Star Wars Character Cafe - The Floating Fortress Part 2

THE FLOATING FORTRESS

5. What’s Wedge got to do with this?

A muffled voice tried to penetrate the high-pitched buzzing in Clip’s head. Though he couldn’t make it out, it was enough to snap him out of the daze the ear-splitting explosion had put him in.

He raised his head off the ground, his eyes coming to rest on Booster Terrik, already up and shouting frantically. He bent down and yanked Clip onto his feet, shouting yet more indecipherable words. The only way to understand was to watch his lips, and get a general impression…

Ship explosion…must get out…Pulsar Skate…radiation…all going to die…

None of it was good.

Resolving to let understanding take a back seat for a moment, he followed Booster’s hulking frame as he sprinted back toward the Skate. All the way he clutched his ears, his cold hands doing nothing to quiet the fleet of speeder bikes circumnavigating his brain. All he saw around him were smouldering black potholes where debris had struck bulkhead, and blurred shapes of other people trying to escape the … whatever it was that had happened.

He ducked through the hatch of the Pulsar Skate, and onto the bridge where Booster was sitting. The relative quiet of the bridge allowed Clip’s ears a moment to relax, and his hearing began to slowly return. He could hear Booster shouting into the Comm unit.

“This is the Pulsar Skate requesting permission to leave the landing bay right now!” He shouted. A garbled response came back that Clip couldn’t make out, but judging from the way Booster shot forward from the bay it must have been something along the lines of ‘yes, and make it quick’.

Gripping anything he could, Clip had to fight the G-forces to seat himself in the co-pilot chair. Booster was still ticking his head from side to side, obviously trying to shake the buzzing noise out of there. At least in here there were no alarms to cloud the issue.

“You alright?” he asked through strained teeth.

Clip nodded. “What the hell was that?”

“A ship detonated, some kind of reactor meltdown. It just erupted. We’ve gotta get ourselves planet-side, and to a hospital. Irradiate ourselves – no doubt we copped a fair dosage from that reactor going up. And then, I need to have a not-so-quiet word to Wedge Antilles.”

“What’s Wedge got to do with this?” Clip forced himself to ask, every word setting off bombs in his ears.

Booster shrugged “He’s running the show, I’m just going where he tells me. And so far, I haven’t been impressed by his choices.” Clip didn’t understand what Booster meant, but he couldn’t afford the effort to argue at the moment. He resolved to ask later, when things were quieter.

The Pulsar Skate was leading a small flotilla of freighters, runabouts and cargo haulers that had blasted out of the landing bays in wake of the radiation. All of them would be forced to land down on the planet now, which meant setting down right in the middle of an Imperial offensive action.

Not desirable. In fact, none of it was good.

6. A Starship Called Eva After

Five beings sat in the KDY action runabout Eva After, staring blankly forward. At the flight controls, Eva Pah’ker held her tongue. Anger surged in her at the underhanded tactics of this motley crew – all of whom she had only known for twelve standard hours. She understood the stakes, she knew that if the plan were to succeed they needed an excuse to get off that casino – but blowing up a civilian ship? People had died in that explosion, she’d seen it with her own eyes.

Innocent people.

“Do you think they’ll be angry with us?” Came a sober voice from behind her. She couldn’t trust herself to answer.

“All depends on who you mean,” another replied.

“The Rebels,” the other elaborated.

“Oh, I doubt it. I mean, we couldn’t very well stay on that station and expect to get to the target, could we? It’s not our fault that the Imps showed up a few hours early. We had run out of options,” reasoned the second man. Eva’s Lekku twitched with incredulity.

“Believe it or not, the people who died in that explosion don’t care about your mission – they don’t even know who the hell Admiral Tigellinus is,” she chimed in. She was venting, looking to start a fight, to take her anger out on these…these mercenaries.

“Oh, so now it’s your mission, not our mission, Pah’ker? You weren’t talking like that a few hours ago, when the subject of money came up. You might like to think you’re above the lot of us mercenaries, Twi’lek, but you’re not. You’re exactly the same – anything for some cash in hand,” the man retorted.

“I am not a mercenary,” she asserted.

“Really? So why did you enter into a contract to kill a man for money?” the mercenary said immediately. Pah’ker squeezed the yoke tightly in her hands, fighting the urge to turn around and shoot the man in the face.

“I didn’t enter into a contract to kill a man for money – I agreed to kill an evil murderer!” she exploded. She stood up, allowing the ship to hold it’s current course. “You stupid nerf. Have you even checked out who Tigellinus is? Do you know what he is capable of?

“Don’t you remember Caamas? Who do you think was behind that little act of genocide? Don’t delude yourself when it concerns your nobility, mercenary. A reasonable offer from the Empire, and I don’t doubt you’d have destroyed Caamas yourself,” she spat cancerously. The Mercenary held her gaze for a moment, standing to meet her eyes.

“You do understand that you are dispensable, don’t you?” he said coldly. Eva was unfazed.

“So why am I here at all?” she retorted.

She didn’t flinch as the mercenary levelled his high-calibre pistol at her head. He kept a loose finger on the trigger, and held it so close she could feel the coldness radiating from it.

He wouldn’t kill her. There was nothing in it for him. Too much mess, too much to explain to spaceport authorities, too great a risk that the shot would also penetrate the transparisteel cockpit and kill them all.

Oh, and the safety was on.

The moment lingered on awkwardly – the mercenary with his gun levelled at Eva, and she smiling sardonically back at him. Eventually, it was one of the others who broke the silence. Very gently, at that.

“Christof…come on, sit down,” he urged, slowly reaching for the gun.

For a brief second he remained, his arm beginning to shake under the weight of the weapon. And then it was over. He blinked, snarled, lowered his weapon, and marched out of the cockpit.

Alright. That’s enough of this.

“You,” she said, referring to the man who had just defused the situation. He raised his eyebrows, inviting her to continue.

“When we get down to the surface, I want you off this ship. If I see any of you around Gavortis, I’ll cut you down. Go ahead and carry out the mission any way you want. I’m going to do it my way,” she said intently. The other man rocked back on his heels.

“What? What in the Empire are you talking about?” he demanded.

“You heard me. You’ve got yourself a race now. If you want the cash, you’re going to have to get to Tigellinus before me. But be warned, I am in no mood for waiting. The instant that Star Destroyer splashes down, I plan to be on it.

“Good luck to you,” she said, turning to sit again in the pilots chair. She grabbed the yoke, and resumed her course within the flotilla of ships. Of course, she couldn’t get to the warship that quickly – she had to go to a medical facility first to irradiate herself, they all did. The mercs, however, didn’t know whether she was crazy and reckless enough to skip the medical treatment altogether.

Sitting close on the tail of a medium-sized transport designated the Pulsar Skate, she guided the ship smoothly down through the atmosphere, and toward the northern continent. That was where she needed to be.

The coastal city of Gavorr.

7. The Smuggler’s Boon

Gavorr was about as far from the closest medical facility that the Skate could have been, but Booster was adamant that was where they needed to be. Judging from the look in Booster’s eyes, this was probably where they were going to find Wedge Antilles.

Booster masterfully set the hefty mass of the Pulsar Skate down at the trans-continental domestic transit port, and radioed into the control tower. The conversation was short and rushed. The control tower seemed none too impressed by the levels of radiation now clinging to the Skate.

“Do not leave your ship,” the controller instructed. “A Medical team will arrive momentarily to take you to a qualified irradiation facility. In the meantime, we will arrange to have your ship decontaminated immediately,” he said primly. Clip snorted a quick laugh.

For a small fee, I dare say.

“Understood control. And make it quick – I’ve got no want to sprout a few extra limbs,” Booster said, and flicked the comm unit off before any reprimand could come through.

“You alright?” Clip asked. Booster nodded once, and sat down. Clip frowned. Personally, he hadn’t felt any adverse effects from the radiation – he certainly wasn’t feeling sick. Even the ringing in his ears had ceased.

But despite his convictions, Booster wasn’t putting up a convincing argument for his wellbeing.

“You wanted to know the plan, right?” Booster asked absently, changing the subject.

Oh yeah, that’s right – War. He sat down opposite Booster, inviting him to start the long story.

“Alright.

“The Rebels have had a few sleeper cells on this system for about…seven months now. Each of those cells has been dropping very subtle hints to local government authorities. A small anomaly here, a mysterious disappearance there… the usual stuff. It’s been going on for a while now, and the bureaucrats finally got sick of it. They called in the cavalry, up there,” Booster nodded upwards, through the roof of the Skate.

“Normally a bad thing, only this time, the Rebels are ready for everything. They wanted the Imperials to show up, see? They even know the name of the guy who’s leading it – Admiral Tigernelly, or something.

“So the plan goes like this:

“Tigernelly – wait, Tigellinus, that was it – is an utter control freak. He also likes to show off. The Rebels reckon – and this is the only flimsy part of the plan – that he’ll bring that Impstar down to the surface.”

Clip’s eyebrows shot up. “What? How? How the hell do they plan to stop something that size falling from orbit? All the repulsorlifts in the galaxy couldn’t do it without crushing it into a small cube.” Clip had never even imagined that star destroyers could go to ground. It was so absurd.

“Yeah, I know, and so do they. But it all makes sense if you think about it. That ship up there belongs to the Imperial Navy, right? So, where else do Navy units go apart from space?” Booster posed the question. Clip thought for one second, and then it all clicked together.

“Of course,” he said, nodding. “A water landing. Repulsorlifts aren’t contacting something solid, so it’s like one gigantic shock absorber. Okay, I get it now. Except… how do they keep it afloat?” he asked. Booster shrugged.

“We’ll find out in about two hours, if the Rebels are to be trusted. It’s going to be coming down just off the coast of Gavorr,” Booster explained. Clip’s insides went cold.

“So what the hell are we doing here, then?” he asked. “Shouldn’t we have gone somewhere else – like the other hemisphere?” It was Booster’s turn to smile now.

“No kid, you haven’t heard the rest of the plan yet. Just listen now, alright? No more interruptions, you’re bugging me.

“So!” Booster cut him off before he could protest. “The Impstar comes down in the ocean, about ten or so klicks from the coast here. It’s not really any more vulnerable in water than it is in space, save for manoeuvrability and one other thing: small, organic objects that slip through its sensor readings.

“Now, one of the Rebel sleeper cells in Gavorr is based in a marina. They’ve got all kinds of personnel there, most notably a team of navy divers. For the past month or so, they’ve been training ‘em on the construction and use of high explosives… you spot where this is going?” Booster said, fighting a smug smile.

Clip did see where it was going, and he thought it was a sound plan (even in this very brief form). But there were lots of variables the Rebels weren’t considering. What if the Imperial’s had identified this weakness years ago, and had taken measures to correct it? What if there were regular underwater patrols?

And then he saw the obvious flaw in the plan. Shields. The big warship could easily generate its shields underwater – as long as it wasn’t solid, shields would work. But surely the Rebels had thought of that.

“You’re thinking about the shields aren’t you?” Booster said, smug smile fully blossoming. Clip thought a few seconds more, and suddenly he had the answer to his problem. He returned Booster’s smug smile.

“That’s why Wedge is in on this. They’re going to bring in some snubfighters to perform strafing runs on the surfaced area of the ship so that they concentrate their shields, aren’t they?” he surmised. Booster nodded slowly.

“Yeah. Simple, really. They got two whole squadrons to go to work on that monster – some Y-wings and some brand new T-65’s. They’re calling ‘em X-wings. The plan is for the T-65’s to keep the fighters busy while the Y-wings send some torpedos at the Impstar. Then the divers set the charges, swim away as fast as they can, and everyone in Gavorr gets to witness the biggest ship ever to sink.”

Quite impressive, really. If it came off, that is. There were a lot of ifs in the plan, but they were calculated ifs. But it stood to reason that, if the Impstar didn’t splash down, then it would carry on in blissful ignorance of this plan.

He vocalised those thoughts to Booster, who nodded his head. “Yeah, that’s about it as far as the Rebels are concerned. 'Course, that’s not to say there aren’t … other tangents to the plan. Ones that they wont tell me about. Wedge out and out refused to let me in on any more information… he said it was a smuggler’s boon and that I’d be trying for it myself. Well, I suppose he’s right…” Booster trailed off, his eyes narrowing at the remembrance of Wedge.

Clip still couldn’t believe that Wedge wouldn’t tell Booster if he were in danger. There had to be more to it than they were getting. Who knows? It was entirely possible that ship on the casino blew by accident.

“Aha, so that explains why you’re here. You want to try and find out what this Smuggler’s boon is, I guess?” he suggested. Booster’s faced cleared of resentment for a moment, and he twisted it into a grin.

“Wouldn’t be much of a smuggler if I didn’t. Though mind you, I’m probably not the only one who’s heard of this. City’s probably swarming with some…less respectable businessmen than me,” he half warned, half speculated. Clip snorted a quick laugh.

He was intrigued, but not moved. He had no obsessive interest in this ‘smuggler’s boon’ Wedge was talking about. All he wanted to do was get irradiated and get out of this sithing system.

But since that wasn’t likely to happen, a little bit of a look around couldn’t hurt…

8. Phase Two, Measure Alpha

Grand Admiral Tigellinus smiled as the shipboard Chronometer ticked over to all zeros. It was time. Finally, after all of his patience, it was time. Time to take the first steps in crushing a Rebellion, one system at a time – beginning here, on Gavortis Major.

“Captain, begin preparations for a water landing, if you will,” Tigellinus ordered. The captain saluted wordlessly, and moved to complete the task. “Communications, send two secure signals to sleeper groups one and two. They are to carry out their missions immediately,” he said, swivelling to face the communications pit. The forward ensign responded with a well-rounded salute and ‘yes, sir’.

“Sensors, conduct a surface sweep of the planet and pull a landing registry for Gavorr spaceport. Please confirm that the transport Eva After has landed there,” he commanded. Seconds later, a report came back.

“Confirmed by both media, sir.” Tigellinus’ smile grew larger.

Sometimes, the enemy made it all too easy.

9. Sleeper Unit One and the Dissident Fish

Three darkly clad shadows skulked along the dimly lit alley, sporting state of the art silenced blaster rifles. They moved silently, hardly disturbing the air around them as they made their way to the rear entrance of the Gavorr Marina storage shed. Outside the huge sliding door, their leader pulled them up with a hand signal.

He could hear them in there.

The Rebels.

He could barely make out conversation: “…confirmation they have entered the atmosphere”, “…not long to go now”, “…Careful with those fuses!” It was no doubt their target. Sitting there, quite obligingly, waiting to be terminated quickly and quietly.

The leader turned back to his two subordinates, gave a single nod of his head, and crouched down low. They took up a pyramid defensive stance, each positioned best to cover their respective angles and to protect one another.

Three…Two…One…

“Now!” the leader whispered harshly. As a single entity, they sprang from around the corner of the storage shed door, spraying laser fire as they went. The silencers attached to the weapons muted the sound completely, making for a rather surreal moment. The yells of the Rebel agents were the loudest thing to be heard.

How unexpectedly gratifying.

Less than a second later, it was all over – the shed filled with smoke and the acrid stink of burning flesh. The three black-clad operatives darted inside, securing the door behind them as they did so. It would do no good to be caught out this early.

Immediately, the leader pulled out the ground-to-orbit transmitter, and flicked it on. He had to be brief, to avoid tracing or decryption of his message – so he kept it simple.

“This is unit one: Mission complete, the dissident fish are dead.”

10. Sleeper Unit Two and the Dissident Birds

Crispin Turner had only been a mechanic for a short while, and a rebel not even that long. It hadn’t been an easy decision, to sacrifice all of his status and to effectively make himself an outlaw – particularly since his position within the Rebel Alliance was as lowly as ‘Specialist Mechanic’.

But as matters were at the moment, it was either a Rebel, or an Imperial – and he would sooner die than join the Empire.

Casually, he flicked on the lights of the huge ex airspeeder factory. The place was eerily empty at the moment – all the rebel pilots were at some other compound at some other place where they were being given a briefing by some field commander…the usual drum.

He couldn’t suppress a nod of satisfaction as he surveyed the ships now stored on the factory floor. 12 like-new Y-wing bombers, fully refurbished and even repainted stood in two lines abreast. And directly behind them, a mechanic’s delight: 12 shining, factory-direct Incom T-65 X-wings. He had done such a good job in checking each individual ship for bugs, tracing devices and missing parts that it saddened him.

Saddened him because he knew that, before the end of the day, maybe half of these ships would be destroyed. Maybe all of them would be destroyed – maybe.

Battle was an ambivalent concept to mechanics: It undid all of their hard work, but at the same time provided them with enough work to stay employed. Personally, Crispin wouldn’t mind if he never serviced another blaster turbine injector again.

He walked forward for his final inspection of the 24 vessels, overwhelmed by nostalgia. He had only travelled four steps, however, when he stopped short. He had caught something out of the corner of his eye…something red. He backed up, eyes fixed on the spot where he thought he had seen the anomaly. Sure enough, there it was again.

A faint, very brief flash of red light.

He squinted his eyes, and made off in that direction. It was coming from a pillar against the right wall of the factory, up near the roof. It was probably just a security camera that he’d never noticed before, or something. The Rebels were pedantic about their secrecy.

As he approached though, it became plain that this device was too big to be a security camera. With curiosity piqued, he rolled a repulsor driven stepladder into place next to the thin black box. Hand for hand he climbed, until he was at eye level with the thing.

A very pessimistic thought suddenly entered his mind…he dismissed it very quickly, trusting to the force that it couldn’t be possible. After all, the Rebels were pedantic about their security. Surely, it couldn’t be anything like that…

The box was stuck to the wall with a rubber-like adhesive, obviously not part of the original construction. There were no insignia on it, so there could be no identifying where it had come from. The flashing red light was a jury-rigged attachment at the end of the box, and protruding from that attachment was a long, very thin antenna.

Crispin’s insides went cold. Oh please, no…no… He popped open the plastic cover of the object to reveal the inner workings, holding his breath as he did so…

And he saw it. Three neatly arranged cylindrical canisters, each labelled as a substance that Crispin recognised from holodramas.

Thermex. Explosive-of-choice for commando teams the Galaxy over.

Heart racing, he pelted down the ladder and headed for the door. He stopped only once, for a fleeting second, when he noticed that there were similar red lights blinking all around the gigantic factory floor. Oddly enough, his greatest concern at that point in time was what was going to happen to his newly refurbished snubfighters.

Only five steps from the exit, something strange happened. A high-pitched buzzing filled the factory, piercing Crispin’s coherent thought. He stopped a final time, and turned slowly. The red lights – though he could barely see them – had stopped blinking now, remaining constantly on.

Typical, he thought angrily, after all that hard work.

***

Several kilometres away, a figure clad in black witnessed the brilliant flash of the exploding factory. He smiled, satisfied, and raised a portable surface-to-orbit transmitter to his lips. Admiral Tigellinus would be pleased.

“This is Unit Two: mission complete. The Dissident birds are dead.”

11. Phase Two: Initiate

“Admiral, we have reports from both sleeper units: mission complete. 100% success rate. Unit one has also completed reconnaissance of the marina and confirms no other diving teams are at the site,” the Captain reported proudly.

“And unit three?” Tigellinus asked.

“Reports mission underway. They are waiting for the correct moment.”

Tigellinus nodded once at him.

“Are preparations for landing complete?” he asked.

“Yes, sir.”

Tigellinus walked from the weapons console he had been surveying and sat back in his command chair, being sure to keep a tight grip on the arm pieces. His cheek twitched with pleasure – he had only ever landed a star destroyer on the surface of a planet once, and the trip down had been exhilarating.

“Then take us down, Captain. Down to crush some rebels,” he ordered.

12. Splashdown

The crowd of thousands walking along the great beaches of Gavorr City all stopped as one as they heard the tremendous roar. All heads turned in the same direction, eyes settling on the one spot in the sky. Some gave shouts of horror, others ducked and ran for cover, and the rest stood, transfixed.

It looked no bigger than a casino chit and glowed white as it bored down through the atmosphere, leaving a short, streaking tail behind it. Slowly it grew until it was easily recognisable as the spearhead of the Imperial Fleet, a star destroyer. Buzzing around it like flies were several smaller objects, which the more learned of the audience identified as TIE fighters.

The shouts of terror increased, a general consensus passing through the crowd that the star destroyer was going to collide with the surface. The people of Gavorr had seen all the holovids of the Caamas incident, where not a year ago a Dreadnaught had hit the surface. The explosion had been incredible, the fallout from it lethal to what was left of the entire planet.

And that had only been a Dreadnaught.

This star destroyer probably weighed five times as much, and carried a much larger reactor core. There would be no hope for Gavorr if this ship crashed to the ground…

But then a glimmer of hope passed through them. The big ship suddenly levelled itself off, an incredible noise blasting from that direction. Unbelievably, the descent slowed gradually…gradually…until soon it was travelling at half of it’s original speed. Then only a quarter. It had also become apparent that the ship was going to hit (if that was indeed what was going on) somewhere out to sea.

The crowd of people held their collective breath as the big ship neared the surface of the ocean and, with a final boom from whatever was slowing the descent, it splashed down. For a fleeting second it appeared to disappear underwater, but it immediately bobbed to the surface again. And suddenly it dawned on them. The ship hadn’t crash-landed at all.

It had simply landed.

13. A Not-So-Quiet Word with Wedge Antilles

Clip Argentsson left the decontamination wing of Gavorr Primary Hospital with the taste of bacta thick in his mouth. All in all, the process had taken about an hour including the personal shuttle direct to the hospital. Booster had assured him that, for Gavorr, it was a new speed record.

As he stepped out onto the street, Clip’s jaw nearly dropped.

The city was … breathtaking. All the times he had seen the great purple lights from space and ignored them, passed them off as yet another attempt by a backwater world to pull tourism. How differently he thought now.

At ground level, the great pillars of purple pyre stretched high into the atmosphere. They were positioned in regular intervals, creating a kind of symmetrical grid pattern throughout the city. As far as he could tell, there was nothing to artificially suspend the stuff – some sort of purple gas. It must be an invisible field; or else tall, thin spires were the gas’s natural state. The gas majestically swirled around itself as it reached for the clouds of the planet, extending ever upward. He had no idea how tall these pillars were, but he could not see where they ended.

If Clip ever found this ‘smuggler’s boon’ of Booster’s, he’d consider retiring here.

That was a thought: retirement at age twenty. He imagined it would drive Booster crazy, “I could have retired at that age if I’d had the lucky breaks you’ve had, Argentsson.” A smile crept onto his lips as he pictured the rest of that argument, finishing with Booster shooting him twice in each kneecap and stealing his fortunes.

He surveyed Booster briefly and found him fiddling with a comlink, setting a decryption for a particular frequency. He moved closer to see what was going on. Booster didn’t look up.

“Putting a call through to Antilles, I need to speak to him about a few things,” Booster said, not nearly as angrily as the last mention of Wedge’s name.

“Is that wise? He might be at a briefing or something, this close to that Sta… to their mission,” Clip caught himself before he completed the details of what was to come. Booster shook his head quickly.

“Then he can leave the briefing for a minute or two. I need to clear some things up,” Booster insisted. Clip shrugged, and stepped back a few steps, unsure whether Booster wanted him to overhear or not. Booster raised it to mouth level, and waited for someone to answer. It rang for a long time.

“Yeah?” came an exasperated voice, barely recognisable as Wedge’s. It had been a while since Clip had heard from him.

“Antilles, it’s Booster. I need to talk to you for a sec,” he said firmly. There was an intake of breath from the other end of the line.

“Booster! Thank god it’s you – we need your help,” he said frantically. Booster recoiled from the comlink, utterly surprised by this turn of events.

“What?” he said, for lack of any witty comeback.

“We need help, I’ve been trying to raise you on the Skate for the last hour or so, but you weren’t there. It’s a bit complicated, but basically, everything we were planning has been destroyed by the Imperials. Our divers were shot, and all of our fighters are now buried under a pile of rubble,” he said quickly.

Clip rocked, eyes widening. Things can’t have happened that quickly – everything was fine an hour ago. They can’t have attempted to plant the explosives yet, so how could they have been shot?

Wedge didn’t offer any more information on the subject, but pressed on urgently. “Are you alone, Booster?” he asked. Booster frowned at the comlink, and looked over at Clip. He raised his eyebrows, and mouthed at him “Am I alone?”

Clip thought long and hard – as long as was possible in the space of a few seconds – before he answered. Wedge was asking for help. That meant the Rebel Alliance was asking him for help. Clip had never had to deal with anything like this before, and it was jerking his mind in all directions.

Did he dare take a side in a civil war? Not that it was joining the side as such, it was still aiding them. There was no difference in the eyes of the Imperials. There was the added fact that because of this civil war, the Empire might ease off and give people in his trade a short reprieve. It would be a golden time to be a smuggler – war always was. And this was shaping up to be the biggest war in the Galaxy since the clone wars.

But on the other hand, the voice asking him for help wasn’t just a Rebel. It was Wedge Antilles. Wedge, his friend and confidant for many years – a friendship made stronger when each of their parents had been killed in a refuelling station explosion. How could he refuse him help?

Of course, all he had to do was nod his head, and Wedge wouldn’t be any the wiser. He’d never know that an old friend had denied him assistance, and life would go on. Maybe. There was always the chance that if Clip refused to help, Wedge might be killed. He’d have a hard time living with himself if that ever happened. Setting his jaw, he shook his head no – Booster most certainly was not alone.

“For once, no. I’ve got Clip here with me, believe it or not,” he said, tossing him an approving nod as he did so.

“Clip? Really? Well that’s great, tell him I look forward to catching up if I survive all of this. Look Booster, we really need an assist here. It might be dangerous, and I don’t expect anything from you-”

“Sithspit you don’t,” Booster interjected.

“I don’t. But if you are interested, I really need you to get over here as soon as you can,” he said pleadingly.

Booster looked over at him. The man’s eyes betrayed his thought process – almost identical to that he had just been through. He about to make what was probably a life-altering decision. Shrugging with his eyes, he answered.

“Alright, where is ‘here’?” he asked.

“Thankyou Booster,” Wedge replied. “We’re at Gavorr Inter-Continental. Call me back when you get there, ok?” He was of course referring to the same transit port they had just left the Skate at.

“One other thing Wedge: Who is ‘we’?” Booster asked.

“Oh, just a few work colleagues – if you guys show, one or two hired hands,” he said cryptically. Booster snorted a laugh, and shook his head.

“Alright. Call you as soon as we’re there,” he confirmed. He clicked the comlink off, reattached it to his belt, and set off toward a bank of airspeeders parked outside the hospital. He looked Clip up and down on his way over.

“Why did you agree?” he asked the younger man. Clip shrugged.

“It’s Wedge, isn’t it? I can’t let him die and say I did nothing about it,” he answered simply. Booster nodded his head in agreement, coming to a stop in front of a particularly expensive airspeeder.

“My reasoning exactly.” From his pocket, he extracted some kind of electronic device about the size of the comlink he had just been holding. Clip eyed it, and Booster grinned. "A little something I once stole off a guy called Hal Horn. You just point it at the speeder, and…” he depressed a round, red button. Immediately, the airspeeder hummed to life and disengaged the door locks. Clip laughed with surprise and admiration for the device and this mysterious Hal Horn – he must be a masterful thief.

“Pretty impressive, yeah?” he said, moving around to the driver’s side and getting in. Now with a highly appropriate means of transport, they jetted back to their original destination.