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“Two hundred and twelve years old, huh?” said Regis. “Well, I wouldn’t sweat it, Chew-becca, or however you say it. They’ll have you out of here in no time.”
Regis and Sindo sat on a steel bench with their hands locked in stun cuffs that were wound through wall restraints. The holding chamber was only dimly lit, but they could make out Chewbacca sitting on a bench across from them, hunched over and speaking only in a growling, mumbling monotone.
“Seriously, I wouldn’t worry about it,” Regis continued. “They’re going to pin everything on me and Sindo. You’ll go back to your buddy Han, they’ll give Luke some community service detail, and you’ll get to kick back with a beer and watch me and Sindo get deep fried on one of those Mustafarian news vids.”
Sindo laughed dryly, but the Wookiee was not amused. “Uuuuwaaghaah?” he muttered, shaking his head. “UwaAuughAa!”
“She changed?” said Regis. Exchanging a look with Sindo, he added, “Empress Organa, you mean? She’s always been an alien sympathizer, hasn’t she? Of course she’s mad. She caught her brother running around with humans who don’t bend a knee to everyone and everything that isn’t human. She’s just doing what Rebel-types do. If anything, your boy Luke’s the one who’s changed.”
“AaauUuaAaaugh!” Chewbacca suddenly bellowed, as if Regis’s jab had truly hurt him. “AaaauUaaugh-waagh!”
“Friends, huh?” said Regis. “Yeah, well. I don’t know what to tell you, big guy.”
“Chewbacca,” said Sindo. The Wookiee finally lifted his gaze to her, and she said, “You got involved in what amounts to a civil war between humans. We’re killing each other, and it has to do with our beliefs about you guys. Whether we put you guys first, or ourselves first. Our…” Sindo swallowed. Regis could tell she was having difficulty speaking, especially considering the life she had lived over the past few years, and how her survival had depended on allowing aliens to use her. “Our destiny is at stake here. This is about whether we live or die under the thumb of aliens. This is a lot bigger than your friends, and whatever arguments they have with one another.”
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“AAaaughaaAah!”
“I can appreciate that you have a life-debt with Han,” said Sindo. “But, me and Regis? We swore a life-debt to our species. You’ll get out of here, Wookiee. You’ll go back to your human. But I don’t want to hear you crying when we’re the ones who won’t be allowed to serve our life-debt. In fact, I bet they’ll let you out of here sooner than you-”
The door suddenly slid open, flooding the cell with light from the hallway. Lando Calrissian entered, signaling impatiently until Artoo rolled up behind him. Lando quickly shut the door behind him, then approached Chewbacca without a word. Regis noted that the planetary governor was carrying a briefcase concealed under what might have been several coats; the briefcase was not hanging down at his side like a businessman casually going about his work, but was rather gripped underneath his arm like a man on the run. Whatever the case, he bent over Chewbacca, and in a moment the Wookiee’s stun cuffs fell to the floor.
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“What do you know, it’s Luke’s old friend,” said Sindo. “You see, Wookiee? I told you he’d be coming to get you. You’ll be fine.”
“WaaAaaugha?” said Chewbacca, looking up at Lando.
“No, Chewie,” said Lando. “To be honest, I don’t know if any of us will be ‘fine’. We’re getting out of here. It’s the… it’s the only thing I can think to do.”
“You’re not going to stick around for the public execution?” said Sindo. Laughing cruelly, she added, “I’m sure it’s going to be all over those fancy news feeds you’ve set up.”
Lando turned to Sindo, looking more deflated than annoyed. Suddenly noticing Regis, he said, “What are you smiling about?”
Regis looked over at Sindo. “Just glad I’ve got good company by my side,” he said.
Lando sighed, unable to articulate his disappointment at seeing a couple of evil stormtroopers enjoying the bond of friendship when one of his own friends had become a stranger to him.
Lando moved to stand over the pair. “I don’t know how to say this, so I’ll just say it. This place is crawling with Cheka and bounty hunters, and this city - it’s a powder keg. The Empress doesn’t know it, or she knows it and doesn’t care. She expects me to keep it running… but I’ve been selling to some Imperial warlords just to fund this operation.”
Chewbacca suddenly barked in rage and Regis shrank as if expecting an explosion of fur and claws, but Lando merely waved away his outburst.
“No, Chewie, they don’t do anything but fight each other. They’re not a threat to anybody.”
“We never were!” Sindo shot back, surprising Regis with her anger. “With humans betraying each other left and right, the only thing humans have to fear is a friend stabbing them in the back!”
Lando winced as if struck. “You think I wanted to hand Luke over to Leia? She came right before you arrived, there was nothing I could do!”
“Well?” said Regis. “You got a plan to get him back?”
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
Lando drew out a key card, then said, “It kills me to say it, but there’s nothing we can do for him. He’s with Leia right now… the Empress, I mean. And she’s like him. A Jedi, or something like it. They’re way out of our league. But that means…” Suddenly bending over to unlock Regis’s stun cuffs, he said, “That means we’re going to get out of here and hide with an ex-Imperial warlord that I know, and we’re going to do it while Leia is distracted.”
“What?!” said Regis. “You’re going to leave Luke?”
Lando shot Regis an angry glare that hardly held back a rage that had been building for years. “We can come back for him, but not now,” he said, carefully controlling his tone. “Luke can take care of himself. We can’t. Right now, we need protection.”
“There’s no reason for you to run,” said Regis, more confused than grateful as he rubbed the circulation back into his hands. “Most people have it bad, but at least you’ve got a cushy position.”
“I’ll be one of the first ones killed when this house of cards falls apart,” said Lando, shaking his head as he moved to free Sindo. “With cheap alien labor flooding human worlds, human industry is falling apart. We’re depending on government handouts and make-work programs to keep up the appearance of a galactic superpower, but it’s all smoke and mirrors, and the Hutt Cartel is starting to catch on. They know the aliens replacing humans aren’t the best and the brightest. They’re the desperate ones who weren’t able to make anything out of their own worlds, and now they’re coming to our worlds, and wouldn’t you know it? Our worlds are starting to look like their worlds.”
Regis whistled. “You’re actually one of Luke’s friends?”
Lando cast another angry look at Regis, then turned away in shame. “Look, just put on these jackets, will you?” he said, tossing two red jackets at them. “Hopefully you can pass for a maintenance crew.”
Regis and Sindo exchanged a look, then leaped out of their seats and pulled on the jackets. “You’re telling me that you’re willing to abandon this entire operation?” said Regis. Regis sighed in frustration as the jacket sleeves went down past his hands. He set to rolling up the sleeves, then noticed Sindo trying to button her undersized jacket around her breasts. Regis’s skin crawled as he realized the jackets were made for an alien work crew.
“Are you not listening?” said Lando. “I never abandoned this place. The New Republic abandoned me! And it’s going to get me killed when I can’t print money and the alien laborers start looking for scapegoats! You think they’re going to be happy when food distribution networks start breaking down, and they find out they’re stuck on this burning rock? Now, come on. We’ve got to get you armed.”
“If we get armed,” said Regis, “then we’re going back for Luke.”
“No, I already told you! We can’t fight Leia, she’s too strong! Look, we’re going to get a ship, and when I fly us out to an Imperial warlord hiding in the Outer Rim, you’re going to explain to them that I’m not their enemy. Is that understood?”
Regis stood his ground as Lando squared up in front of him, each holding their gaze level. Regis was suddenly taken aback, for he saw himself in Lando - the anger in his eyes revealing that he finally understood that the vast majority of the inhabitants of the galaxy did not like him, and in fact, had a grudge against him. Worse still was the horrible realization that many of his own people were working against him, hoping that a show of loyalty to their alien overlords would buy them a spot at the dining table. Regis’s anger quickly cooled when he saw that Lando had something in common with him.
“I’m on your side, Lando,” Regis said quietly. “I always have been. And you’re willing to get me a blaster because you know those bounty hunters are out there. Is that about right?”
Lando clenched his jaw, then nodded.
“Alright then,” said Regis. “Lead the way.”
* * *
“Oh… hello, Mister Calrissian,” said a technician in a red uniform. He had nearly bumped into them at a turn in the hallway, and Regis’s heart slammed in his chest as the man’s eyes quickly ran over all of them. “I didn’t, uh… expect to see you down in detention, sir. Are you-”
“Don’t mind me, son, just making a side trip!” said Lando, smiling and laughing as he slapped the man on the shoulder. Motioning to Regis and the others, he said, “Come on everybody, I have one more thing to show you!”
Regis noted Sindo’s false smile that did not match the alarm in her eyes, and he had to admit that if Lando was not guiding them through this unknown facility, then Regis would have downed the man to keep him from sounding any alarms. He tried to look as if everything was normal despite their motley getup and obviously mismatched crew - why were two human mechanics following the planetary governor while a Wookiee and an astromech droid tagged along? The feeling of the man’s eyes burning into his back was torture.
Rounding the turn, Lando brought them to a stairway, then hit it at a dead run. Chewbacca hauled Artoo up into a furry embrace and took off after him.
“Lando!” Regis hissed. “That guy’s going to-”
“It doesn’t matter!” said Lando. “Armory and evidence storage is just ahead, come on!”
Lando hit a switch opening a doorway leading to a windswept platform under heavy gray skies. Regis winced at the brightly burning horizon visible beyond towering steel platforms. Men and Mustafarians in dull crimson coveralls loaded hover-pallets onto a transport while a protocol droid argued with a garbage-collecting droid.
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“Weapons are in that building there!” said Lando, not bothering to watch his volume as hot wind raked ash across the platform. “It’s a coded door, so let’s hurry before someone notices you’re free!”
Looking behind them, Regis said, “Then we can steal that transport and pick up Luke!”
“No, I already told you!” Lando snapped. “Leia’s got him, and we-”
“What’s this about picking up Luke?” said a protocol droid.
“I-” Lando managed before freezing in his tracks.
4-LOM stood before them with a blaster rifle aimed in their direction.
“I knew it,” the assassin droid rasped. “Human planetary governor helps humans escape from detention facility. Obvious, isn’t it? It’s so obvious, they should have placed personnel at every entry point of the facility.”
Regis’s blood turned to ice. Lando was the only one among them with a blaster at his hip, but Regis knew there was no way the man’s reflexes could beat a droid’s.
“Ah, but it was obvious,” 4-LOM continued. “In fact, someone very intelligent did place security personnel at every entry point of the facility.”
“I can explain,” said Lando.
“I wonder what will be done with the planetary governor of Mustafar, now that he has proven himself a traitor to the New Republic?” 4-LOM mused aloud. “I wonder, indeed.”
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