LOTF: Collision/Chapter 3

Ganner and Linora treaded lightly through the streets of Mos Anek, constantly checking their backs as they passed by vagrants and the unfortunate residents of the crime-filled city. The city was noisy, buzzing with the sounds of commerce in the middle of the day, and smelled quite unpleasant all throughout, as though the odor was following the two. As they turned a corner, Ganner quickly pulled Linora back from in front of him, just in time to avoid the sudden emergence of a Dewback around the corner, mounted by an irritated Weequay who gave the duo a nasty look as they passed.

"You should know before we upset anyone else," Linora warned Ganner, "This place is largely run by a gang called the Black Hand. Not an organization whose bad side you want to be on, so let me take the lead if we run into them."

"You ever think about moving somewhere safer?" Ganner asked, with just a hint of nervousness.

"There is no such thing as 'safe' on Tatooine," Linora answered. "The only thing that changes is what's out to get you."

"Then why stay here?" Ganner asked as the two passed a trio of armed men wearing black hands tattooed on their shoulders.

"Freedom from the Empire. No one out here imposes any laws on you, and you can live how you want so long as you're good enough to. Plus," she added as they turned the corner and approached a shaded market stand, "The people here keep things interesting."

They approached a merchant, a small, elderly, pink-skinned Twi'lek lady who seemed distressed to see the two. "Linora!" She yelled impatiently. "Get you and your friend away this instant! Look at the suns; those boys will be here any minute! Shoo!"

Ganner hesitantly looked at Linora, not knowing the woman or what to do. She looked to the sky, and in mock surprise, uttered: "Oh my, you're right! Thank you for warning us, Ms. Kass."

She pulled Ganner away and around the nearest corner, which she immediately poked her head back around to check on Ms. Kass again.

"What are we doing?" Ganner asked.

"Getting on the Black Hand's bad side." Linora told him, as though it were of no consequence. "Hold on; they'll be here any second now."

Right on cue, two well-built, bald men wearing black armor with the same hand insignia Ganner had seen earlier approached Ms. Kass, and began making demands of her, though Ganner wasn't close enough to hear it.

"Hey, you!" Linora yelled, making her way back to the stand. The men looked over at her, and one gripped a blaster pistol holstered on his leg as they both made their way towards her. Ganner followed Linora, gripping his lightsaber on his belt as they approached the men.

"You must be crazy." One of the men chided them. "You got a death wish?"

"Every day, you antagonize this woman here, who's done nothing to you. It ends now." Linora declared.

The man grabbing his pistol smirked a little, and Ganner's hand tensed on the lightsaber in anticipation.

"It's only ending for you, gorgeous." The man said as he drew.

As the man drew, Ganner drew his weapon too, running solely on instinct, and the yellow blade shot to life. There was a sound of deflection, then silence for a moment as the four realized what had happened. The man who had fired looked down to see a glowing hole in his chest before he slumped back onto the ground, lifelessly dropping his weapon. At the same time, Ganner looked into the blade of his weapon, and for a brief moment the rest of the world was gone, and before him was a bruised, horned woman. She stirred, barely opening her yellow eyes and meeting Ganner's and her lips began to move when out in the corner of Ganner's eye, the other man began to turn and run away. He looked over to see Linora tackle him, pinning his arms behind his back. "Don't you ever even think about coming back here!" She warned him, before she allowed him to run off again.

"You good?" Linora asked Ganner, who realized the woman he had seen was gone.

"Yeah, it's just... I thought I saw someone." He replied.

"Well," Ms. Kass said as she approached the two and brought them together in a warm embrace, "The only people I see here are heroes. I suppose I owe you something, Linora?"

Pulling back, Linora chuckled. "Well, I do need a new pressure relief valve."

Ten minutes later, Ganner and Linora were on their way from the market, making their way out of the city. "You saved my life back there." Linora said.

"Well, yes," Ganner replied modestly, "There really weren't any other options, were there?"

"You'd be-" Linora stopped as the two turned another corner and ran into another group of armored thugs harassing another person.

One of them turned and immediately lunged at Linora with a vibroblade, which she caught and wrestled out of his hand. At the same time, Ganner activated his lightsaber, the sound of which immediately halted all the other thugs, who turned to see the source of the noise, and in doing so gave their victim — a bearded, graying, but well-built man — an opening to strike. He grabbed the blaster of one and shot him straight in the head, and in the chaos Ganner, Linora, and the victim quickly attacked and eliminated the rest of the group. As the final Black Hand member dropped, Ganner met eyes with their target, and suddenly found himself seeing those fiery eyes somewhere else.

He was gazing into the dark brown eyes of a much younger man, with a long moustache of the same hair color running across his face, which was darkened by ash which also fellow around them. The man was adorned in a dark blue uniform, with steaks of yellow running through it, and on it was a small, circular golden badge taking the shape of familiar but unknown insignia, which had six words emblazoned on it in Basic:

"Have we met?" Taran asked, stunned.

...

Barak was awoken by the soft thud of the shuttle he was occupying touching down on the ground. He opened his eyes to find that he could not see. His hands were cuff-bound in traditional fashion, and he knew it better than to try and stand up, so he reached out with his other senses to assess his environment the best he could. A set of hard steps — a Stormtrooper, as usual for the Empire — walked past him, to his left, and the shuttle's door slid open with the smallest whistle of air from the machinery of the shuttle, typical of a Lambda-class T-4a shuttle. A gust of air blew in, almost perfect, but someone who had lived on Coruscant could detect the faint scent the airspeeders left in their midst, and Barak now knew where he was.

"On your feet!" The trooper demanded. Barak obeyed the command, and was promptly grabbed by the trooper down the shuttle's landing ramp, onto another metallic surface, where the trooper's steps again echoed of metal on metal. Barak had heard the sound before, but he couldn't believe he was hearing it again. They had brought him here?

Proceeding further, the sound of doors swishing open confirmed what Barak had thought. He had returned to the headquarters of Imperial Intelligence. The doors behind him closed quickly, and the floor shook as the turbolift Barak had entered activated, and began to descend into the depths of the installation. The descent was smooth, and the lift gently slowed until, at last, it reached its stopping point, and another door slid open in front of Barak.

"You know," he commented, "I've already seen this place before. No need to blind me."

"Oh, I agree." The dryly enthusiastic voice was one Barak recognized, but deeper and coarser than he remembered it being. "Take the blindfold off."

The trooper did as he was told, and Barak was briefly blinded by the lights of the facilities, before focusing on the tall figure before him, a man who displayed both youth and authority at the same time, wearing the standard Imperial uniform and standing tall in it. His long, dark red hair was neatly combed back, and his face was perfectly calm, down to his dark brown eyes.

"Agent Holway." Barak had known the man a long time.

"That's Director Holway to you, prisoner." Kerrig Holway spoke with no sympathy in his voice, only the slightest trace of contempt for his former friend.

"How many more people did you have to kill to get that title?"

Holway grinned. "I was hoping you'd ask that. Your terrorist friends were quick to disappear after they learned that you were compromised." Holway began walking, and Barak was forced to follow. They made their way past dozens of agents watching maps, looking at screens of classified info, and watching surveillance footage as Holway made his way to the Director's office. All of the agents were humans now; the Empire's anti-alien policies applied even here, and it only furthered the monotony that the Empire had driven into the installation since it was founded.

"You mean, after you chose the Empire over freedom." Barak grimly responded.

"Hardly." Holway said as they entered his office. They sat down, the Stormtrooper standing guard next to the door, and Holway activated the holoprojector on his table, which began playing outside security footage of an Imperial facility on a jungle planet with Stormtroopers patrolling the entrance. Suddenly, a missile flew towards the base's door, destroying it in an explosion that rocked the camera as the Stormtroopers quickly fell to shots fired by camouflaged forces that quickly made their way into the base.

"One hundred sixty-two Imperial lives lost on Onderon that day, a world we saved from the Separatists. One hundred sixty-two innocent lives lost because of your information, Barak. You are not better than I."

"The Empire is tyrranical. It was my duty to resist it. That's why I joined Republic Intelligence."

"The Empire is security. But your friends were just as misguided as you've become."

Holway brought up a second video, showing an Onderonian village from above. Stormtroopers and AT-STs walked the streets, destroying everything in sight, regardless of whether or not they fought back, which many did.

"We showed them the error of their ways. Your contact, Dono, was found weeping in the jungle when we captured her. She vowed never to break, but yet I gained much information from her."

"You monster." Barak growled.

"You would've done the same thing, once." Holway reminded him.

"Until I saw the Empire for what it really was." Barak replied.

"Enough. I didn't have you captured to debate the meaning of terrorism; I brought you here for something much more important." Holway motioned for the Stormtrooper to leave the room, and he did, closing the door behind him as he left, briefly leaving the two in absolute silence.

"Oh, I get it now." Barak said confidently. "You want to know what I learned from Decien."

"Wrong again. We have cell footage of a meeting that took place on Imperial Facility 406-P between you and one of the most dangerous fugitives in the Galaxy. However, the footage has been heavily corrupted; the audio, indecipherable."

Holway leaned in, folding his arms on the table and gazing intently into Barak's defiant blue eyes.

"I want to know what happened in that cell between you and Hans Cerrano."