Savareen was a dry land beside the clear green waters of the Emerald Sea's Pnakotic Coast. For the first thousand or so years of its existence it was little more than a modest source for honey preserved fruits and unique local brandy. The discovery of the coaxium refining process made Savareen and the port of Bis in particular one of the most important locations in the Outer Rim coaxium trade.

The Savarians who had long been distilling for their brandy found the coaxium refinement process not terribly dissimilar and even utilized some of the same equipment. Even being a relatively small operation, within the first three years of production crystals made from Savarian coaxium could be found on ships all across the known world. Unfortunately, all golden ages must end and Savareen's was no different. The small refinery fell out of popular use with the rise of steam engines and construction of a bulk refinery much closer to the main lane of the Corellian Run.

The loss of coaxium contracts and the security they could afford for a time made Bis a popular target for pirates. Diminishing returns for the effort of attack coupled with the lack of nearby major trade routes eventually spelled the end of this as well. Despite the loss of the primary source of their income and the piracy, Bis like the rest of the coastal Savarian settlements managed to survive the same way they had before the refinery: exports of dates, seagrapes, and Savareen brandy.

It's not unreasonable to believe that the Savarians missed the business that coaxium brought in but the resultant calmness along the Pnakotic Coast was welcome. No longer beholden to endless foreign trade, many of the old traditions, customs, and cuisines that had helped to shape Savareen millennia before made a comeback. While perhaps not the most interesting existence, it was by and large a peaceful one. This is why when the unusually loud boom of an opening Hyperion gate pealed across the sea close to Bis it caused a great deal of annoyance and consternation.

The Bis harbormaster took his feet off his desk and looked out at the water. Something was moving towards the shore very fast. His communication console chimed. Keeping his eyes on the moving whatever it was, he groped around the console until he found the crystal.

"Savareen, this is the Millennium Falcon! We have a load of coaxium that needs to be offloaded immediately! Like, immediately immediately! I can see-"

Han's statement was cut short by the jolt of the Falcon's keel scraping over a submerged sand bar just shy of the shore. Though jarring to those on board, this served to slow the ship quite well. The Millennium Falcon thudded into the beach, sending a spray of sandy slurry up from around the bow.

Han lowered his cramping hands from the wheel with a loud exhale. All around, the ship's hull groaned like a pained animal as it settled.

One by one, refinery workers unloaded the canisters onto an aged horse drawn cold cart. They moved quickly and efficiently and never once showed any sign of fear towards the near critical coaxium. As the laden cart trundled off up the beach back towards the town a few of the refinery workers stayed behind to help push the Millennium Falcon back into the water.

Han wasn't sure what to expect of a coaxium refinery but what he saw was a surprise. At the edge of town was a complex system of copper vats and pipes along with a great deal of other important-looking metal and lead crystal apparata whose purposes he couldn't even begin to guess. All of this stood out in the open air with only a few old tarps to act as shade.

An aged man with a wrinkled and leathery face watched on with arms folded as his workers fed the coaxium into his machine one vial at a time. Han swaggered over to him with his hands on his hips. "Just did the Kessel Run in twenty-four minutes."

The foreman slowly turned his head to Han, but his flat expression didn't change. He blinked once and looked back to his workers.

Chewbacca meanwhile did react. He growled out a rebuttal against Han's claim.

Han shrugged. "Not if you round down, buddy."

The Wookiee grumbled a begrudging concession.

Since disembarking Lando had not left his spot on the dunes amongst the tufts of turquoise blue saltgrass. He stared unmoving at the battered White Star freighter anchored in the shallows while strangling the neck of a bottle of Nemoidian wine - the sole survivor from his collection - in the hand not contained by a makeshift sling. His physical pain had miraculously lessened following the summa-verminoth's death but it was still very present and compounded with his emotional anguish.

Lando's pride and joy was almost wholly unrecognizable. Gone was the signature figurehead whose defiant visage had challenged the waves. Gone too was the luxurious great cabin that had born witness to many a memorable night. Spots of light shone through the many holes in the rich blue sails complimenting the holes that pockmarked the deck. The most drastic change of all was to the hull where the gleaming white had been scraped to bare wood with only a few smatterings of paint to hint at its previous splendor.

Han's arm suddenly appeared around Lando's shoulders. "She is a Hell of a ship."

Lando slowly turned his head and glared at Han. "...I hate you."

Han smiled. "I know."

Lando brushed Han's arm away. "I am going to be on my ship," he began, voice filled with the kind of calmness only present in the truly furious, "in my cabin, waiting for you to bring me my twenty percent. And then I don't ever want to see you again." Lando stormed off, hissing at his injured leg with each alternate step.

Han frowned, hurt. "...Never?"

Lando raised the wine bottle above his head and extended a finger as a silent warning.

Once she was certain that there would be no issues with the coaxium refinement, Qi'ra and Chewbacca retired away to a cabana on a street corner overlooking the aquacultures of the Emerald Sea. It was a simple, homely one largely open to the air with an L of stucco walls and a post carved into a stylized date palm to serve as the fourth corner. As Qi'ra sipped slightly coppery water from a stoneware cup, she allowed herself to relax.

It was nice here, almost to the point where Qi'ra could forget about her many troubles and memories. She didn't want to leave and go back to the life and death of the syndicates but she knew that anymore there was nothing else in the world for her besides that. She had been fighting for her own survival for too long to just stop. Perhaps in another life things could have turned out differently.

A crunching of sand on the cabana's rough hewn floor dispelled Qi'ra's daydream. She looked over to see Han casually strolling towards her. He unhooked his thumbs from his belt and took up the chair opposite her. "So where's your boss?"

Qi'ra let out an amused huff. "Oh, don't worry. He'll be here."

"Then what?"

Qi'ra looked down and started to run her finger around the rim of her cup. "Well, you delivered, so you'll get paid. You can buy that ship."

"You know that's not what I'm asking."

Qi'ra's finger stopped. She sighed. "It can't happen.

Han nodded. "Because you're with Dryden?"

"I'm not with him. But I owe him... He helped me out of a bad situation."

"And how long do you have to pay off that debt?"

Qi'ra's eyes drifted to the brand on her wrist. "...Everyone serves somebody, Han. Even Dryden Vos. Look, you don't want to make an enemy of Crimson Dawn which is exactly what you and I would both be doing if I left here with you."

"I'm not afraid of Crimson Dawn. I can take care of myself. You know, I'm not the kid you knew in Corellia anymore, Qi'ra."

Qi'ra looked up and cocked her head. "No?"

"No."

"Then who are you?"

Han smirked. "I'm an outlaw."

Qi'ra giggled.

"What? I'm not kidding."

"Okay. Okay, outlaw, you can call yourself that. But I might be the only person in the entire world who knows what you really are."

"Yeah?" Han grinned. "What's that?

Qi'ra leaned forward and whispered. "You are the good guy."

"I- I am not the good guy." Han shook his head. "I am definitely not... the good guy. I'm a terrible person..."

Qi'ra opened her mouth to speak but Beckett's voice from the street just outside interrupted her. "There you are. Hey, they say when the coaxium's refined, we collect it up there." Beckett pointed.

Qi'ra flashed Beckett a gesture of acknowledgement. She then looked back to Han and gave him a faint, sad smile.

Beckett turned his attention to the interior of the cabana - namely the bar at which Chewbacca was currently seated. He strode over, prompting the aged bartender to look up from her cup cleaning. "So, I hear you make a good brandy."

The bartender nodded and took a stoneware bottle down from the shelf next to the quite dusty mirror behind her.

The mercenary took up the stool next to Chewbacca and had only just put his cup to his lips when he heard a familiar and unwelcome voice from the street.

"Beckett."

Every eye in the cabana slowly turned towards Enfys Nest and his Cloud Riders, the latter all with guns trained on the cabana's patrons. Beckett sighed and knocked back the brandy in a single gulp. He thunked the cup back onto the bar and stood.

Han, Qi'ra, and Chewbacca followed the mercenary out onto the street. Beckett scanned the dozen and a half of Enfys' Cloud Riders present. He recognized a few with the Tognath Edrio being chief among them.

The two mismatched groups stared at one another for several seconds that the tension stretched into an eternity. Han slowly reached down and unsnapped his holster's holding strap. Beckett side-eyed him. "Don't."

Enfys nodded shallowly, silently commending Beckett's judgement. "You must have known you'd see me again."

"I was countin' on it. Just didn't plan on it bein' so soon. Of course, now you've got a problem."

"Big problem," Han added immediately.

Beckett glared death at Han. Han winked back and swaggered forward. "You happen to notice that freighter down there?" He pointed to the ruined Millennium Falcon. "You know what's on it? About thirty hired guns. All we've got to do is give them the signal," Han snapped his fingers, "and you're surrounded."

Enfys Nest stared at the ship for far longer than Han expected he would. The Corellian's self-assured smile faltered and he looked at the Falcon. Rather he looked where he remembered the Falcon to be. It was currently a bit further away than before and moving at a fair clip. Apparently Lando had grown tired of waiting.

Han and Enfys looked back to one another while Beckett pinched his eyes. Thoroughly embarrassed, Han stepped back into line with his comrades.

"Sorry," Han muttered. "You do your thing."

Beckett dragged his hand down his face. He sighed and stepped forward. "By the time that coaxium gets refined, Crimson Dawn will be here. So you go ahead and kill us. They're goin' to kill you either way."

"Perhaps there's a compromise," Qi'ra said, stepping forward with fingers tented. "One that doesn't involve so much killing."

Beckett shook his head. "They're marauders," he said as he moved towards Enfys. "They don't care about anybody. All they know how to do is kill."

While Beckett approached, Enfys moved to meet him while gripping his voulge tightly. With only a stride to separate them, they stopped and stared each other down.

Enfys stabbed one blade of his voulge into the sand of the street and put his hands to his helmet. Slowly, he lifted the bone helm.

The face beneath was not as Enfys' distorted voice had led everyone to believe a man, but instead a heavily freckled girl in her late teens. Beckett's brow twitched imperceptibly. His sense of pride received a hairline fracture as every one of his defeats to Enfys now recontextualized.

Han blinked. This one had been more of a surprise than Val. He looked at Chewbacca who shrugged and growled quietly.

Enfys' sharp black eyes bored straight through Beckett. For almost a minute she neither blinked nor looked away. Finally, she stormed past him, heading for the cabana. "I need a drink. Bring them inside."

The bartender placed another cup on her counter and began to pour more of the brandy. No sooner had one filled than Enfys had taken it and summarily drained the contents. She held the cup out for a refill and nodded her thanks after it was provided.

Enfys stepped away from the bar and took up a position next to the table at which Han and his friends were seated. She did not look at them but instead stared out to sea while sipping her brandy.

"...My mother once told me about a band of mercenaries that came to a peaceful land. There was a resource that they coveted. So they took it. They kept coming back, taking more. Until finally the people resisted. When they returned demanding their tribute, the people shouted back in one voice 'no more!' The mercenaries didn't like the sound of that and so they cut out the tongue of every last man, woman, and child."

Enfys took a long drink from her cup and looked to her seated audience. "Do you know what that pack of animals became?" When nobody answered, she looked to the bartender. "Tell them."

The bartender sighed and turned to the dusty mirror behind the bar. With a single finger, she drew two circles - one inside the other - with a horizontal line bisecting them both. This was a symbol everyone in that cabana knew well but none more than Qi'ra. It was the one branded onto her wrist. She adjusted one of her bracelets to try and cover the mark while hoping none of the locals had seen it.

Enfys Nest looked back out at the water where a fisherman on a small reed hulled felucca had just finished casting his net. "Crimson Dawn and the rest of the five Syndicates have committed unspeakable crimes throughout the world."

Beckett scowled. "Says you."

"No," Enfys said. She nodded towards her Cloud Riders. "Them."

Several of the Cloud Riders removed their own helmets. Far fewer of them than expected turned out to be human. The Cloud Riders represented many different races from all parts of the world but all of them had the same look that told of the burden that each one carried.

"Each of our homelands has been brutalized by the Syndicates. Crimson Dawn will use the profits from the coaxium you stole to tyrannize region after region in league with the Empire."

Han turned in his chair to face Enfys. "And what would you use it for?"

"The same thing my mother would have used it for if she had survived and still wore this helm. To fight back. We're not marauders. We're allies. And the war has just begun."

While Han, Chewbacca, Qi'ra, and Enfys made the hike over to the refinery, Beckett instead headed towards the date grove claiming to want some time to think. Though neither Han nor Chewbacca gave this much attention, it struck Qi'ra as odd. She narrowed her eyes as she watched him head off, only partly because of the sun.

Much to Han and his comrades' pleasant surprise, the coaxium had not only been refined but placed into a dozen cushioned cradle cases and loaded onto a sack barrow. Han released the latch on one of the cases and opened the lid. A small bit of nostalgia came to him as he looked upon the topmost holding rack and the concentric rows of vials. Carefully he lifted the rack out of the case and inspected the coaxium as it shimmered in the sun.

Just one of these vials had been life-changing - for better or worse. Now here Han was holding a rack of one hundred of them with nine more racks still in the case. He felt humbled.

Han resealed the cradle case and squinted towards the date grove. "I'm going to check on Beckett."

Han found the mercenary leaning against a tree near the edge of the grove. He was staring at a group of pickers in a different tree some distance away with mild interest. One of his hands cupped a few dates to his chest.

Beckett heard Han approaching but did not take his eyes away from the pickers. "You want some?" The mercenary hooked a thumb towards a plethora of dates spread out on a large cloth to sun dry.

Han looked to the fruit then back to Beckett. "...You know we can't give the coaxium to Dryden Vos."

Beckett bit into a date and spit out the pit. "You joinin' the cause, Han Solo?"

"Just trying to make it out alive."

The mercenary looked to Han with one of his eyebrows raised in interest. "Got a plan?"

"Yeah. The beginning of one. Way to get our money and get out from under the thumb of Crimson Dawn at the same time."

Beckett frowned and pointed towards the refinery with half a date. "Maybe get your girlfriend back while we're at it." He shook his head. "You don't tangle with Dryden. You see, unlike us, he actually does travel with hired guns. His own private army."

Han smirked. "So does Enfys. Listen, here's what I got so far."

Enfys shielded her eyes as she tried to focus on the two distant men. "What do you think they're saying?"

Qi'ra took a position next to Enfys, her arms folded to further conceal her brand. She looked out at the two figures through the faint shimmer rising off the sand. "...He's going to try to help you."

Chewbacca made a quiet sound of agreement.

Beckett finished his last date as Han finished detailing his plan. The mercenary nodded. "I see. Lot of ways it could go south and only one where it doesn't."

"That's why I need my partner." Han held out his hand to shake.

Beckett looked at the offered hand then back to its owner. He shook his head. "Not this time. I'm leavin'. If you're smart, you'll come with me."

"I thought you didn't believe in running."

"I prefer it to dyin'." Beckett let out an amused huff and patted Han on his shoulder. He turned and started to walk, glancing momentarily at the two women and the Wookiee by the refinery. After a few strides, the mercenary stopped. "If by some miracle you make it out of here, find me in Tatooine."

"What's in Tatooine?"

"Heard about a job. Big shot gangster putting together a crew. That'll be the one."

"The one?"

"My last score." Beckett exhaled loudly. "Yeah, I still got some debts to pay before I can head back to Glee Anselm and get into..." He imitated pressing an instrument's keys. "...playin' the valachord."

Han watched the mercenary walk away for a minute before turning back to the refinery. Tatooine was certainly something to keep in mind. That would have to wait though.

"Where's Beckett?" Qi'ra asked.

"He's out," Han replied with a shrug. "It's just us now."

Qi'ra frowned. "After everything? Why?"

"He says he prefers running to dying." Han approached the foreman and asked him a question. The foreman furrowed his brow in puzzlement but nodded.

A few minutes later, a boom from the sea caught everyone's attentions. None of them were surprised to see the First Light steaming towards the harbor of Bis. Han nodded to Qi'ra and Chewbacca and the three of them together started the trek to the harbor with the barrow of cased coaxium behind them.