Working Class Hero
Star Wars: The Bergeron Chronicles, Part 1
A fanfic by Sisiutil
Chapter 3
"Damn," Axel swore as his ship settled back into its previous flight path after it recovered from the blaster impact against the deflector shields. "I knew they'd be armed. Shields at eighty-five percent. Hang on."
Axel guided the Nomad into a sharp, sudden turn. "There. That ought to throw them for a few seconds." He then instinctively grabbed for his chair to steady himself as the ship was rocked by an explosion, yet another sign that their armed adversaries had not given up their pursuit. "Or not. Shields at seventy percent," he said grimly. "Whatever they're firing at us, it's powerful." He then reached forward and punched an evasive sequence into the controls.
"Whoa," Kilu said, gripping the arms of the co-pilot's seat tightly as the ship suddenly lurched to one side, then the other. Another explosion rocked the ship, and Axel threw the freighter into yet another evasive maneuver, a quick dive followed by a sharp starboard turn.
"Can't you pull a Jedi mind trick on them?" Axel remarked. "Or Force-push them away or something?"
"A whole starship?" she said incredulously. "I'm just an apprentice--that's a little beyond me! And how do you know so much about the Jedi, anyway?"
"Space travel can be long and boring," he told her. "I use the time to catch up on my reading." He glanced over and saw an incredulous look on her face. "Seriously," he insisted, then was rocked in his chair as yet another laser blast shook the ship.
"How long will the hyperdrive calculations take?" Kilu asked, her Jedi aura of unflappable calm rapidly eroding.
"Flying through hyperspace ain't like polishing your lightsaber, sweetheart," Axel told her. "Without precise calculations, we could fly right through a star..."
"I know that," she told him sharply. "I didn't ask you why, I asked you when..."
The navicomputer situated just behind and to the left of the pilot's chair gave a short, self-satisfied breep.
"Now would be good, wouldn't you say?" Axel commented. He pulled the hyperdrive lever into his console, and outside the ship, the stars suddenly elongated as the freighter made the jump to hyperspace and safety.
Axel turned in his pilot's chair as a series of whistles and beeps erupted from the corridor behind the cockpit. "Don't take that tone with me, Arf," Axel snapped at the droid that was motoring down the corridor towards the cockpit. The droid was barrel-shaped and was primarily white with a few black vertical stripes on its body. Its conical-shaped head swivelled to the right as its video sensor registered someone sitting in the co-pilot's seat. It vocalized a series of whistles and beeps that sounded to the young Jedi who was sitting there like an expression of surprise followed by a query.
"I didn't bring those guys after us. It was our lovely guest here," Axel said, gesturing towards Kilu. "Kilu Branon, this is my much put-upon agromech droid, R4-E6. I just call him Arf."
"Hello, Arf," Kilu politely addressed the droid.
The R4 unit chirped a curt greeting, then swiveled its video sensor back towards Axel. A series of disgruntled-sounding noises indicated what the droid thought of its nickname. Then the droid continued with a series of beeps and whistles that again sounded to Kilu like it was asking a question.
"Well, see what you can do with it," Axel said with a shrug. "Worst case scenario, we'll just have to get a replacement in our next port-of-call. Or, possibly our second port-of-call," he said, remembering than their next stop was supposed to be in Imperial territory, and he didn't want to stay there any longer than was absolutely necessary. If he was going there at all. The droid made another noise that sounded like a dismissive snort, then went into reverse and retreated down the corridor.
"Is there a problem?" Kilu asked.
"No," Axel said, then turned to her and frowned. "Yes. But it's not what you think. Our sub-space beacon got damaged, but it's a redundant system, so we've still got one working. It's you and this whole mission you're on that I'm worried about. And by the way, acting as your bodyguard's going to cost you extra."
"My bodyguard...?" Kilu said incredulously. Then she laughed--a short, sharp, mocking laugh. "You think a Jedi needs a bodyguard?"
"You seemed to back planet-side, there," he remarked sharply. "How is it I was the only one with a weapon? Don't you carry a lightsaber or something?"
"Like this?" she said, pulling the lightsaber hilt from its clip on her belt and holding it up. "I didn't exactly want to advertise the presence of a Jedi on this mission." She returned the lightsaber hilt to her belt.
"It's a little late for that, don't you think?" Axel said. "Seems like the bad guys know all about your mission, whatever it is."
"They seem to know far too much," Kilu said in a low murmur. "Far too much..."
Then, as Axel watched, her facade of Jedi calm seemed to crumble. Her lower lip trembled, and she blinked rapidly as tears welled up in her eyes. Suddenly, she was no longer a Jedi, but a frightened young woman, vulnerable and overwhelmed; looking at her, he realized she was barely into her twenties. Axel silent admonished himself for taking such a hard line with her. If what she'd said was true, it meant she was still in training, with very little field experience. Which begged the question, what was she doing on some mission all on her own? But Axel decided that question could wait as he watched the turbulent emotions roiling across his client's lovely features.
"What is it?" Axel asked her, the harsher tone he'd been using vanishing, replaced by a far more sympathetic one.
"They killed him," she said, so softly he had to lean closer to hear her.
"Killed who?" Axel asked.
"My Master, Cylus Vax," Kilu replied. A single tear ran down her cheek. "They ambushed us in Carnaxa. Vax said it would be wise to start from a point distant from our destination, but.. but they knew. They ambushed us, and... they killed him. I'm just an apprentice!" she said, her hands outstretched as if she was pleading with the universe... or with the Force. "And... and now... I'm all alone, and..." She was breathing rapidly, and more tears spilled from her eyes. Axel reached out and placed what he intended to be a reassuring hand upon her arm.
"You're not alone..." he started to say.
"No!" she said, pulling her arm away as though he'd delivered an electric shock to her. "Leave me be. Please. I just... need a moment..." she said, her slender brows furrowing. As he watched, she closed her eyes and drew a deep breath. Then, in a voice so low that he could barely hear her, she began to recite a mantra. "There is no emotion; there is peace. There is no ignorance; there is knowledge. There is no passion; there is serenity. There is no death; there is the Force..."
Kilu repeated the lines several times while Axel watched, fascinated. As she did so, her expression returned to its previous, impassive state. She blinked her eyes open and calmly brushed the remnants of the tears from her face. She turned to face Axel and found him glancing expectantly around the cockpit.
"What are you doing?" she asked him.
"Looking around for this... Vax guy," he said. "Don't they do that? If they're struck down? Reappear as a ghost or something?"
A sad smile briefly appeared on Kilu's lips. "Not every Jedi, no. Cylus Vax was only recently made a Knight himself. Normally he wouldn't have been assigned an apprentice yet, but our numbers are so small." She sighed. "And now they are one fewer," she noted softly. "But I'm determined to see our mission through to the end," she said as she turned to face Axel. "That's why I hired you. I trust you're still going to live up to the bargain we made?"
Axel didn't respond immediately. He stared at her long and hard for a moment. Jedi or not, she was still beautiful, and the extraordinary display of inner strength she'd just shown had certainly raised his opinion of her. He didn't often get a chance to spend a few days in hyperspace with someone this easy on the eyes. Nevertheless, getting mixed up with Jedi and alien thugs and secret missions wasn't the line of work Bergeron and Son had ever gone in for.
"You will get paid," she said, with just a hint, but a discernible hint, of contempt in her voice. "I'm a Jedi. An apprentice Jedi, yes, but Jedi nonetheless. My word..."
"It's not the money," he said curtly, interrupting her. "No amount of money is going to buy my way out of an Imperial interrogation room, which is exactly where I'll end up if I get caught bringing a junior Jedi into Empire territory. And in case it hasn't occurred to you, your fate will be just as bad, if not worse."
"My fate is irrelevant," she said calmly, and Axel couldn't hide how taken aback he was. Only a few moments ago, she'd been on the verge of breaking down completely. Now she was talking about torture and death as though they were mere inconveniences.
"Yeah, fine, good for you, but my death isn't irrelevant, at least not to me," he told her. "Look, I'm sure you know a lot about the Force, but you don't know squat about business. A big part of it is identifying and managing risk--knowing what level of risk is acceptable for you personally, and for your business. In case you haven't clued in yet, this whole fiasco is way beyond my acceptable level of risk!"
"So you're not a mercenary," Kilu said with barely disguised contempt. "You're simply a coward."
He felt as though she'd struck him. He stared at her incredulously. "Lady, I make a living by going out into a sub-zero vacuum in a glorified tin can. I'm not a coward. I'm just... not a hero," he concluded, shaking his head. He stole a glance at her and found her glaring at him, her eyes narrowed in suspicion.
"What did you during the rebellion?" she demanded.
He stared right back at her, offended by the question. "My dad and I kept our heads down and did our jobs," he said defensively.
She made a disgusted, dismissive sound, then muttered, "Collaborators."
"Oh, please!" Axel exclaimed impatiently. "Who are you to get all holier-than-thou about the rebellion? You must have barely been out of diapers!"
"My father died in the Battle of Yavin," she replied sharply.
But he caught the tremor in her voice, the note of sorrow, of loss. It was a loss with which he could readily identify. "I'm sorry," he said earnestly. "That must have been rough, losing your dad when you were that young."
His unexpected sympathy seemed to take the ions out of her hyperdrive. Rather than continuing with her barbed analysis of his life, Kilu grew quiet. Several minutes went by before she spoke again. "Can I ask you something?" she said. Her voice had lost much of the acidity it had possessed only a few moments before.
Axel sighed and shrugged. "Why not?" he said in a resigned tone.
"You said you're averse to risk," she reminded him, "but then you said space flight is risky--incredibly so. How do you reconcile the two? Why are you out here?"
Axel glanced out at the strange, beautiful lights and shapes that rushed past the cockpit window as the ship journeyed through hyperspace. He sighed softly and felt his irritation with her pointed questions slowly dissipate. A slight smile of contentment appeared on his lips.
"I guess I love it," he murmured.
"Is that all you love?" she asked him.
He felt his jaw tighten as he returned his gaze to her. "It wasn't always," he said quietly. "But it's all I have left."
For a moment, just for a moment, he thought he saw those expressive brown eyes of hers soften. But whatever was there vanished and was replaced by a look of cold, hard steel. The mission, he could tell, was everything to her, and whatever price had to be paid to bring it to its necessary conclusion was all justifiable in the end. Even if he was part of said price. That's all he was to her, he realized, as he watched her regarding him much as she might a bug under a microscope. All those questions of hers--they were attempts to determine a way to motivate him to keep the original bargain.
He suddenly realized what a fool he'd been, to be taken in by her desperate plea and her pretty face. Like he'd ever stand a chance with a Jedi! And even if he did, why would he want to? What had she said in that mantra of hers? There is no emotion, there is no passion. That was her goal, or so it sounded to him: to feel absolutely nothing. For anyone. Especially for some unwashed freighter jock. He was nothing more than a means to an end. And yet, there'd been that moment, when the facade had dropped, and he'd seen a real person there. A vulnerable person, someone who might need... comfort, perhaps. A helping hand. A shoulder to cry on. Just like he did sometimes.
Suddenly, Axel felt incredibly tired. The adrenaline seemed to vanish from his system in an instant, leaving him exhausted, his limbs shaky and aching, his eyes dry as sandpaper. He raised his hands to his face and rubbed his eyes for a moment.
"Look, it's been a long day," he said to her. "Let me sleep on it. If nothing else, I can get you to the closest border system for what you've already paid me, which is, by the way, an incredible bargain. You can get to B'Tel from there." He glanced at the auto-pilot settings one last time, then rose from the pilot's chair.
"I wouldn't want to inconvenience you," Kilu said, but the earlier venom had disappeared from her voice; instead, Axel heard her disappointment, as well as weariness. Evidently she was tired as well.
"The forward starboard-side cabin is mine," he told her, then covered his mouth with his hand as he yawned. "The aft is yours. Make yourself comfortable. Or whatever it is you Jedi do."
"I'll meditate," she said.
"Like I said, whatever," Axel said tiredly, rolling his eyes as he turned to walk down the corridor, away from the cockpit and his troublesome passenger.