[Archivist’s note: To any aspiring political inspectors reading this, we must advise that you do not emulate Varris’s actions here. Although given the situation he was in, they were understandable.]
As I watched the cretins my hopes had been hanging on being partially drowned in a tidal wave of toilet rolls and food packets, I became aware of one thing. Sh’mukk wasn’t with us. I turned around to find Tribuni casually playing a game of dokosu on his datapad.
“Where’s the loony?” I asked desperately.
“Which one?”
“The Moff!”
“Dunno. Thought you had him.”
“I told you to hold him!”
“You did?”
“Yes!”
“Didn’t hear you!”
“Oh for—you wouldn’t hear a seismic mine if it exploded in your ear!”
He turned to me, scowling. “Oh, so that’s the game you’re playing, gramps? Well, maybe you could, I don’t know, pay some attention to what the kriff’s going on around you?”
“I’m on an oversized Star Destroyer! Being fought over by lunatics with space dementia! And the person who could have stopped this likes to dance with no pants on!” I shouted in exasperation. “How the hell I’m supposed to pay attention to anything in this madhouse?”
Our fine example of a working relationship was interrupted when the ground began to shake violently. Looking around, I noted that something was moving through the windows on the opposite side of the booth, which overlooked what appeared to be a vehicle bay. Looking through it, I could see an AT-AT rumbling towards us.
“You’ll never get out of here alive!” Sh’mukk’s voice rumbled over the intercoms. “Nobody will destroy all that I have worked for, especially not you!”
“Oh dear Emperor.” I gasped.
As the guns of the walker began to charge up, I noticed Tribuni furiously tapping on his datapad.
“We’re about to die, and let me guess, you’re using your last moments to delete your downloads list?”
“No.” He said through gritted teeth. “For you information, gramps, I am splicing into the control grid of this vessel. They’ve got as much protection as an egg out of its shell. Now, just bear with me...”
He suddenly grabbed me by the shoulder and shot open the window overlooking the hangar, and leapt out, dragging me with him. I must confess that at the time I was so shocked and horrified that I made a noise not unlike a Jawa being castrated. At the time of writing this, I’m grateful that nobody recorded it and posted it on Imperial networks for everyone to guffaw over.
[Archivist’s note: It is unknown if Varris knows this, but someone did put up a clip of that two weeks ago. Reportedly, it was remixed with popular dance tracks several hundred times in a matter of hours].
As we plummeted, I became aware of our fall slowing, and my weight seemingly fading away. At first I feared that the lunacy aboard the ship had infected the laws of physics, but when I noticed that all the thousands of toilet rolls and packets covering the floor were rising into the air, along with pretty much anything else that wasn’t bolted down, I began to relax.
“I thought turning off the artificial gravity might confuse him for a bit.” Tribuni said casually.
“That’s the first idea you’ve ever had that remotely resembles an intelligent one.” I said.
I would have had to put up with Tribuni’s attempt at a pithy response with suddenly the hangar wall behind us was blown outward. The walker emerged from the smoke moments later, apparently sticking to the ground with magnetic suction or something. With hundreds of toilet rolls and extremely confused nutcases floating around it, Prav’s voice again boomed out of every speaker in the vicinity.
“Here’s Praaaaaavy!”
“Shavit. Shavit. Shavit.” I spat as the head of the walker began to angle towards us. Then, in one of the moments of clarify one can have when you feel your life is about to end and you regret not doing all the things you could have done, I hit upon a plan. Grabbing one of the toilet rolls floating nearby, I pulled myself forward by holding onto it, propelling myself towards the walker. Thankfully, all the stuff floating around the hangar was apparently blocking his view, what with the way the head of the walker was shaking from side to side as if it had been asked to buy a cleaner droid by a Hutt.
“Friends! Imperials! Countrymen!” I shouted, my voice reverberating around the hangar. “That is the man who denied you toilet paper! Fries! Er, warm showers! The one that denied you the glory of being responsible for the most inanely huge ship since the Executor! Forget your petty struggles and unite against the true enemy!”
Apparently, it didn’t take much to convince these people, as they all roared in agreement and began furiously firing their weapons against the AT-AT. Of course, seeing as it was designed to shrug off pretty much anything, it didn’t do much good, but Prav was clearly angered, as the thing began stepping around as if trying to wipe its feet, and let off several pot shots at some of the floating lunatics.
“Idiots! Traitors!” His voice once again came from the speakers, and was really starting to rile me now. “If you are that desperate to die, then so be it!”
As he ranted and fired randomly, I had managed to finally push myself right up to the front of the AT-AT, coming up to its windscreen. Producing my own emergency blaster pistol, I shot it open, and pushed myself inside. Prav was right there in front of me, manning the controls of the walker—well, he was for a few seconds, before I torpedoed right into him and knocked him onto the floor.
“Moff Prav Sh’mukk,” I announced, “I can add attempted murder of an Imperial political officer and unauthorized use of Imperial heavy armor to your list of crimes.” I produced my stasis cuffs, which in retrospect I should have used before, but when you’re in this sort of situation even the obvious doesn’t necessarily occur to you.
“Anything you say now will be taken down and may be used as evidence in court against you.”
Thankfully, all he to say was ‘mmmph! Mmmph! Mmmph!” as I kept his head down and handcuffed him.
And so I united the warring nations of the ‘Compensator’ and captured the lunatic behind it. An Imperial flotilla turned up not that long after, and Sh’mukk was taken into custody, hopefully to be banished to the Zarkham Asylum on Nal Hutta. I was commended for my actions, and of course the whole thing was to be made top secret. Nobody needed to know that insane Moffs were building oversized star destroyers for dubious purposes, nor that all that was needed for Imperial navy crewmen to degenerate into rabid maniacs was a lack of fries and toilet paper.
The 'Compensator', as far as I can tell, was dismantled and the crew taken for rehabilitation. The sad thing is that very few people have any idea what we went through, which is why we have nothing to say when other political officers boast about facing down armies of Trandoshans or purging rebel bases with naught but breadsticks and jars of mayonnaise. But, some things are better forgotten. It is a pretty insane galaxy when you think about it, and nobody needs to overly realize that.
[End of archive entry.]