

He leveled the DT-29 at his head and pressed the trigger. Sanjin crumpled against the railing, a smoking hole where his brain was fried. The pickaxe thudded to the floor, and then silence except for gentle shaking and cranking of the elevator winch.

At the top, Vash was already waiting; military grade speeders could go fast when they needed to. He had his own blaster pistol in hand, no doubt alerted by the firing of the DT-29. When he saw Folen standing and Sanjin's body, however, he holstered it with a low whistle. "I know the lad was a bit crazy, but was this really the way to-?"

"He found plastoid," Folen said tersely. "Here, down in one of the deeper sections of the mines."

Vash's face twitched. "He what?"

"You heard me. Plastoid. Here, on Ommas. Here, in Cindra!" He grabbed Sanjin by his left armpit. "Help me load him onto your speeder. We'll throw him deep into one of the ravines."

The other grabbed the other armpit, a hundred emotions running across it as they brought him onto the military speeder. They zoomed away from the mine, Folen's fingers tapping uncertainty on the door.

"You know what this means, don't you?" Vash said after a minute. "Well, of course you do.

That's why you called me out here."

"We can't let Rellius find out about the plastoid," Folen said exasperatedly. "The mines will get torn apart- Cindra will get torn apart! We both know what kind of man he is, what he'll do." he shook his head, his hand fingering the hilt of the blaster uncomfortably.

"What do you think, then?" Vash asked cautiously.

"I think we need to shut down the mine." he turned to the other, who quickly turned away, closing his mouth.

"Shut down the mine? The workplace for more than half the town? You're crazier than Sanjin. I know we can't let Rellius find about about the plastoid," he said hastily as the other opened his mouth to object. "You forget he's the one who bloody put me in charge of the garrison. I know just as well as you do what'll happen. He clings to the Emperor's old designs like you to that pistol."

Folen relinquished his grip on it reflexively. "It won't be permanent," he suggested. "We can say… we can say someone made a crash landing in the mine, say there was a gas leak from it. Your men shut it down, and then you contact Rellius to bring in explosives from Argos, and then just destroy the ore."

Vash nodded slowly. "We could pull it off. The people will be upset, certainly, but they won't risk exposing themselves to a gas leak."

"Offer free transport to Legio for temporary work?"

Vash laughed. "You know, you're sounding a lot like your son," he said as the speeder began a slow climb. "You both always got the mind of the people ahead of yourselves-"

Folen said nothing, but privately he was pleased. That's my son. "We have a plan, then." Vash brought the speeder to a halt; they had hit a steep decline; a bottomless well of darkness met them as they looked down. Together, they heaved Sanjin's body off the speeder, to the edge.

"Sorry, Sanjin," Folen huffed, a little sadly. The boy hadn't been that bad, after all No doubt the Crist had corrupted his mind. "But it's just not meant to happen."

With a final heave, they tossed the body down the ravine. It flailed for a few moments, then vanished. They never heard a landing, but Folen was content enough. One loss for the sake of everyone else was perfectly acceptable to him.

"Come on, old friend, we got things to do. And while you're at it, how about you tell me about those thieves you met?"