Chapter 2
"What word from Carida?"
"He's escaped," the blue skinned man said in calm and controlled voice.
"Escaped? Vice Admiral?"
"Our agents ship crashed on approach to Carida, he never met with your son."
"So where did he go?" The Captain demanded
"Patience Captain. In all likely hood he will return to Katal." The Captain reached for his control board to order a platoon of commandos to Katal. "No, Captain. His ship is still on Carida, he will return for it, I have no doubt of that."
"We'll have men waiting won't we?"
"Of course Captain Parck, he will join us."
"Yes, sir."
Xander made it to Katal without further incident. He stood there in the middle of the spaceport in his Imperial uniform again, blaster pistols on hip. Katal was one of the numerous planets in the outer rim that was a haven for smugglers bounty hunters and all other forms of illegal activity. It was however still independent, not falling under the jurisdiction of Hutt space, and the Empire had left them alone since Dom Artell had protested the Emperors dissolving the Imperial Senate. Occasionally the Empire would send a platoon or so of Stormtroopers and the like to show that Katal did still fall under Imperial law.
The spaceport was just as it had been when Xan had left for Carida six standard months ago, crowded, dirty and shady. Aliens and humans were all over the place, all of them with some form of weapon clearly visible, and who knew how many other weapons, or forms of martial arts they could use against you. Yes they were an unfriendly lot, the whole planet, and the other habitable planets in the Corbata system. He knew he was safe though, he'd grown up on the planet, fought his way through the alleys, boxed Trandoshans in adolescence, he was tough, and that combined with spending a lot of time aboard his fathers Star Destroyer watching the troops, pilots and techs had made him a very formidable person. Not to mention the fact that to attack an Imperial, even a cadet, would bring the Empire down on them.
Xan took out his commlink and thumbed it on. "Hey Rydell?"
"Xan?" Rydell's surprised voice came through the speaker. "Where are you?"
"I'm in the spaceport. Do you think you could come and pick me up, I've run into some trouble."
"Of course Xan, the usual spot."
"Where else? I'm in uniform, so I'll be easy to spot."
"Alright. See you soon."
The usual place for Xan and Rydell was one of the better tapcafes in the area. The Corbata system was a place of polar opposites. There were the very rich law abiding peoples who were there because the system government had very low taxes, and allowed the wealthy to take advantage. On the opposite end of the Galactic spectrum was the majority, the lowlifes, smugglers, and bounty hunters. They came to the system for the same reason the wealthy patrons did, there were almost no laws in the system to actually act against the criminals, the problem was that they couldn't amend the laws to go after them because their were to many crime lords and to few security Force volunteers.
A long time ago the well off residents of Katal had taken to employing there own security forces and body guards, thus making the Dragon Pearl one of the safest places to be in the whole of the Corbata system. Rydell and Xan had spent many hours in the tapcafe when they were younger. Rydell was the son of Dom Artell, a one-time senator for the Corbata system. Rydell had grown up attending the social elite parties, as Xan had because of his father. The pair had met in one of the best privately funded schools in the system at a young age. It looked as if their world was beginning to fall apart.
Xan entered the tapcafe and went straight for the bar, where he would be in plain view as soon as Rydell walked through the ornate wood doors. He ordered Wookie rum, which came at a lower price on Katal because it wasn't as tightly controlled by the Empire and its overwhelming anti-alien prosecution. After the first swig Xan looked around the room, giving each patron a threat assessment. Almost all of them were the wealthy elite, who posed absolutely no threat. However their bodyguards were scattered throughout the area, including a couple that were trying to be clandestine. Classes at the Academy had taught Xan how to identify them. But what did it matter, none of them were going to pay any attention to a lone Imperial cadet.
Xan was halfway through his second glass of rum when Rydell showed up. He plopped down beside Xan and ordered two glasses of Artell reserve, the finest of Katalian wines. The winery being owned by Dom Artell himself, and had since been passed onto Rydell's uncles. Rydell wanted nothing to do with the current family business.
Rydell himself was an oddity in the Artell family. He was the oldest of three children. Tall and well built with sandy colored hair and blue eyes he dressed and acted more like the smugglers that inhabited Katal, including the presence of blaster pistol on his hip, and a concealed vibroblade or two. He idolized his grandfather, who had been one of the most productive and vicious of bounty hunters in his day. It could have been the Empires assassination of his father that had caused the swing towards crime, but he had always shown some of the tendencies. From a young age Rydell's father had been grooming him to be a senator, and perhaps that was an other reason why he rejected it. He slid one of the wine glasses over to Xan.
"Welcome home." He said raising his glass in a toast. "So why are you back so soon?"
"Hey, let's get out of here. I'll tell you later."
"Right, let's go." Rydell drank the glass deep red wine in one gulp, and Xan knew Dom was flipping over in his grave. Xan did the same and followed Rydell out of the bar.
Outside Rydell's land speeder was waiting it was one of the newest SoroSuub speeders. And by no means was it the same as it had come from the SoroSuub dealer. Rydell had seen fit to modify it with all the normal things, upgraded engines, repulsorlifts, maneuvering jets, and of course, some of the illegal upgrades, of which Xan had no idea how many there were. He always wondered if he was sitting atop an ejection seat, but once Rydell got the ship moving, all thought of being thrown from the vehicle by an ejection seat disappeared.
Xan was pinned back in his seat as Rydell hit the accelerators hard. Rydell had never seen fit to upgrade the acceleration compensators. Before he knew it they were doing better than 150 kilometers per hour, which was well below the limits off the vehicle, but he was doing it through traffic! Dodging other speeders, swoops, and pedestrians. Rydell slid the rear end of the speeder out across the wide center of an intersection, coming within millimeters of picking off a Wookie trying to cross the streets.
"So you going to talk yet you nerf herder?"
Xan looked blankly back at Rydell. "No." He said flatly.
Rydell turned back to the road and pinned the accelerators again, and the ship shot off. Just to see how much his friend was pushing the speeder Xan attempted to raise his hand, and found it impossible, excessive gee forces holding it into place. Rydell crossed the line dividing the street into on coming traffic, straight at a fully loaded speeder truck! Most anyone else would have cracked at that point, but not Xan, he knew Rydell wouldn't kill them by ramming the speeder truck, he also knew that Rydell was determined to get the information out of him. Xan gripped one of the handholds, turning his knuckles white. Closer, and closer, the gap between the two speeders continuing to narrow. At the last possible moment Rydell slammed the controls to his right, and narrowly avoided a collision with the speeder truck.
"Alright. You win Xan, we'll go home."
"Your home."
"Yeah."
Rydell was still living with his widowed mother, in of course one of the largest dwellings on Katal. It was a large ranch, almost 200 acres, most of which was dedicated to raising Nerf. Some being slaughtered, other going to making cloths. On Katal if you were rich, and didn't have an Artell nerf leather jacket, you weren't on anybodies list. The truth was though, that they were rarely worn.
Of course there was a large hangar where the various vehicles used by the family and the ranch hands were stored. One of the bays was taken up by Xan's current project. He was building a custom starship, a mixture of Corellian Engineering Corporation engines and upgraded performance parts, and a Kuat Drive Yards Lambda Class shuttle. At the moment he didn't have the wings that he was looking for.
Once Rydell brought the speeder into the hangar Xan spotted something new. It looked like a Skipray blastboat, except for the fact that it was cut down the middle and separated.
"What's that over there?" Xan asked pointing at the severed ship.
"Nope, you've got to tell me why you're home already."
"You mean you haven't heard? My father's been exiled. . ." Xan continued on to relay the story as he began to work on mounting the Navcomputer into the hull of his ship.
"So what are you going to do?" Rydell questioned.
"I don't know. Maybe I can find work around here as a Tech, that was why I was going to the Academy in the first place, right?"
"You could do that. Or you could come with me." Xan waited for his friend to continue, but Rydell said nothing, and smirk crossed his face. A smirk that Xan recognized as one that always meant Rydell was up to no good.
"And what would we be doing?" Xan finally asked.
"Well, I've started running supplies for Black Sun. That's how I got the money for the Blastboat over there."
"No." Xan said emphatically.
"And what did you have in mind. You have no credentials from anywhere that say you can work on starships, and that's going to make it hard for you to find work."
"So I'll go back to the Academy next year with you, and I'll get those credentials." Xan interrupted.
"Uh, huh Xan. And do you think you could set foot anywhere near the Academy without a group a stormies coming down on you?"
"Well from now on I'm no longer Xander Parck. I'm Xander Hodgins."
"Oh, that's going to work." Rydell responded sarcastically.
"It's worth a shot I'll transmit my application, with a few tweaks of course, and if I get accepted I go with you. If they turn me down, well then I guess I'd better find an other alias."
"Yeah, good luck with that."
"Hand me that hydro spanner, would ya?"
"Yeah, of course." Rydell handed over the tool. "So what are you going to do about the Comet?"
"I don't know, I guess I'll just wait till I'm finished with this."
"Right, Xan. You know that it's going to take you forever to get this thing ready to fly. You still don't even have those wings you're looking for yet. Oh and don't forget those thrusters, and the maneuvering jets, the quad guns, laser cannons and concussion missiles. What about all the furnishings that you need. A galley. . ."
"Alright, I get the point. I guess I just have to buy something till this things mobile."
"Or. . ."
"Or what?" Xan asked, and that smirk appeared on Rydell's face again.
"We could go and get the Comet." Rydell said with a little maniacal laugh.
"Us and what army?" Xan asked, not expecting Rydell to have a plausible answer.
"I could fly my ship and drop you into the area. We could use some codes that I can get through Black Sun and break the ship out."
"And you'll be flying cover while I get the ship ready. Did you happen to forget the TIEs?"
"We can do it." Rydell said with an unwarented amount of confidence.
"In a while, I want to get some credits first."
"Oh, and buy the way, you're staying here. The Imps'll have you place bugged and staked out."
"No objections hear." Xan said.