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Chapter Twelve: Stormy and 'The Smug'

The Polar Carp glided into the trash depot on Rondirak 12. The crew immediately set to work bringing the compacted trash blocks into the loading bay of their ship. TT2 aided them by piling the slabs on top of a hover-dolly and pulling them in. There weren't enough for a full load, and so they would have plenty of room for the smaller pick-ups in and around the base.

Things seemed to be proceeding in a routine manner until an Imperial stormtrooper, dressed in his white head-to-toe armor-suit, peppered them with questions about where they had come from and why they were bothering to do an extra trash run when the regular trash scow had been by just last week.

"There's been a call for an extra run," Raddek explained to the stormtrooper, "but I don't know—I'm just following orders, man."

Marney had never liked the fact that you couldn't see the real eyes or faces of these armored individuals—they looked like droids, but as far as he knew the armor housed an actual living being inside them.

"I'm not sure I believe you," the stormtrooper stated flatly, "What was your last destination? Where, specifically, did you come from?"

"Look, I've shown you our papers, Stormy," Raddek replied as nonchalantly as he dared, giving the trooper a nickname to make him seem less intimidating, "We just came from The Outer Rim."

"Where in the Outer Rim did you come from? Which world, Fish? Could it possibly have been Mon Cala, the Rebel stronghold?"

Marney thought that he might as well tell Stormy at least part of the truth.

"We came from Kelmoon," he finally blurted out.

As soon as the word was out of his mouth, Marney knew that he had made a rather large mistake. It would have been smarter to tell him that they had come from Mon Cala, as he was quite obviously a mon calamari and it would not have been a surprise. It was too late to change his answer, however, because the connection between himself and the Rebel Alliance had just been made.

By Thorus, he thought, some spy I am!

"Kelmoon?" Stormy replied, "That's a rebel base! Captain Marney Raddek, I'm placing you under arrest on suspicion of being a double agent for the Rebel Alliance."

As Stormy put hand clamps on him, Lyna ran over to them in alarm.

"Sir, what are you doing? We are loyal workers of the Empire! We've hauled their trash for years!"

"The rest of you fools can go about your business," Stormy retorted, "I don't want to waste time and resources on you; but this fish that you're working for has definite ties to the Rebel Alliance. Did you know that, twi'lek girl?"

Lyna exchanged glances with her husband. She knew that she would need to play her role as a disinterested crew member if they were all to avoid arrest.

"Really?" she answered with a yawn, "I don't know. Me and the others here are just working for our pay. This idiot Ocean-swimmer hasn't even paid us in over three weeks, so I don't care if you haul his cheap ass away."

"Good acting, Wife-of-a-Fish," Stormy retorted, "but I'm afraid we're not as stupid as you think here on Ron 12. Did you really think we'd let you bastards waltz in here and stuff a micro-chip in our central control panel? From what I hear, you're planning to put on a show for the Moff. Great idea—I'd love to see you dance. Once you people are finished collecting your trash, you can come to the central base to pick up this piece of double-crossing trash here and you can try to convince the Moff to let him go as you strip your clothes for him."

Stormy left the scene abruptly, pushing Raddek ahead of him in a rough manner. He knew from the clicking sound behind him that Stormy had a blaster pistol pointed straight at him.

He was placed in the back of a prisoner's shuttle and the door was sealed tight. The back of the shuttle was dark, but he could feel the presence of another person...most likely a human.

"Who's there?" he asked, shaken by the fact that Stormy seemed to have been expecting them and even more disturbingly, had known all about their so-called "secret" mission.

"Nobody special," came the bored response to his anxious question, "but my sniffer tells me I got a fish as a cell-mate...I hope you brought the chips and vinegar, 'cause I'm starving here."

"Are you...working for the Alliance?" Marney asked hopefully, desperate enough for guidance on what to do next that he was willing to ignore the disconcerting implications of the fellow's menu choice.

"No...I guess you could say that I'm in business for myself at the moment," the man replied, "among other things."

Raddek surmised that he was a smuggler who had been caught transporting some illegal substances; and if so, he no doubt deserved to be in prison. His voice held a brash ring of arrogance in it, which inspired the mon cal captain to continue his new Rondirak 12 tradition and give the man a nickname.

"So, Smug," he addressed him casually, "What did you try to bring in here?"

"Oh...nothing much," The Smug answered, "just some freeze-dried wookiee milk. I was doing it more as a favor for a friend, but then my brilliant co-pilot found out the milk was going to feed a bunch of wookiee slaves here. He promised me he'd rip both my arms off if we didn't attempt to rescue a few."

"You...you rescue slaves, too?" Raddek asked, flabbergasted, "or at least, your co-pilot does?"

"My co-pilot is a wookiee," retorted The Smug, "and it's not a good idea to piss off a wookiee. So, I went in to spring a few...they got away, but I got caught. By the way, I'm not a smuggler—secret transport services, I prefer to call it—and don't call me 'Smug' or you'll piss me off. The name's Solo—Han Solo."