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Chapter Thirteen: Prisoners of the Empire

Marney and Han Solo were brought to a holding cell at the main base. There was a twi'lek female already staying there, and at first he thought for one awful moment that it was his daughter Rixxi. As he looked more closely, however, he realized that this greenish-brown-skinned woman was much older than Rixxi. She had similiar facial features to the teenage girl, but unlike her was dressed in a traditional twi'lek dancer's outfit.

"Hey, there," Han greeted her, "I'm Han Solo, and I think that together, you and I can come up with a brilliant escape plan."

"I am Oola," she informed him, "I've been enslaved and taken away from my family on Ryloth. They use me as entertainment around here."

"Stick with me, Honey, and you'll see some real entertainment," the Smug One said in a swaggering tone.

Marney had stopped calling him 'Smug' to his face, but in his mind the human had retained the moniker. For some reason, the man's overconfident attitude reminded him of his younger self when he was a hot-shot captain for the Mon Cala Space Fleet. He wasn't sure about Han himself, but his friend the wookiee sounded as if he was of the courageous variety; and best of all, Chewbacca was still at large and in charge of Han's vessel. He wondered if it might be possible for Yabecca to somehow track him down and work with him to bust them out of this place. If the guards on Ron 12 tended to get as drunk as his father had said they did, then there might be some hope. So far, however, Stormy had not been displaying the requisite incompetence needed by them to accomplish such a feat.

They had not been at the facility for long before they received a visit from another, more familiar twi'lek female.

"Lyna!" Marney cried as she was escorted by one of the guards over to his cell, "How did you get them to let you in here?"

"I've promised to put on a show for the man you and your father call 'The Moffett Mokk'...and you'd better not call him that to his face, Marney. They weren't as dumb as we thought they were! They were ready for us, and they knew all about our plan. I think someone must have chipped our ship with the same sort of damn info chip that we were supposed to use on this place. So much for your father's brilliant idea!"

Lyna was about to say something else, but stopped suddenly as she caught a glance of their twi'lek cell-mate.

"Oola!" she cried in recognition, "Is it really you? Have we actually stumbled upon you, my dear daughter's half-sister?!"

"Lyna," Oola responded, "You must leave at once. If they have not jailed you yet, they will. There are many more stormtroopers here than there used to be, because Moff Tarkin is coming here as a special guest...I hope Rixxi is not here with you, because they will enslave her as well. Mokk plans to present Tarkin with some gift prisoners, in order to impress him and make him think they've been doing a good job here."

Oola and Lyna broke into their own language, chattering with each other as excitedly as they dared. As they did so, Marney took an old-fashioned pen and notepad out of his jacket pocket. He quickly wrote a note on it in the Rylothian langauge, telling Lyna about Chewbacca the wookiee and Han's ship.

"Get Yabecca to talk to him," he wrote, as Solo peered over his shoulder, "His friend Han is my cell-mate, and he tells me that Chewbacca is piloting a ship called 'The Millennium Falcon'."

"Who's Yabecca?" Han whispered to him, evidently skilled at reading the Rylothian alphabet, "I sure as hell hope it's not a female wookiee or Chewie will ditch us and run off with her."

Raddek ignored him and quickly deposited the note in Lyna's pocket. She put her hand in her coat to acknowledge that she'd received it, but she did not look at the note as the sound of a trooper's boots were once more resounding across the floor.

Stormy walked over to the cell with yet another prisoner. To Marney's dismay, it was Qualle.

"Moff Mokk wants another piece of sea-food to present to Tarkin," Stormy explained as he opened the door and kicked Qualle in the backside, sending him sprawling across the floor of the cell.

"You're pretty talkative for a stormtrooper," Solo quipped.

"Shut up, Smuggler Solo, or you'll be served to the wookiees as their noon-day meal."

"I told you, I'm not a smuggler," Solo objected, "I'm in the business of Secret Transport Services."

"Not anymore you're not," Stormy told him sternly, "Once we nab your wookiee co-conspirator we'll impound your ship and send you down to the salt-yards to join the rest of the slaves."

"Man, what's happened to this place since the last time I was here?" Solo complained as Stormy grabbed Lyna by the hand and led her away, "Suddenly it's turned from a lair of drunks into the Hub of Imperial efficiency."

Qualle was sitting in the corner with his head buried in his hands.

"Captain Raddek, I am so sorry!" he said to him, "On our last rubbish-stop, I found The Emperor's Fountain and..."

"Qualle, we don't have time for that kind of nonsense right now!" Raddek chided him angrily, "They're probably going to arrest the rest of the crew—man, are we lousy spies, or what? We were fools to bring the kids with us."

"Yab and TT2 located a spy device which was implanted on our ship, and TT2 shut it down," Qualle explained, "They thought something was up when the stormtrooper revealed that he knew all about our plan. After that was accomplished, Jalleck and Yab left Lyna, TT2, and I near the base's prison facility before taking The Polar Carp and flying away back into space in order to keep the young ones safe. When I got arrested, TT2 zipped off in her own direction, and Lyna stayed with me to make the deal about dancing for Moffett Mokk. Somewhere along the line, we hope to rescue you."

"Forget me!" Marney exploded, "I've screwed things up again, and so have you! Damn...you and I should have stayed in prison back at the Mon Cala Spaceport, Qualle."

"I wanted to stay, Captain," Qualle reminded him, "but you insisted that I work aboard your ship."

Marney growled in consternation. So far, just about everything had gone wrong. Dead simple mission, my ass! He thought furiously.

"So, Qualle," Solo inquired, "What'd you do to the Emperor's Fountain?"

"You don't wanna know, Solo!" Marney roared, "And to top it all off, Qualle, I forgot to bring along the insertion gun with The War Council's damn info chip in it...not that it will do any good now that the Empire knows all about it!"

"I agree, Raddek," Solo concurred, "You guys really are lousy spies."