ABOARD THE MALACHOR, 40 YEARS ABE:
Bail and Breha skidded to a stop in twinish unison at the corner of the corridor that would lead them to the hangar where Stella was hopefully waiting with their shuttle, ready to slip away before anyone aboard the Malachor realized what was happening. They peered down the hallway and saw two stormtroopers stationed there, one on either side of the door. This was one of the main entrances to the hangarbay, wide enough to admit a good-sized landspeeder or it would have been on the off-chance that someone might choose to drive a landspeeder around the Super Star Destroyer's hallways.
The fact that there were guards on the hangar, where there had been no guards before, was a bad sign. That there were only two, standing casually in relaxed poses (relaxed for stormtroopers, anyway), helped offset some of the worry their presence generated. This seemed like a standard precaution for periods of high alert, not an indication that this hangar was under specific scrutiny.
The twins looked at each other, communicating silently, then nodded. "Fly casual," Breha murmured, and Bail dropped his helmet back over his face. They set out at a nice calm walk, Breha in front with her head bowed low over her stun-cuffed hands and Bail a few steps behind her, his blaster rising to poke her in the shoulder every few steps as though to keep her moving.
The stormtroopers stiffened as they came to attention, helmeted heads raising to fix their gazes on the newcomers. Breha hunched her shoulders and did her best to look miserable and nonthreatening.
"What is this?" one of the troopers asked, her voice tight with suspicion.
"Emergency prisoner transfer," Bail bluffed. "Emperor's orders."
The two stormtroopers on the door exchanged opaque glances.
"We haven't received any notification about a prisoner transfer," the first one said.
"And where's the rest of your escort?" asked the second, shifting position. He didn't exactly raise his blaster to point at them, but the muzzle lifted as though halfway to doing so.
"Reassigned," Bail said. "The two of you are supposed to come with me to assist," he improvised. Breha barely quelled the impulse to turn around and raise her eyebrows at him. She did grimace, but if the stormtroopers saw they seemed to take it as normal behavior in a disgruntled prisoner and dismissed it without comment.
She schooled her features back to an approximation of cowed blankness anyway.
"And leave the hangar unguarded?" the second trooper was asking, his tone incredulous.
"This is highly irregular. I'll have to clear it," said the first, turning to walk the short meter towards the control interface beside the hangar door. Bail winced. He didn't know what Imperial protocol required her to use a hardlink contact rather than her helmet-comm to verify a prisoner transfer, but he was glad that she did; it gave him a chance to stop her.
Bail raised his hand before she could take more than two steps, as though signalling for her to hold position. What he said was, "You don't need to clear anything. You need to come with me and protect this prisoner."
"I don't need to clear anything," the first trooper repeated slowly.
The second one joined her and together they said, "I need to come with you and protect this prisoner."
"It's very important," Bail said, sweating under his armor. "Emperor Revan's orders."
"It's very important," the stormtroopers chorused obediently. "Emperor Revan's orders."
"Come along," said Bail, and stepped forward. They moved back to let him and Breha pass, then fell in behind the twins. The troopers marched in easy lock-step and Bail tried not to shudder at the feeling of having two armed Imperial soldiers at his back.
"I'm going to let Stella know we're here," Bail muttered, pausing at the door to the hangar.
Breha glanced back at the two stormtroopers, saw no reaction, and nodded. "Hurry."
Bail pulled out his comlink and thumbed it on, but the only sound that emerged was a staticky hiss. "Mynock to Sparkle, do you copy? Sparkle, come in."
"Jamming," Breha said grimly.
Bail nodded, sighed, and returned his comlink to his belt. "Hopefully that's just standard procedure, too."
"That means the Imperials have cut-off their own communications also. Everything that isn't hard-wired, at least." Breha glanced at the stormtrooper standing complacently alongside her and added, "That explains why this one didn't use her personal comm to check our story, anyway…"
"Yeah," said Bail. "It doesn't sound standard, but maybe this Revan is just really paranoid…did they seem like that to you?"
"They were confident," answered Breha, her voice even grimmer. "Supremely confident."
"Let's hope that's overconfident," Bail said. He glanced over his shoulder at his new stormtrooper friends, but neither one appeared to be wavering from his command.
Breha squared her shoulders and turned to face the hangar door. "Only one way to find out," she said.
Bail reached past her to trigger the door controls. "Let's go."
They walked forward silently, the twins' movements nearly as stiff as the two Force-conscripted stormtroopers trailing them. The hangar door slid up obediently at Bail's touch and then snapped shut on the empty hallway behind them.