Nar Shaddaa

[DoctorOblivious]

The mission to Coruscant had been a complete bust. Even reflecting on that miserable failure darkened Sophia Moriarty’s expression as she approached a dive bar within the vicinity of the Red and Black. Although, perhaps not a complete bust, as the chaos of the city-world’s evacuation had at least provided the historian with her new trade. That profession was evident by the scrapes on her knuckles and a grease stain under one of her fingers that defied all attempts at obliteration. Even if the galaxy wasn’t particularly interested in reading about history–understandable considering that every day was confronted by a new emergency–ferrying refugees at least provided Sophia with a reasonable amount of satisfaction… though not exactly a reasonable living.

 

A couple of weeks ago, on one of the many occasions that the government’s courier contracts took Sophia to the residential districts surrounding their military headquarters, Moriarty had inquired where the Alliance’s pilots tended to blow off steam after their duty ships. After uncounted short-range contracts of ferrying refugees from the Y’Toub system to literally anywhere else, Moriarty finally built up the nerve to try looking for a potential friend there.

 

But was Beth Andromina… actually a friend? After all, the two had known each other for only a couple of days–and one of those days was marked by Sophia repeatedly kicking herself in the mouth. Even if that wasn’t the case, the Imperial pilot was one of the few people in this crazy galaxy who might have cared whether Sophia was still alive. The thanks of flight after flight of refugees might have provided for some wonderful warm-and-fuzzies, but their gratitude was anonymous at best. That was all another day, another three contracts; return to Nar Shaddaa for a few hours of sleep and then yet another cycle of transporting the desperate throngs.

 

The Unnamed–at least, the Ithorian that Sophia had asked only knew its general location and its name-plate must have been stolen or blasted from the edifice by a resourceful drunk–was a dingy hole with loud music, cheap beer, and low lighting. Its great virtues, aside from being reasonably close to the Red and Black–that horrible old casino–were that it had loud music, cheap beer, and low lighting. All of those lent it to the appreciation of starfighter pilots, Sophia supposed, whose reputation tended to be that they were young and the danger of their profession caused them to adopt an attitude of “live fast, die young, and leave behind an adrenaline-giddy corpse.” Cleanliness and ambience tended to be secondary considerations. Still, this dingy Nar Shaddaa megablock had just enough charming grime to make Sophia feel just a little homesick for Coruscant.

 

The music could be felt thumping into Nar Shaddaa’s streets almost twenty meters from its entrance. Four pilots, two in old Galactic Alliance fatigues and the others in Imperial, didn’t even look up from their drinks as Sophia passed into the entrance of the dive. After her eyes adjusted to the low lighting and passed over numerous unit flags that hung from the walls and ceiling, she realized that exactly two sapients had glanced up at the space-weary pilot. One was a droid bartender, and the other a Sullustan who made a double-take and began staring at her with apparent dislike.

 

At least, Sophia guessed that it was dislike. Interest seemed unlikely. But it was always a bit difficult for her to read those enormous, inky eyes.

 

Sophia tried to ignore the Sullustan as she scanned through the shadows for a familiar face, then settled for snaking her way through the crowd of uniformed sapients and eventually sandwiched herself between a Shistavanen and a human speaking Caridan-accented Basic.

 

“Yeah, excuse… hi! Tihaar!” Sophia had to shout to make herself heard once the droid finally, and with some reluctance, turned his attention away from the cantina’s regulars.

 

“We do not serve tea.” The droid buzzed flatly. Again, it was one of those kinds of bars.

 

“Lomin-ale!” Credits and a modest tip were exchanged for a pint of brown ale. “I was looking for someone!”

 

“Ha. Ha.” The droid’s eyes flickered skeptically. “It is a bad time to be looking for a pilot. They’ve been on high alert for weeks now.”

 

“I know, I know. Thought I’d ask anyway. Beth Andromina, short, red-blond hair, kinda adorable in a ‘I can kill you with my thumb’ sort of way.”

 

The droid’s eyes flickered. “Imperial. Caridan. I have not detected that person within this day’s patronage.”

 

Sophia sighed. “Thanks. Long shot, had to ask.”

 

“This unit is forbidden to serve shots.”

 

The historian closed her eyes for a second, then opted to leave the bar, where the four pilots were enjoying their drinks in spite of the Imperial regime’s public consumption laws. That Sullustan’s glare was starting to seriously wear on her. Outside, she just leaned against the graffiti-riddled wall and watched the distant glow of sublight engine’s that flickered far above her. There was a corridor of meager lights–civilian traffic, freighters, starliners, and barges–that was departing the moon. Many of those would be the refugee ships evacuating millions of civilians from their hopes. That was where Sophia probably should have been, contributing to the war effort instead of selfishly seeking out one of the few people who might have cared that she was still alive.

 

Multiple bright glows, dim orbs that was still visible despite the daylight and distance. Those were capital ships, probably Imperial Deuces or Mon Cals–maybe even one of the Nebula-classes. Another set of sublights bloomed to life. A new capital ship from the shipyards, or maybe a refit. The shipyards were bound to be working overtime, trying to get hulls out into orbit.

 

The spacelanes were where Sophia should have been at this moment, not wasting time outside this dive. Sophia took a long sip from her pint glass. Then she pushed back her hair with a condensation-slick hand and sighed.

 

The galaxy was a terrible place to be alone.

[DoctorOblivious]

“Moriarty, right?” A raspy, electronic-assisted voice buzzed at Sophia’s side. The historian glanced over and then looked downward. It was that Sullustan who wouldn’t stop glaring at her. And yes, closer inspection confirmed that the mouse-faced alien’s jowls were practically quivering with rage and his hands were definitely balled into fists.

 

“That’s Doctor Moriarty, but you can call me Sophia.”

 

“I read your piece on Admiral Slaughter.”

 

Sophia’s stomach sank. The historian knew very well which article the Sullustan was referring to; it was a minor op-ed piece to an interstellar HoloNews journal, but the vicious denunciation of one of the Rebel Alliance’s more prominent republican officers had inspired a significant backlash. “Oh! So you’re the one! I never thought that article was going to have any circulation. I mean, it didn’t–”

 

The Sullustan pilot stepped forward. Despite the fact that the pilot barely stood to Sophia’s collarbone, she took a step backwards and began looking for someone to potentially intervene. “Oh, kriff you, desk jockey. The Admiral’s a kriffing hero. When the Imps occupied my home, no one else had the guts to kick them offworld. Kriffing masterpiece, that campaign was–”

 

“I don’t regret a word I wrote in that article. My every word was accurate to the best of my research. But I’m always happy to listen to an alternate perspective… if you’re willing to take the time for an int–hrrrk!”

 

The Sullustan’s meaty fist slammed into Sophia’s abdomen, just below her breastbone. The wind blew out of her lungs and she doubled over, falling to the ground onto her hands. The pint of lomin ale fell from her hands and bounced noisily on the permacrete, spilling the dark brown brew onto her hands. For the moment, that didn’t matter–Sophia could barely even see past the stars that were swimming in her vision, and she was just trying to suck air into her gasping lungs. The Sullustan was saying something in what was presumably a mocking tone of voice for his species. It was several seconds, however, before her mind asserted control again and by that time the drunken, mousey sapient had decided that beating up a scrawny scholar really wasn’t worth an Article 15.

 

The wheezing gave way to coughing. A pair of hands reached under Sophia’s armpits and hauled the historian to her feet, muttering in a feminine voice Up you get, it’s easier if you’re standing. Twi’lek, Sophia placed the accent as Kala’uun. Her vision cleared to view a green-skinned Twi’lek, still supporting the historian with an mixed expression of amusement and amusement.”

 

“Breathe. You do know that this is a pilot bar? Civilians don’t usually come here unless they’re looking for–” The suggestion was evident from a suppressed twitch of a lekku.

 

“A friend of mine. Name is… Beth Andromina, she’s in the–”

 

“--The Imperial Templars, I know them.” Indeed, their unit’s flag could have been seen hanging on one the walls within the bar. “Huh. Wouldn’t have thought… nevermind.” Again, that twitch of a lekku. “You’re going to have a real schutta of a time finding her, though. That squadron’s going to be held on alert status for–”

 

And the lekku practically shriveled. “I really shouldn’t have said that.”

 

Only having just recovered from her blush, Sophia offered a weak grin and allowed the supporting hands to fall from her shoulders. “Your secret is safe with me, Lieutenant.” She glanced towards the dominating dome of the Red and Black and sighed. The overwhelming quota of civilian transport contracts–nearly all of them departures–combined with the heightened security status surrounding their headquarters base, could mean only one thing.

 

The Rebel Alliance was expecting an invasion of Nar Shaddaa.  Even as she glanced at that horrible old casino, a GR-75 transport and an obsolete Hammerhead corvette lifted from the vast landing pads surrounding the military base. Even further in the distance, one of the Star Destroyer-sized star liners alighted from one of the civilian starports, undoubtedly stuffed way beyond its safe capacity with civilian traffic. It was a mass exodus of the entire moon, of millions–probably billions–of sapients attempting to flee to safety.

 

Or, at least a part of the moon that wasn’t guaranteed to be under threat of orbital bombardment in the imminent future.

 

“It was worth a shot. Thank you.”

 

It was a mistake to have even gone looking for Andromina. Sophia wasn’t even certain what she was looking for from meeting the pilot again–a friendly chat? A few drinks? A night of heedless debauchery?--and the entire moon and its billions of inhabitants were bracing for an invasion that was likely to result in the deaths of millions. Nearly everyone who knew that Sophia was still alive was frantically preparing to meet that invasion under the gaudy dome of the Red and Black. Chances were that Beth Andromina would be fighting for her life in the next few days. Same for Aidan Darkfire–and the entirety of the Imperial Knights and Jedi Order.

 

And here, Sophia was getting a pint.

 

She glanced down at her wrist. Despite having spilled half a pint onto the duracrete, her datapad had escaped a drowning. A few taps on its screen updated the vast and expanding list of transport contracts. Hundreds of thousands of desperate people were trying to escape off-world. Often, the destination to those contracts was Ylesia, literally the closest world on the Shag Pabol trade route. Hundreds of thousands of sapients… and at best, Sophia would be able to transport a few hundred. That was a drop in an ocean of desperation.

 

Sophia took on as many of those contracts as her ship would be able to handle. Then she made for her docking bay, pausing only to place an order for pizzas to the Red and Black.

 

And then she ran. Well, jogged, as her lack of training and the recent blow to her stomach still left her winded.

[DoctorOblivious]

The VCX-100 gave a notable wobble in its flight pattern, as though its pilot had been startled and was now frantically groping one-handed through an unfamiliar cockpit in search for unfamiliar controls. That was exactly what was happening, as Sophia’s right hand was swatting buttons blindly in the central console, which was where most of the communications equipment was located. Eventually, after having activated the internal speakers and uttering several curses to a flight that included two adorable Duros children, she managed to locate and flick the switch that returned the hail of the two very fast, and very well-armed X-Wings.

 

“Hi. Uh, transmitting manifest and flight plan now–shavit,” Sophia cursed the ergonomics of this freighter’s cockpit under her breath as she stretched for the relevant control. The VCX-100 was definitely intended for a crew of two. “Is something wrong? We’re bound for Ylesia, nineteen sapients and baggage on board.”

 

At that point, her conscious brain had finally released command of the freighter’s controls to partially-developed muscle memory and dared to recognize a familiar voice through comms interference. “Wait. Beth? Is that you?”

 

Sophia might have started laughing, but a strong tug on her sleeve tore her attention away from the canopy and the all-important artificial horizon. Standing at her shoulder–and not even rising up to the sitting pilot’s shoulder–was one of the two aforementioned adorably precocious Duros children. Wide-eyed with innocence and curiosity–at least, Sophia supposed that was the chronically wide-eyed humanoid’s expression–she loudly spoke to the pilot, more than sufficient to be picked up by her headset.

 

“Excuse me, Doctor Sophia,” she said in that deliberately-lipsy, ever-so-sweet tone of a child who knew they had gotten themselves into trouble and were trying to manipulate their way out of it. “Are you a Mandalorian?”

 

“What? No.” Her burrow furrowed as her glance repeatedly raced between the controls, Nar Shaddaa’s traffic, and that devious little child. “And I thought I locked my cabin.”

 

Edited February 15, 2022 by ObliviousKnight

[DoctorOblivious]

It was now Sophia’s turn to start grinning like an idiot. The spritely tone of recognition–to say nothing of the pilot-drawl that was just barely restrained by Imperial training–was unmistakable even in spite of the riotous comms interference that was ever-present on the overcrowded spacelanes of Nar Shaddaa. It hadn’t been since the beginning of the war that the two had seen each other face-to-face, with only intermittent messages and meal deliveries exchanged since. Whatever the two were, it was a joy to find that someone from Besh-Cresh (before Coruscant) was still alive.

 

Even, or especially, if she had gotten uproariously drunk with that woman and made a bit of a kath out of herself.

 

“Beth!” Sophia nearly cried out when she swapped her transmission to the semi-private frequency. “Yes, I’m not… dead yet. Just dead broke. …so fierfekkin’ broke,” The historian muttered under her breath.

 

“What’s fierfekkin?” That part of her mind that was currently doing an embarrassing happy-dance died at the voice of an unrepentantly mischievous Duros child.

 

“Dinsa, sweetie? How about we make a deal. You never repeat that word in front of your parents–and I tell your mother that I invited you up here to watch the jump to lightspeed.”

 

“....mmmmm… deal!”

 

“Good, now strap in.”

 

That entire exchange, even the metallic clicks as a six-year old’s hands fumbled with restraints that were intended for an adult humanoid, would have been clearly audible over the pilot’s headset.

 

“I take it you’ve been busy?”

 

[DoctorOblivious]

“Go, Beth. I don’t need an escort.” Sophia heard herself saying in an accent that was not hers. Some frightfully brilliant corner of her mind was calculating feverishly without her taking conscious thought; an astoundingly quick tactical assessment of the space above Nar Shaddaa and calculation of intercept courses without her even paying mind to ship names or loadouts. “I’ll be fine. Re-calculating my jump… it will take approximately seventeen minutes and twenty seconds until that frigate is able to close the hyperspace route to Ylesia. I’ll be out of here in twelve minutes. Give or take a few. Go make those bastards hurt.”

 

Give or take a few. Sophia had hidden a lie in that sentence: “a few,” in this case, translated to “few minutes.” And even that was a confidence interval that applied to both ships; both the Sith and This Machine Kills Fascists. And that failed to take into account any interceptors that the Sith might have launched to interdict the hyperspace routes, rather than dispatch them against targets of tactical value.

 

The amount of time that it would take for the average interceptor squadron to reach her alternate escape route was about ten minutes, fifteen seconds. Again, give or take a few.

 

“What’s bastards?” Dinsa, that adorable Duros child, blinked widely and stared at Sophia. Not because she was a child, or a perpetually wide-eyed Duros; but because of the sudden intensity in Moriarty’s voice.

 

“Bad people, love. The kind of people who like to hurt innocent families and their kids. Not because it’s important to them, just to show that they can. But I’m going to make sure that they don’t get anywhere close to you, okay? Now check your straps again for me–tighten them as much as you can, even if it hurts a little.”

 

As the VCX-100 veered away from its planned escape route–and now interdicted by multiple gravity wells and an artificial singularity–Sophia’s eyes raced between the dimming glow of Nar Shaddaa’s exosphere and the flood of information that was displayed on the freighter’s sensor readouts. Hundreds of ships were dueling between Nar Shaddaa and Nal Hutta; Fidelity and her entourage had just shown up, Misericordia and Constantine and dozens of former Imperial ships; but also the Sith Empire with Eye of Sagittarius and Raven’s Fury and Iziz and… and Black Scarab. Of course the Sith Empire would have deployed their flagship at what they had clearly planned to be the decisive battle of the war and the smashing of the Rebellion’s conventional forces.

 

Unless… and Sophia’s hands froze at this thought… their plan was to outright destroy the moon. To sterilize it by orbital bombardment, or…

 

Or to shatter it outright. Like what they had done to Coruscant. Or like what had just happened on a much smaller scale at Naboo.

 

“Mind back in the game, Soph.” The historian muttered to herself as reminded her hands to continue to follow a flight plan that her racing mind recalculated every few seconds. She dove down hard–poor Dinsa gave a yelp of fright–only seconds before a fleet transport carrying ammunition took a long-range artillery blast and evaporated in a cloud of shrapnel and fire. Something struck at the edges of Sophia’s mind at the exact moment that one of Scarab’s siege torpedoes detonated above Nar Shaddaa.

 

Her vision blurred and she blinked hard. Tears had welled up in her eyes. That didn’t matter. She had to survive a few more minutes despite the swarms of starfighters that were jockeying for position, trying to block off hyperspace routes and flank unsupported cruisers. Just a few more minutes.

 

[DoctorOblivious]

“Almost there…” Not entirely unlike a monk entering a meditative trance, Sophia repeated those words to herself as This Machine Kills Fascists wound its way through the horror of a modern space battlefield. In this case, however, rather than entering a state of serenity in which even the body’s defensive mechanisms took a deep breath, Moriarty was closer to succumbing to something of a nervous break: that meditative chant was accompanied by shaking hands that were leaving sweat slicks on the controls, and eyes that were constantly darting from sensor readouts to the navigational computer to the crowded starfield. The poor Duros child beside her had decided to remain silent… until a nearby barge took a hit from a distant cruiser.

 

Sophia flinched when the midsection of that enormous vessel belched forth a gout of flames and shrapnel. Clearly, the barge was hauling something explosive, even if that hazardous cargo was only fertilizer. Then its engines desynchronized and caused that amalgamation of linked cargo containers to collide with itself.

 

Sophia never saw the explosion. The canopy turned opaque to block out the blinding glare. But a collision with–something–stripped away the freighter’s shields and something gave a metallic crunch somewhere in the aft of the freighter.

 

That was when poor Dinsa finally gave out a little scream. The Duros child still managed to push her hands over her lips, rather than distract Sophia as she piloted and hoped her way through the expanding cloud of debris that was the wreck of the barge.

 

And then the early-warning sensors began to buzz threateningly, indicating the unfamiliar tone of a targeting lock on Sophia’s vessel. Then came the artificial growl-scream of ion engine propulsion that arced from left to right, and the historian realized that it wasn’t a distant turbolaser barrage that had killed the barge–it was a squadron of starfighters.

 

“Rebel freighter,” intoned a static-stricken voice that barely managed to make itself audible over the interference of the barge that was continuing to tear itself apart. “Shut down your shields and set your engines to idle. Comply with all instructions from our boarding parties.”

 

Sophia glanced at the Duros child, then back at the readouts from the navigational computer. Machine was nearly outside the influence of the gravity well projectors–and the early-warning sensors were continuing to buzz their warning that the Sith starfighters had the freighter in a targeting lock. Her ship was carrying more than twenty people… who almost certainly would not be treated kindly by the Sith. And as for herself… no, Sophia could not afford to allow herself to be captured by the Sith Empire. At best, they would kill her on sight. Being taken alive, however, offered the possibility of a future of ceaseless misery and exploitation.

 

Fleeing was her only option.

 

“Sith starfighter,” Sophia began in reply. Her left hand was shaking as she reached for the hyperdrive activation lever. “Go frack yourself. I’m carrying refugees. People, you di’kut. You can’t just leave be, can you? Can’t build anything of value in your own home, so you go and tear down what others built. Government’s a piece of poodoo, gotta destroy what others made for themselves. Entire ideology’s a–”

 

“Doctor Sophia?” Cried out Dinsa, pointing at an alert light that had just appeared above the lever that Sophia was gripping.

 

The historian yanked back that lever, her hand slipping on the rubberized grip. The starfield lengthed–the entire ship gave a characteristic electronic whine as the hyperdrive spooled up…

 

And they were away.

 

Edited May 5, 2022 by ObliviousKnight