Continuing Mark Wooden’s “Star Wars” fanfiction, Jedi NILE CHINELO evades the Imperial Security Bureau while protecting her contact, a link to vital foodstuffs for the Alliance. Back at the spaceport, CORANA BIABRU backs up her partner PIANI NURUODO’s negotiation skills with a blaster bolt.
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“Go!” Nile yelled as she pushed the contact toward the door.
She then turned to the three ISB men, waiting to see how they’d react.
They drew their blasters.
Nile drew her lightsaber from beneath her soaking robe, igniting its blue blade. Said blade slashed through the lead agent’s blaster, taking his trigger finger with it. The other ISB men were stunned into inaction.
Taking the advantage, Nile raced out the shop’s front door after the contact. He stood aghast outside, not having a clue what to do next. While disengaging her lightsaber and storing it under her robes, Nile looked about the lot.
She spotted a two-man swoop. Grabbing her contact by the arm, she pulled him in that direction.
As Nile and her contact climbed aboard the swoop, the ISB security lead and his man who still possessed a trigger finger burst from the shop. Their blasters were at the ready, their eyes searching for their targets among the rain, pedestrians, and swoops.
The salesman Nile had encountered earlier approached her and her contact. His protective flyer sailed above him as he argued against their taking the swoop for a test drive without signing paperwork.
Nile looked past him to see the two ISB security men making their way over.
“I’ll get to it when I get back!” the contact said. “Don’t want to miss a sale!”
Nile fired up the swoop.
The ISB men stopped a short distance from the swoop. “Turn off that engine or be fired upon!” one of them demanded.
The salesman threw up his hands and fell to his knees in supplication.
Nile pushed the throttle and turned the swoop hard one hundred and eighty degrees. The bottom rear engines threw dust and rain at the ISB men. They immediately threw up their hands to protect their eyes.
Turning the swoop again, Nile launched it at the street. She had to pull back at the last second as a passing landspeeder raced past.
Checking behind her, Nile saw the ISB security men still shaking their heads to clear the debris she’d blown on them. Turning back to the street, Nile found an opening in the swiftly moving traffic and eased the swoop in.
Corana fired off a shot that nailed Cragen square in the chest.
The Trandoshan fell backward, slamming into one of his men and taking him down with him.
Piani quickly drew the vibrorapier at her side and stabbed at one of Cragen’s other two men. Her attack missed its mark, but the slaver’s dodge put him at an awkward position from which to attack.
The Zygerrian slaver who had met Cragen at the bar fired back at Corana. His shot sparked against her cover. She returned fire but reacting to the spark threw off her aim. The shot had spooked her target enough that he dove away.
He landed hard, knocking his blaster from his hand.
Piani took another stab at the man near her. This time her blade thrust home, piercing the man’s heart. He seized, then went to the ground bleeding.
The Twi’lek smuggler looked to the suit. He gasped, then fainted. Piani didn’t have time to catch him.
Corana moved from her position and to the fallen Zygerrian. He reached for his blaster. Corana’s foot stomped on his wrist, preventing him from getting his weapon.
He looked up directly into the barrel of Corana’s blaster carbine.
“I’m gonna bet you’d like to keep your head on your neck,” Corana said. “Which means you’re gonna tell me where that man’s cargo is.”
The slaver didn’t hesitate. “On the ship! Storage hold. Cragen has the code!”
Corana kicked the Zygerrian, knocking him unconscious. She looked to Piani. The Twi’lek moved to Cragen, who was still groggy from the shot to the chest. Piani kicked him onto his back and held her vibrorapier to his throat.
“The key code to your storage hold,” Piani demanded.
Cragen spat blood. “One, nine, seven, seven.”
“Thanks,” Piani said. “Depending on what’s in that compartment, you may live to see another day.”
Cragen started up, but Corana’s foot stomped on his chest, reigniting the pain of his blaster wound and drawing a wince from the slaver. Corana put the muzzle of her blaster to Cragen’s forehead.
“She may let you live,” Corana said, “but I owe you a whole lot of payback for ratting out our colony at Bandomeer.”
The slaver sneered at Corana. She pressed his wound again, soliciting a scream from Cragen.
Piani ran up the Princess’s Claw’s gangplank.
Back before she’d met Corana, Piani had spent time on the Princess’s Claw being transported as a thirteen-year-old slave girl. Eleven years later, she still remembered her way around portions of the ship.
She moved directly to the storage hold, where she and several other young women had spent their miserable traveling time.
Piani reached the storage hold and entered the key code on the electronic lock. The door slid open, revealing a large area made cramped by several crates of various shapes and sizes.
Amid the crates, sitting in the near darkness and heat, Piani saw six young women, not one of them older than their teen years. Anger seized Piani. She grabbed the commlink at her side and called back to Corana.
“I have something here,” she said. “Bring that son of a bitch Cragen and the suit in here so I can decide which of the two I’m going to kill first.”
To be concluded…
Like this “Star Wars” fanfiction? Be sure to check out Mark’s original fiction, “Shadowdance” saga books too!
