Chapter 6
Luke stared at him, dumbfounded.
Andover smiled. "That's right. Thermite." He smiled, and sat down on the other side of the iron bars separating them.
"How?" Luke asked. This must have been what andover was so shocked about yesterday.
"The walls are covered in aluminum powder, butyrate dope, and ferrous oxide," Andover informed, pronouncing it "al-you-mini-um."
"Anyway," he continued, "these wall panels aren't durasteel. They seem to be sheets of phosphor bronze, coated in primer immediately after they are cut. This primer has high aluminum powder content for reflectivity. It is then covered in three coats of iron-rich paint. The rocks necessary were probably salvaged from molten lava, as that is the cheapest way to get it while it is still thermodynamically stable. As this molten iron ore was pulled from the sides of lava flows, it had to be processed quickly."
"So they did not remove any of the ferrous oxide," Luke said, understanding where Andover was coming from.
He nodded. "Precisely."
"So you are implying that the Imperials have us imprisoned in a bomb without a fuse?"
Andover nodded again. "Mm hmm."
"And if we ignite it, we're free?"
"I'm wearing off the coating so I can burn a small hole in the wall. Soon, all I'll need is a fire to be free." Andover stated. "But I don't know how to make one here. I don't have a match, they took my chrono… maybe we could use our electrified iron bars as igniters?"
"So all we need is a spark," Luke observed.
"Yeah, we do."
Luke thought back to his dream. "Do you have a white pin on you?"
"Yeah…" Andover began, searching through his uniform. "What? They took it? ****." He turned back to Luke. "No, they took it."
Luke began to think of anything they could use.
"How to get ignite phosphor bronze…" Andover thought aloud, as if it might help.
"Phosphorous bronze is used in matches," Luke said. "All you need is friction. Maybe a hardened alloy of some sort."
"They won't give us anything useful," groaned the reply. "Just our gilded dreams."
Luke chuckled mirthlessly at his pun. Soon, they both recessed back into their thoughts.
Mara looked through the reports Lyudmila had brought her. There were no extremely useful bits of information on the two captives, and no proof that they were important whatsoever.
She picked up a piece of paper, and read the title. Flight plan analysis, it read.
She crumpled it in a ball and threw it into a container.
Was there no end to incompetency among the Imperial ranks? If this was the best they could come up with, no wonder the Rebels were winning. Hit and run guerilla tactics were impossible to defend against if the flight crews couldn't actually do what was needed 100 percent of the time.
She picked up the next sheet. It was titled, Detainment Specifics.
Like I don't already know, she mused.
The next sheet was more interesting. It listed all known information on the two.
It read:
Casimir, Andover.
-Born 20:5:17 GrS, in Liezden, Chandrila.
-Known for his exceptional electronic work and piloting skill, and being an escape artist.
-Currently lives in a derelict hangar outside the old Liezden Spaceport.
-Has a twin sister, Avramova Casmir, same birthdate and residence.
-Jailed under two counts of political hooliganism, three count of criminal mischief, one count of assassination and one count of destruction of Imperial property. Escaped and listed as a fugitive under court order charge of escaping and evading capture.
-Believed to have an association with rebels operating in the Chandrilian system.
-Assigned lifetime imprisonment.
Skywalker, Luke
-Born near the settlement of Mos Eisely, Tatooine, circa year 16 GrS.
-Worked on a moisture farm.
-No living blood relatives.
-Resided with aunt and uncle until 35 GrS. They were shot that year in a military recovery mission. No other relations are on record.
-Commander of the Rebel's elite Rogue Squadron.
-Believed to have participated in the Battle of Yavin.
-Likely trained in the Force by Jedi survivors.
-Wanted personally by Lord Vader.
Mara whistled through her teeth. These boys, though not much more than teenagers, had managed to rack up quite an impressive list. Soon, they would undergo the interrogations and then the Emperor would be informed of the situation.
She smirked. A farmboy pilot and a skilled-but-practically-homeless political hooligan who had escaped capture had turned themselves into Rebel self-appointed wonders.
She called one of her subordinates through her comlink.
"Yes, Commander Jade?" he asked, ready for orders.
"Prepare the primary interrogation rooms and their adjacent holding cells. We will then question our newest prisoners."
"Yes, ma'am." With that, Mara turned off her comlink and set it down on her desk.
This ordeal had better qualify her for a promotion.
"Political hooliganism, destruction of Imperial property, criminal mischief, and evading capture?" Luke cried. "You're right! You are going to be executed, but it won't be my fault!"
Andover scoffed. "Of course it isn't. It's my sister's."
Luke rolled his eyes. "Of course it is."
With nothing else to do to keep themselves occupied, the two began to talk about their lives.
"Now, don't get all rude," Andover reprimanded. "My sister got arrested on some trivial issue, and I got the money and was rushing to the regional courthouse to pay the bail. I was in that prototype from the TIE incident-"
"Your sister got arrested too?"
"Well, she was trying to smuggle Imperial arms to Rebel moles-"
"And that's trivial to you?"
Andover sniggered. "You should hear what I haven't got arrested doing."
"So, back to the story..." Luke prompted.
"That prototype had been experiencing some flight control problems. At high speed, the external cooling system would get so hot; it would change shape and cover one of the cooling intakes. This melted all the wires leading to the rear elevators and the engine vectors.
"I was flying close to street level towards the courthouse, which happened to be hosting the governor at the time. The lower altitudes have higher pressures, and the friction melted the intake shut. I was about to pull up when I realized I couldn't pull up, and I was traveling straight at the courthouse at 1800 clicks per hour. So I ejected."
Luke was confused. "So you didn't die. What's illegal about that?"
Andover's lighthearted tone suddenly became mortified. "The plane hit the courthouse."
"You have a bad habit of putting planes into buildings," Luke replied bluntly. Andover merely shook his head and ran a hand through his hair.
"You don't understand," he said finally. "The explosion destroyed the courthouse. The governor died, along with two dozen Imperial judges, Stormtroopers, Imperial sympathizers, and Imperial people from all across the system. My mistake killed one hundredand forty two people and leveled half the plaza. I was given lifetime imprisonment, but I escaped and thought I was gonna be safe. And then look at me now." He glanced at his feet somberly. "You're right. I am gonna get killed."
Neither spoke for a few minutes. It was still "night time" on the Star Destroyer. Thus, no Stormtroopers were present and the other Prisoners were asleep. Their confidential conversation, seemingly ended, had really worn down their nerves. But Andover never seemed to stay asleep, so he persistently kept on talking.
"So how have you managed to ruined your life?"
As Andover listened with wide eyes to Luke's stories, Mara was busy finishing scheduled diagnostics on the ship's computers. Being personally trained by Palpatine, she was trusted more than anyone with the vast array of digital information on the ship. She watched as the flight computer diligently began printing readouts on the state of its parts.
"Take it from here," Mara ordered to the technician who was sitting next to her. Wordlessly, he nodded, and Mara left. Walking briskly through the hallways, she tried to remember where the interrogation cells were. Though it took her a good half hour, she eventually found her destination. She sat down into a chair in the interrogation room's antechamber, waiting impatiently for the Rebel pilots.
She thought, This is going to be fun.
Just then, Andover and Luke were being escorted through the hallways by a rather large compliment of Stormtroopers.
"Remember," Andover sardonically reminded him. "All you need to tell them is you name, rank and serial number."
"I don't have a serial number."
Andover sighed. "Forget it. I was just trying to speak their-" …he gestured to the Stormtroopers… "-language."
Luke scoffed. "Yeah, like you actually have a serial number."
"According to my sister, it's W1ERD-A55H0LE."
It took Luke a few seconds to understand what that meant. When he did, he smiled weakly. "That bad, huh?"
"You're lucky you don't have a twin sister. You're force sensitive. Do you realize how kriffin' annoying it would be to share a force bond?"
Andover, through the course of Luke's life story, had been informed all about the Jedi, the Force, and everything relevant to it. But now, Luke wished he hadn't said anything in the first place.
He thought for a moment. "If I had a sister, we would probably get along very well."
"Yeah, right," Andover replied doubtfully. "A force bond? It'd be more like forced bonding."
"You're such a cynical person," Luke chided.
"I'm not cynical," his cell-mate defended. "Everything just sucks."
All right, fine. I didn't get to Mara and Luke meeting this chapter. But as you can see, it is going to happen very soon.
Just a shout out to Empresselizabeth: Yeah, I'm going to continue. But reviews are my motivation to update.
So, if anybody reading this could take thrity seconds of your time to type a few words, it would be greatly appreciated.
Leave any comments, constructive criticism, or suggestions you have. Thanks.
-ClaptonJr.