Star Wars: The Dark Calling
By R. C. Carpenter
Chapter Five
Lando Calrissian had a certain air about him as he swaggered into the Brox Kaled District. He was handsome and well off, the sort of man that everyone wanted to be friendly to, especially since *his* friends were highly ranking NR officials. All the patrons stared over at him; his aura of good-hearted jokes, fine drinks, and beautiful women made him all the more appealing. He had followed his buddies, Han, Luke and Chewbacca, to Cimmeria under the hopes of getting in a few trading contracts with local stock dealers, but his main objective was to watch out for the two humanoids who were bound to fall into some sort of catastrophe along the way. He bowed his head unnoticeably towards one of his companions, "Watch out for any bad news, they'll try to real us in with one of their get-rich-quick scams that this place is notorious for."
The bald headed man to his left nodded his agreement silently and continued to stare straight ahead, very out of character for the happy tourist he was playing.
Cimmerian docking bay customs were easily passed, giving Lando the impression that any illegals could effortlessly slip through the system and never be found again, free to move on to their next rendezvous. Off the top of his hairless head, Lando's partner had already spotted three aliens who were currently prohibited from this sector.
"Turn here." Lando extended his arm towards a hallway to their right and sidestepped past his companions.
The hallway was, in fact, a reputable business of the NR that Calrissian had been told to check in on while he was visiting. The business was well kept, as were the managers, an elderly couple that lived above the offices whom Lando had known a while back and was slightly glad to have to pay a call on. The couple were informants. Working from the inside of the gutters selling false info to any scurvy knave that would take it, they caught many of the very illegals that they had spotted along the way.
The tall, dark man entered the small office in the cellar of the couple's home, knocking on the open door as he did.
"Hello?" he said with a smile.
He looked around the unlit room, his eyes straining as they adjusted to the pale light emanating from the edge of the shut door of another room towards the back. As the light focused in around him, he could begin to feel the outline of the furniture, the desks, the papers and antiquities. The many years of work and refurbishing lay to each and every corner of the room and the building itself. The entire motif of the office was jovial and open, inviting.
Now, as Lando called out for the lights, he could see what the room truly was. Dilapidated. Toppled. Torn through with a razor blade and burned up in a fury of unknown tension and outrage.
"Melo! Cwalina!" Lando shouted towards the door. He stepped over a knocked down chair, it pained him to see the tragedies of the poor couple who, hopefully still, lived here. He stumbled past stacks of scattered papers, no doubt reports they had yet to file. He reached out in full stretch for the panel to open the door.
The door slid open itself.
Startled by finding someone behind the door, the woman flipped out her blaster and steadied herself, aiming directly at the ambassador's forehead. Lando slowly raised his hands towards his head, his stomach clenching tightly as he tried to remain balanced on the edge of an over-turned couch. The woman, seeing his surrender, tossed him up onto his feet. His muscles released from the anguish. She glared at the other men with him and aimed the set-to-kill blaster at them as she quickly checked Calrissian's pockets with her right hand, not looking at him, training her thoughts on the others.
Finding Lando's lack of weaponry acceptable, she pulled back from his side and shuffled through a desk drawer, her eyes still not moving from her captives. She felt along the inside of the drawer and found what she sought. She pulled out a second blaster and aimed that one at the dark skinned man to her right.
She spoke, "I don't know what else you could want, but we gave it all to you last week. You can't suck us dry if we don't have anything to bleed, you dolts."
The other men in the room, their hands now brought above their heads as well, began to smile ever so slightly. She caught hold of their facial expression. "What? You think it's funny, huh? Well," she moved towards Calrissian, "It wouldn't be too funny if I shot your boss's face right off to the Black Hole sector, right?"
She snagged her long fingernails into the dark, curly strands of his hair and eased his head back, forcing his mouth open in pain. She rammed the barrel of the blaster past his teeth and nearly choked him. The three others whipped out their own, more upgraded, weaponry and brought them to different positions on the woman, no trace of fear on their faces. It appeared almost routine.
The woman's face dropped for only a second and then she smiled down at her gun-chewing captive, "They seem kind of relaxed and sure of themselves, huh?"
Lando forced a movement of his lips around the cylinder and tried to gurgle up a reply.
The woman let go of his hair and the blaster and stepped away to sit on the upset couch. She brought her knees close together, squeezing them tightly. Her head bobbed down in abandonment, the locks of extremely curled cerulean and green hair shielding her sapphire eyes from the faces. She laid her hands on top of the other and awaited her fate.
"Well, what are you going to do now, hmm? Let me rot here? Or are you finally going to let me die like you should've a long time ago?" Her voice was now frail and hurt, not like the angry young woman's they had just gotten a mouthful of.
Lando's reaction surprised even him as he lunged towards her, both of his strong hands gripping into the armrests of the tufted couch. "Now just you listen to me, we're not here to take you anywhere and after that fancy attack on me, I wouldn't be shocked if anyone else would have killed you. But like I said, we're not here to do that. Believe me, I want to right now. I want to take this blaster," he raised the one he had pulled from his mouth up to her face, "And shove it down your throat and see how you like it, but I'm not going to."
She raised her head and stared at the other men, careful not to give herself even the slightest chance to make eye contact with Lando. Her far off voice came again, "What's that supposed to mean?"
The three guards stepped farther into the room and began to pick up scattered objects. The woman watched their every move as they did so. In return, Lando watched her, making extra sure that she didn't try to get up and kill him again. He put down the blaster on the edge of the couch nearest him.
She brushed aside a strand of emerald hair behind her ear to glance out of the corned of her eye at the dark skinned man next to her. She studied his scowl as he glared at her. She tried to hide her fear, mask the devastation, but she was already caught, why not just break down entirely while she still had the chance.
Her dry eyes immediately were raged with salty droplets and her whole body began to convulse with terror. Lando grew only slightly piteous. He sat down next to her and began to talk, "Where's Melo and Cwalina?"
The woman's face was soaking up the drops and she whimpered out a reply, "I thought you were here to take me," came her excuse for the attack, "I don't know who you are, why you're here and now you start asking about my parents!"
She became hysterical.
Lando's mind took in the information. He'd never known that the Seukler's had a daughter, but it didn't surprise him to find out now, they were very secretive and protective of their personal life. No doubt they kept the woman a secret in her younger years due to their risky business. Now she was her own person and was out to make her own hairy transactions.
Lando lifted her chin, "You're their daughter? What happened? We need to know. We're here from the New Republic on a routine check as ambassadors. I'm Lando Calrissian. I can help if you tell us everything you know."
The woman looked up at him. She wanted to glare at him for making almost light of her situation. She looked at the now sitting guards. They squirmed uneasily in their scruffy civilian outfits. She spoke in her head, phrasing things correctly to say what she wanted to the best way she could. She wrung her hands together nervously.
Her hair slid off her ear and she brushed it back again. "They were taken by the Imperials. They came here a few weeks ago and tore our home apart. They took food and goods and money and bank-statements. They took our pet. They took my parents. They were going to take me, but they decided against it. They slammed me against a wall and left me for dead."
Lando felt only the slightest hint of pity for her, but she was obviously able to take care on her own. This had been greatly displayed by her uncanny ability to make a guest feel at home. She shattered at the mention of the New Republic and this bothered Lando immensely. He leaned to her ear and whispered coarsely, "Why did they take them...do you think?"
She knew he was mocking her, that he didn't really want to believe her. That was the truth, though, and if he couldn't accept the truth, then he wasn't worthy of it. Her blood ran cold with the sound of his voice. It was very threatening and he meant it to be, no doubt. She clenched her teeth together, bitter and soured. The harsh blue eyes snapped at Lando like a scorpion.
"I don't know why they'd want to take them, Mister Calrissian. I'm not one of them. I don't know how they think. But maybe you do. So maybe you'd like to help me with that question." She rose from the sofa and took measured steps towards the back of the room. The guards followed her with only their eyes. At this point, a second attack would be inconceivable.
She crossed her arms and slid into the darkness. She blanketed herself with the corner and tried not to make it too obvious that Lando was the one she had fixated upon.
She was silent with the room for a very long time. Then she spoke out, her voice quite and rebellious, "I'm not sorry, really. But I'll say it to make you happy."
Lando removed himself from the couch, a look of sheer disgust on his face. His mouth was half-open in amazement from her comment. His eyebrows were raised far beyond normal. He walked over to the shadows in less than two second.
His sarcasm was overdone, "Oh, well, that's just great. Lovely apology, miss. I accept it with open arms and can't wait for your next compliment."
She snickered and angled her face to the floor. He shook his head and flung his arms into the velvet-thick air. "I don't know why I bother!"
He stormed over to his guards, "Come on, let her wallow in her misery. We're not going to be much of a help. It's evident we're not *wanted,*" he stole a look at the woman, "around here."
Lando disappeared through the door, the sunlight glinting on the fragments of particles that were hung in the air. The bald tourist snapped his fingers and ordered the others to follow, "Let's go."
Without another word, they left the blue-green haired woman and her hatred to infest the whole apartment. There was no sound as she slid down the side of the wall. She brought her knees close to her face and placed her hands over her eyes. She sobbed for over half an hour before she was satisfied with her lack of control.
She wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her shirt and sucked back her feelings. She gained her balance and walked to the still open door. She left her blaster on the couch, she had plenty of others where that one came from.
She came up to the apartment sector of the building. This had been her parents' home since before she was born. It had been in her father's family since before he was. Now, something had happened. The New Republic had promised great things such as freedom and better lives. Hers had only gone downhill. She remembered when Melo and Cwalina had been a very loving couple who's only folly was that they were spies for the NR.
That had been their downfall, she had decided long ago. The NR was nothing but trouble. They thought they were doing they were doing the right thing. Just like the Empire had its followers thinking the same thing. This is the New Republic, this is the right way. This is the Empire, this is the best way. The Rebel's, back in their glory days of the Battles, had been very active and fought for what was right and what was just. They had stood up for who was stepped on and who was overpowered or slave labored. Now, they had become nearly just as bad. Sure they didn't have an egotistical maniac Jedi thinking he was the supreme being and thought that everyone should bow down to his whim. They had something much better; democracy.
She talked with herself up in the kitchen. She carried a very heavy accent and mimic as she spoke slowly to the walls, "Why would we want some chubby, lazy, no good Diplomat with a lot of ethical problems who'll just end up fightin' legal battles instead of running the government..."
She walked to a mirror and looked at herself as she said it, "When we already got one!?"
The recitation reminded her of a fat cat up on Capital Hill that was always making advancements to move in on her end of the city to build a convenience area. She didn't like him. She didn't like him at all.
She breathed in heavy, looked around the room, and walked back into the kitchen. She gripped the handle to the cryo-fridge and pulled on it, her palm being scanned as she placed her fingers over the notch. The freezer let out a sigh of release as cold air spilled onto the floor. She reached for a soda and then shut its door. She cracked open the lid and brought the syrup up to her lips. It flowed down her throat and cooled off her mouth.
She placed the still full soda on a counter and walked into the living quarters. It was a mess. Clothes were strewn everywhere and half-eaten bags of food laden the table in the middle of the area. A small holotube sat at a far end of the room behind a gigantic pile of clothes.
She sat down on a floating cushion in front of the terrific mess. She looked around, watched the stillness, and got up again. She walked down the hallway towards her bedroom at the end. The door was constantly left open, there was no one else to invade her privacy in the house anyway.
In stark contrast to the majority of the rest of her unkempt home, she kept her room in perfect condition. Everything was stacked neatly on shelves or files away I dresser drawers in her various bureaus. The bed was made. The floor could be seen. Trash was nonexistent. She smiled to herself, glad that something in her life, despite how insignificant it may be in retrospect, was under control and manageable.
She stepped over to a table and opened the single drawer it had on its front side. Inside was a large assortment of papers. These were the documented reports from the security cameras the day her parents were taken by the Imperials.
The portfolio also included a few legal papers allowing her to keep the rights to the house, no matter how far in debt she became on her bills and mortgage. She placed the papers on the top of the desk and sat down at the metallic gold chair before her. She touched a thin rod that was on the tabletop gently and a bright beam illuminated the room.
She scanned the documents from the report and glanced at the face shots taken by the cameras. Most of the Imperials wore white gas masks and other such nonsense that made it very difficult to get a positive ID. She took a piece of paper off of a pad from her right. She grabbed a writing utensil and started writing down the number clearances from the suits of the troopers that were clearly visible. She almost laughed at herself. How could she have over looked this? It was so obvious that she almost hit herself on the head.
There was one Imperial that wore nothing over his face. She squinted hard and tried to get a better focus. She gave up on that page and turned to the next one.
His face was clear and exposed as he had reached up to tear down the camera. She had a face. She had what she needed. Now if only she could get the Republic's ambassadors to help her...
By R. C. Carpenter
Chapter Five
Lando Calrissian had a certain air about him as he swaggered into the Brox Kaled District. He was handsome and well off, the sort of man that everyone wanted to be friendly to, especially since *his* friends were highly ranking NR officials. All the patrons stared over at him; his aura of good-hearted jokes, fine drinks, and beautiful women made him all the more appealing. He had followed his buddies, Han, Luke and Chewbacca, to Cimmeria under the hopes of getting in a few trading contracts with local stock dealers, but his main objective was to watch out for the two humanoids who were bound to fall into some sort of catastrophe along the way. He bowed his head unnoticeably towards one of his companions, "Watch out for any bad news, they'll try to real us in with one of their get-rich-quick scams that this place is notorious for."
The bald headed man to his left nodded his agreement silently and continued to stare straight ahead, very out of character for the happy tourist he was playing.
Cimmerian docking bay customs were easily passed, giving Lando the impression that any illegals could effortlessly slip through the system and never be found again, free to move on to their next rendezvous. Off the top of his hairless head, Lando's partner had already spotted three aliens who were currently prohibited from this sector.
"Turn here." Lando extended his arm towards a hallway to their right and sidestepped past his companions.
The hallway was, in fact, a reputable business of the NR that Calrissian had been told to check in on while he was visiting. The business was well kept, as were the managers, an elderly couple that lived above the offices whom Lando had known a while back and was slightly glad to have to pay a call on. The couple were informants. Working from the inside of the gutters selling false info to any scurvy knave that would take it, they caught many of the very illegals that they had spotted along the way.
The tall, dark man entered the small office in the cellar of the couple's home, knocking on the open door as he did.
"Hello?" he said with a smile.
He looked around the unlit room, his eyes straining as they adjusted to the pale light emanating from the edge of the shut door of another room towards the back. As the light focused in around him, he could begin to feel the outline of the furniture, the desks, the papers and antiquities. The many years of work and refurbishing lay to each and every corner of the room and the building itself. The entire motif of the office was jovial and open, inviting.
Now, as Lando called out for the lights, he could see what the room truly was. Dilapidated. Toppled. Torn through with a razor blade and burned up in a fury of unknown tension and outrage.
"Melo! Cwalina!" Lando shouted towards the door. He stepped over a knocked down chair, it pained him to see the tragedies of the poor couple who, hopefully still, lived here. He stumbled past stacks of scattered papers, no doubt reports they had yet to file. He reached out in full stretch for the panel to open the door.
The door slid open itself.
Startled by finding someone behind the door, the woman flipped out her blaster and steadied herself, aiming directly at the ambassador's forehead. Lando slowly raised his hands towards his head, his stomach clenching tightly as he tried to remain balanced on the edge of an over-turned couch. The woman, seeing his surrender, tossed him up onto his feet. His muscles released from the anguish. She glared at the other men with him and aimed the set-to-kill blaster at them as she quickly checked Calrissian's pockets with her right hand, not looking at him, training her thoughts on the others.
Finding Lando's lack of weaponry acceptable, she pulled back from his side and shuffled through a desk drawer, her eyes still not moving from her captives. She felt along the inside of the drawer and found what she sought. She pulled out a second blaster and aimed that one at the dark skinned man to her right.
She spoke, "I don't know what else you could want, but we gave it all to you last week. You can't suck us dry if we don't have anything to bleed, you dolts."
The other men in the room, their hands now brought above their heads as well, began to smile ever so slightly. She caught hold of their facial expression. "What? You think it's funny, huh? Well," she moved towards Calrissian, "It wouldn't be too funny if I shot your boss's face right off to the Black Hole sector, right?"
She snagged her long fingernails into the dark, curly strands of his hair and eased his head back, forcing his mouth open in pain. She rammed the barrel of the blaster past his teeth and nearly choked him. The three others whipped out their own, more upgraded, weaponry and brought them to different positions on the woman, no trace of fear on their faces. It appeared almost routine.
The woman's face dropped for only a second and then she smiled down at her gun-chewing captive, "They seem kind of relaxed and sure of themselves, huh?"
Lando forced a movement of his lips around the cylinder and tried to gurgle up a reply.
The woman let go of his hair and the blaster and stepped away to sit on the upset couch. She brought her knees close together, squeezing them tightly. Her head bobbed down in abandonment, the locks of extremely curled cerulean and green hair shielding her sapphire eyes from the faces. She laid her hands on top of the other and awaited her fate.
"Well, what are you going to do now, hmm? Let me rot here? Or are you finally going to let me die like you should've a long time ago?" Her voice was now frail and hurt, not like the angry young woman's they had just gotten a mouthful of.
Lando's reaction surprised even him as he lunged towards her, both of his strong hands gripping into the armrests of the tufted couch. "Now just you listen to me, we're not here to take you anywhere and after that fancy attack on me, I wouldn't be shocked if anyone else would have killed you. But like I said, we're not here to do that. Believe me, I want to right now. I want to take this blaster," he raised the one he had pulled from his mouth up to her face, "And shove it down your throat and see how you like it, but I'm not going to."
She raised her head and stared at the other men, careful not to give herself even the slightest chance to make eye contact with Lando. Her far off voice came again, "What's that supposed to mean?"
The three guards stepped farther into the room and began to pick up scattered objects. The woman watched their every move as they did so. In return, Lando watched her, making extra sure that she didn't try to get up and kill him again. He put down the blaster on the edge of the couch nearest him.
She brushed aside a strand of emerald hair behind her ear to glance out of the corned of her eye at the dark skinned man next to her. She studied his scowl as he glared at her. She tried to hide her fear, mask the devastation, but she was already caught, why not just break down entirely while she still had the chance.
Her dry eyes immediately were raged with salty droplets and her whole body began to convulse with terror. Lando grew only slightly piteous. He sat down next to her and began to talk, "Where's Melo and Cwalina?"
The woman's face was soaking up the drops and she whimpered out a reply, "I thought you were here to take me," came her excuse for the attack, "I don't know who you are, why you're here and now you start asking about my parents!"
She became hysterical.
Lando's mind took in the information. He'd never known that the Seukler's had a daughter, but it didn't surprise him to find out now, they were very secretive and protective of their personal life. No doubt they kept the woman a secret in her younger years due to their risky business. Now she was her own person and was out to make her own hairy transactions.
Lando lifted her chin, "You're their daughter? What happened? We need to know. We're here from the New Republic on a routine check as ambassadors. I'm Lando Calrissian. I can help if you tell us everything you know."
The woman looked up at him. She wanted to glare at him for making almost light of her situation. She looked at the now sitting guards. They squirmed uneasily in their scruffy civilian outfits. She spoke in her head, phrasing things correctly to say what she wanted to the best way she could. She wrung her hands together nervously.
Her hair slid off her ear and she brushed it back again. "They were taken by the Imperials. They came here a few weeks ago and tore our home apart. They took food and goods and money and bank-statements. They took our pet. They took my parents. They were going to take me, but they decided against it. They slammed me against a wall and left me for dead."
Lando felt only the slightest hint of pity for her, but she was obviously able to take care on her own. This had been greatly displayed by her uncanny ability to make a guest feel at home. She shattered at the mention of the New Republic and this bothered Lando immensely. He leaned to her ear and whispered coarsely, "Why did they take them...do you think?"
She knew he was mocking her, that he didn't really want to believe her. That was the truth, though, and if he couldn't accept the truth, then he wasn't worthy of it. Her blood ran cold with the sound of his voice. It was very threatening and he meant it to be, no doubt. She clenched her teeth together, bitter and soured. The harsh blue eyes snapped at Lando like a scorpion.
"I don't know why they'd want to take them, Mister Calrissian. I'm not one of them. I don't know how they think. But maybe you do. So maybe you'd like to help me with that question." She rose from the sofa and took measured steps towards the back of the room. The guards followed her with only their eyes. At this point, a second attack would be inconceivable.
She crossed her arms and slid into the darkness. She blanketed herself with the corner and tried not to make it too obvious that Lando was the one she had fixated upon.
She was silent with the room for a very long time. Then she spoke out, her voice quite and rebellious, "I'm not sorry, really. But I'll say it to make you happy."
Lando removed himself from the couch, a look of sheer disgust on his face. His mouth was half-open in amazement from her comment. His eyebrows were raised far beyond normal. He walked over to the shadows in less than two second.
His sarcasm was overdone, "Oh, well, that's just great. Lovely apology, miss. I accept it with open arms and can't wait for your next compliment."
She snickered and angled her face to the floor. He shook his head and flung his arms into the velvet-thick air. "I don't know why I bother!"
He stormed over to his guards, "Come on, let her wallow in her misery. We're not going to be much of a help. It's evident we're not *wanted,*" he stole a look at the woman, "around here."
Lando disappeared through the door, the sunlight glinting on the fragments of particles that were hung in the air. The bald tourist snapped his fingers and ordered the others to follow, "Let's go."
Without another word, they left the blue-green haired woman and her hatred to infest the whole apartment. There was no sound as she slid down the side of the wall. She brought her knees close to her face and placed her hands over her eyes. She sobbed for over half an hour before she was satisfied with her lack of control.
She wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her shirt and sucked back her feelings. She gained her balance and walked to the still open door. She left her blaster on the couch, she had plenty of others where that one came from.
She came up to the apartment sector of the building. This had been her parents' home since before she was born. It had been in her father's family since before he was. Now, something had happened. The New Republic had promised great things such as freedom and better lives. Hers had only gone downhill. She remembered when Melo and Cwalina had been a very loving couple who's only folly was that they were spies for the NR.
That had been their downfall, she had decided long ago. The NR was nothing but trouble. They thought they were doing they were doing the right thing. Just like the Empire had its followers thinking the same thing. This is the New Republic, this is the right way. This is the Empire, this is the best way. The Rebel's, back in their glory days of the Battles, had been very active and fought for what was right and what was just. They had stood up for who was stepped on and who was overpowered or slave labored. Now, they had become nearly just as bad. Sure they didn't have an egotistical maniac Jedi thinking he was the supreme being and thought that everyone should bow down to his whim. They had something much better; democracy.
She talked with herself up in the kitchen. She carried a very heavy accent and mimic as she spoke slowly to the walls, "Why would we want some chubby, lazy, no good Diplomat with a lot of ethical problems who'll just end up fightin' legal battles instead of running the government..."
She walked to a mirror and looked at herself as she said it, "When we already got one!?"
The recitation reminded her of a fat cat up on Capital Hill that was always making advancements to move in on her end of the city to build a convenience area. She didn't like him. She didn't like him at all.
She breathed in heavy, looked around the room, and walked back into the kitchen. She gripped the handle to the cryo-fridge and pulled on it, her palm being scanned as she placed her fingers over the notch. The freezer let out a sigh of release as cold air spilled onto the floor. She reached for a soda and then shut its door. She cracked open the lid and brought the syrup up to her lips. It flowed down her throat and cooled off her mouth.
She placed the still full soda on a counter and walked into the living quarters. It was a mess. Clothes were strewn everywhere and half-eaten bags of food laden the table in the middle of the area. A small holotube sat at a far end of the room behind a gigantic pile of clothes.
She sat down on a floating cushion in front of the terrific mess. She looked around, watched the stillness, and got up again. She walked down the hallway towards her bedroom at the end. The door was constantly left open, there was no one else to invade her privacy in the house anyway.
In stark contrast to the majority of the rest of her unkempt home, she kept her room in perfect condition. Everything was stacked neatly on shelves or files away I dresser drawers in her various bureaus. The bed was made. The floor could be seen. Trash was nonexistent. She smiled to herself, glad that something in her life, despite how insignificant it may be in retrospect, was under control and manageable.
She stepped over to a table and opened the single drawer it had on its front side. Inside was a large assortment of papers. These were the documented reports from the security cameras the day her parents were taken by the Imperials.
The portfolio also included a few legal papers allowing her to keep the rights to the house, no matter how far in debt she became on her bills and mortgage. She placed the papers on the top of the desk and sat down at the metallic gold chair before her. She touched a thin rod that was on the tabletop gently and a bright beam illuminated the room.
She scanned the documents from the report and glanced at the face shots taken by the cameras. Most of the Imperials wore white gas masks and other such nonsense that made it very difficult to get a positive ID. She took a piece of paper off of a pad from her right. She grabbed a writing utensil and started writing down the number clearances from the suits of the troopers that were clearly visible. She almost laughed at herself. How could she have over looked this? It was so obvious that she almost hit herself on the head.
There was one Imperial that wore nothing over his face. She squinted hard and tried to get a better focus. She gave up on that page and turned to the next one.
His face was clear and exposed as he had reached up to tear down the camera. She had a face. She had what she needed. Now if only she could get the Republic's ambassadors to help her...