Notes: My next event is Fantastical Fencing (a story of at least 100 words involving your characters in which something fantastical happens). The title was snagged from Matthew Stover's The New Jedi Order: Traitor.

This vig takes place late in 53 ABY, at least six months after HK-47 and the Super Evil Chaos Twins of Evil and probably a few months before Where the Waves Shatter. It's been over two years since the end of EtF, and the chaos twins are on their own, working as bounty hunters.

.

VI. "There Are No Jedi Here" | 53 ABY | Fantastical Fencing

.

Bright Moon City is a misnomer. The space station isn't a city in any real sense, and it lies suspended in an expanse of space devoid of any planets, let alone moons. And there's certainly nothing bright about the run-down shadowport – not its appearance or its clientele or its future. It's not even big enough to house the ships that make port there; instead of hangar bays, visitors are forced to make use of questionable docking rings that might collapse or splinter from the space station at any moment, exposing unprepared crews to the cold, merciless vacuum of space.

It is, in short, exactly the sort of place Darth Festus and Darth Ferrus find themselves visiting all the time.

They never stay long at ports like this – just long enough to refuel and restock on food and supplies, and check for newly-posted bounties. Bright Moon City is still fairly unknown to them. They stopped here once about six months back, and Festus stayed on the ship the entire time. His brother was annoyed, but he knew better than to argue.

Now, they wait for the docking ring to lock into place. There's a loud, metallic clank and a low hiss. Satisfied that they're not about to walk to their doom, the brothers open the hatch and peer into the gray, dimly-lit corridor.

Something grinds above them, and they look up to find the hatch only three-quarters open, with sparks shooting out of the adjacent control panel.

"Fragging hell!" Ferrus shouts, shielding his eyes from the flying sparks.

Festus leans against the partially open hatchway. "Is it supposed to do that?"

"Of course not, idiot!" Ferrus rounds on him. "I told you we needed to put in for maintenance at Nar Shaddaa!"

"Why would you listen to me? I don't know the first thing about starship maintenance."

Ferrus pulls back the cover for the control panel and glares at it. "If only we had a droid whose sole purpose was to fix stuff like this before it nearly kills us…"

"You're still mad about that? Come on, you loved HK."

"I did not."

Festus bites back a retort and watches his brother in silence as he continues to examine the control panel.

"Are you a Jedi?"

He spins around, all mirth forgotten as he looks for the person that belongs to that voice. A Pantoran child stands beyond the open hatch, staring up at them with wide, golden eyes. She points a finger at his hip.

"Doesn't that mean you're a Jedi?"

He looks down at the lightsaber hanging from his belt and clenches his jaw. "No," he says, not quite a growl, "that's not what it means."

Next to him, Ferrus raises one arm to rest against the bulkhead over them and leans forward, towering over the girl. "Get lost, kid," he says.

The girl scrambles to obey, stealing one last glance at them before disappearing around a corner.

Ferrus lets out a frustrated breath. "The hell's a kid doing here?"

Festus realizes he hasn't moved since answering the girl's question. He shrugs and turns back to the inspect the damage. "Who cares? We need to get this fixed."

"Do you have any idea what you're even looking at?"

"No, which is why it'd be great if you could quit standing there and get back to work."

Ferrus glares at him. "You forgot to put your lightsaber away, idiot."

Festus snatches the weapon off his belt and shoves it into the inner pocket of his jacket. "We weren't even off the ship yet; I didn't know there was going to be a fragging kid standing there."

"We don't need any extra attention."

Festus slams his fist against the broken door. "I know that." He takes a deep breath, pushing down the tendrils of rage that are starting to climb up his spine. "Have you figured out what's wrong yet?"

Ferrus watches him for a moment, then returns his attention to the control panel. "A couple of the wires are shot, and we need a new fuse."

Festus looks over his shoulder down the empty corridor. "Should be able to find what we need in there."

"You hope."

He shrugs up at his twin. "I guess we'll find out. Come on."

They make their way through the space station, toward the central arm that houses the Bright Moon Bazaar, a busy marketplace teeming with smugglers and thieves and all manner of unsavory characters. As he and his brother enter the bazaar, Festus looks up at the luminescent globes suspended from the rafters; they give off a cold glow that reminds him of celestial light, and he thinks they're the only things in here he actually likes looking at.

"There are a lot more people here this time," his brother says under his breath.

Festus sweeps his eyes over the market, studying the crowds of people pushing their way through its narrow aisles. He sees clusters of people sitting off in the corners, distributing food, watching quietly. Some men, but mostly women and children. Several Pantorans, like the girl who'd spied on them earlier, but also some humans and a few other species. He remembers the news reports he's been reading lately, and it clicks.

"Refugees," he replies, returning his attention to the line of vendors on their right. "The Republic and their noble Jedi have had a hard time keeping the peace in this sector."

Ferrus grunts something unintelligible, then stops in front of one of the vendor stalls. The proprietor is a tall, thin Weequay man. Ferrus begins to sort through the spare parts lying on the man's table.

Festus listens to the murmurs of the crowd around him, picking up fragments of conversation here and there. Most of it is idle chatter, or the sorts of things criminals say when they're trying not to give anything away. It sounds like there's a sabacc game setting up behind one of the stalls. And there are mothers hushing their children, urging them to eat and stop staring at all the strangers. It's one of those voices that stands out above the din.

"Slavers."

He resists the urge to turn toward that fearful whisper. Next to him, his twin picks up another part and pretends to examine it.

He senses them enter the bazaar, at least six of them. Feels the change in the air as refugees try to discreetly exit. Watches from the corner of his eye as the slavers pass behind him and his brother, walking at a leisurely pace. Four humans, two Nikto, and a Duros, all male. Okay, so that's seven.

"How much for this?" Ferrus asks, holding up a fuse and a bundle of wires.

The Weequay vendor's eyes dart past them for a second, then he licks his lips and grunts. "Fifty," he says.

Ferrus groans a little and glances at Festus sidelong. "Are we supposed to haggle? I can never remember."

Festus shoves his hands deeper into his jacket pockets. "Just pay him and don't worry about it."

"Fine." His brother hands over the credits and pockets his purchase. The slavers have passed them by and continued on toward the far end of the bazaar. Most of the refugees have vanished.

"Let's get out of here," Festus mutters, turning away from the stall.

They make their way back to the ship, and Festus leans against the open hatch while his twin works on replacing the damaged circuits.

"Do you know what you're doing?" he says after his brother lets out a string of particularly colorful metaphors.

"Nope," Ferrus answers, narrowing his eyes at the control panel.

"So this door could open mid-flight and suck us out into hyperspace?"

"Yep."

Festus sighs and shifts his weight from one leg to the other. "You're really inspiring confidence today."

Before his twin can open his mouth to growl a reply, a scream echoes through the corridor. They stop what they're doing and turn toward the sound, listening as it's joined by a whole chorus of screams, a faint electronic buzzing, and the brief staccato of blaster fire.

"Guess it's time to go," Festus says.

He looks up at his brother. Ferrus lowers his hands from the panel. "Guess so."

The screams grow more frantic, and he can make out the distinct sound of someone sobbing. "Not our problem," he says distantly, answering an unasked question, feeling that same old pressure crushing his chest. It came on so fast this time.

Ferrus looks down the corridor and shrugs. "We've been cooped up on this ship for three weeks with no work. Might be nice to flex our muscles a bit."

Anticipation shoots through him, lightning fast and just as hot. "Look at you," Festus says, hand drifting to the lightsaber tucked in his jacket, "making all kinds of sense."

.

.

Lena Aloidas is eleven years old. Too young to be wandering around a space station like Bright Moon by herself, and boy, does she get an earful from her mother when she returns to the little makeshift shelter they've been sleeping in. Doesn't she know what sorts of filth roam these corridors? Doesn't she understand that a girl her age is a prime target for slavers? Doesn't she know there are probably slavers here right now?

Her mother is the only family she has left in the world, though, so Lena submits to the scolding like a good, obedient child and promises to do better.

They're just sitting down for their evening meal when all hell breaks loose in the refugee camp.

There aren't any fighters among their group, and their assailants wield blaster rifles and shock collars and weapons she doesn't even have names for. It takes a moment to realize the men attacking them have their blasters set for stun, and they're rounding up the fallen women and children, slapping binders and collars on them as they shove them against the far wall.

One of those men turns his dark eyes on her and her mother, and he lunges forward, grabbing her mother by the arms and dragging her out of their shelter. Lena tries to reach for her.

"Mama!"

Her mother tries to fight back, but her captor is too strong. She twists around and locks eyes with her.

"Lena, run!"

She can't run, though. She's frozen in place, shaking as she watches the slavers yank her mother along behind them, throwing her against the wall with the others. Another pair of hands reaches for her, dirty and greedy and grasping. She shrinks back as far as she can while her mother continues to scream.

"Come here, you little brat—"

Suddenly the hands are gone, and she looks up with wide eyes and realizes every one of the slavers is pinned up against the bulkhead, held there as if by magic.

Then she sees them, the two dark-haired human men she spied on earlier, the ones she thought might be Jedi. They stand in the doorway, the taller one holding his hand outstretched toward the slavers. He grins and dips his head sideways toward the shorter one. "Your turn," he says.

The other one – she thinks they must be brothers, they look so much alike – grins in return as he pulls his lightsaber from his jacket and ignites it at his side. The meter-length beam of light burns crimson in the dim room. He takes a step forward, then turns his head, eyes on her. She shrinks back from that pale, piercing stare.

His smirk fades as he tilts his head just slightly to one side. "You might want to look away."

She doesn't, though. She can't. She's heard stories and legends of the Jedi Knights of old, of their bravery and goodness, of how they protected people like her, people who were in trouble. She always thought they sounded amazing.

This is nothing like those stories. This is a nightmare.

At first, it's not a complete slaughter. One by one, the taller man drops the slavers so that they can fight his brother. The first three attack without pause, shouting curses at the man with the lightsaber as they fly at him in a rage. He cuts through them like they're nothing, holding them close as he runs them through, staring straight into them, unblinking.

The rest of the men don't even try to fight once they're freed. They scramble to get away, before being wrenched back by that mystical energy and thrown onto the ground. That's when the taller man decides to get really involved.

He doesn't bother with a lightsaber. She wonders if he even has one. If he even needs one. His assault on the next two slavers is brutal and bloody, and she can't stop watching. If the shorter man approaches his victims with surgical precision, his brother is a gladiator, throwing himself bodily into every punch. The sounds she hears as he beats into them, over and over…

And still, she doesn't look away. Because it might be a violent, gruesome nightmare, and it might be terrible and unspeakable and wrong… but it's also the most incredible thing she's ever seen.

The last two slavers are pleading for their lives before they're even released. They swear they'll leave and never come back. They'll never touch another woman or child again. They promise anything and everything they can: credits, spice, even their ship.

Those pleas fall on deaf ears, and the two slavers die together – one strangled to death, the other silenced by a blade through the heart.

This is nothing like those old stories. Nothing at all.

The two men look around at the bodies of their victims, and then the shorter one deactivates his lightsaber. He waves a hand, and binders clatter to the floor. Her mother and the others stumble away as quickly as they can. Mama collapses in front of her and gathers her into her arms, turning her body to shield her from their liberators. The room falls eerily silent.

Then, finally, they speak.

"You know," the shorter one says, "I don't think they're going to let us come back after this."

His brother scoffs. "Like I'd want to come back to this hellhole a third time."

"You're just mad because there aren't any girls here."

"Shut up."

They turn in unison to look at her, and she lets out a yelp as her mother grips her tighter. "Sith," Mama hisses under her breath.

The taller one rolls his eyes and turns to walk away, but the shorter one stares at her a moment. Then he throws a casual salute with the hilt of his lightsaber and follows after his brother. They head back the way they came, down the corridor to where their ship is docked. When they don't come back, her mother finally releases her.

.

.

Festus ducks under the partially open hatch, frowning. "You forgot to close the door."

Ferrus growls some indecipherable obscenity as he grabs a rag from his tool kit and wipes the blood from his hands. "Really? We just killed seven guys, and you're worried someone's going to sneak in and steal your dumb datapad?"

—you're always on that stupid thing, stop obsessing, stop obsessing—

There's that rage again, still simmering just under the surface. A post-battle haze that's slow to clear. He wants to deny his brother's accusation, but he can't find the words.

Ferrus stares back at him and shakes his head. "That is what you're worried about. Unbelievable."

Festus swallows and pulls all of that fury back, hides it behind a mental wall, the one he puts up between himself and the world, between himself and his twin. Things are quieter without his brother in there, judging him.

Ferrus flinches visibly as their connection blinks out, but he doesn't say anything more on the subject. Instead, he turns to the control panel, pushes the wires back into place, and closes the cover. The hatch shuts completely and seals with a loud hiss. "Fixed," he says. He glances down at his hands and rubs at flecks of dried blood.

Festus clips his lightsaber back onto his belt. "Guess we should get going."

"Guess so." His twin clears his throat and nods toward the cockpit. "We're not far from Kothlis."

"Kothlis is nice."

One corner of Ferrus's mouth twitches as he fights to hold back a grin. "Better than this hellhole."

Festus looks over his shoulder at the door. "Yeah. Definitely better."

Then he turns his back on the door and the girl and Bright Moon City, and he follows after his brother.