The Vagrant Sidestep

[Jorus Merrill]

TUSKEN'S EYE SHIPYARDS
UTEGETU NEBULA
CAPTAIN'S LOG: RECORDING

All right, Rens, moving a little closer. Just a little, don't worry too much. This was my life for a long, long time. Let's see, got a grease pencil here and some flimsi...

Got a little message on there in Minnisiat, Sy Bisti and Cheunh. That's two major Unknown Regions trade languages plus Chiss language. My grammar's terrible but I think the message gets across. Bleeding a little pressure out of the next shot from my maneuvering gun, rolling the message into a pellet. There's a handful of cats working deep in the wreck -- feth, that's a nasty rip. Sharp edges everywhere. Skinnies aren't getting close to that. I see a bulkhead in there that's flat to me. And...

The shot's good. They've noticed; they think it's a micrometeorite, but they can't go out, not without irking the skinnies. Oh, someone's caught on. Unfolding the pellet. Passing it around. Looking around. All right, we're in business. I'm coming back.

 

[Jorus Merrill]

TUSKEN'S EYE SHIPYARDS
UTEGETU NEBULA

"Any objections?"

He sat in the cockpit, in the back. Jowly still had the pilot's seat, and Rens was still glued to the sensors. And that was as it should be.

"None from me," said Rens. She was Zabrak, horns poking up through tight-woven hair, and she didn't turn around. Like more than a few men and women he'd known, she'd spent time as a slave.

"Nor me," Jowly said. His implants whirred through a configuration of lights that could have meant anything.

"All right, I'll call in and tell the folks on Garoon that we're going to try and get the lay of the land a little better. You understand your job's to leave if it gets hot, right? That's a standing order?"

They nodded, Rens still without turning around.

"Then," Jorus said, "let's talk job description."

 

[Jorus Merrill]

TUSKEN'S EYE SHIPYARDS
UTEGETU NEBULA
CAPTAIN'S LOG: RECORDING

Got confirmation from Geroon, and more intel. The Skinnies are called the Viis, frill-necked lizards; they used to have an empire until Mnggal-Mnggal came along. The Cats are the Aaroun, their longtime slaves. Apparently the Aaroun got away to some promised-land planet called Ruu-113, along with other slave species. Maybe this is Viis survivors taking advantage of Aaroun colonists or something. This is all eight hundred years ago or more anyways.

A lot of things changed then. It would have been something to fly with Skywalker and Antilles, shake Crix Madine's hand or talk tactics with Garm Bel Iblis, but I'm glad I live now.

There's a tiny puff of vapor coming from the aft of the nearest big ship. That's the signal. Could be a trap; if so, I've got two Undergrounders and the D'Lessio at my back, and a really nice gun in my hands. Another one on the back, two more on my hips. I went for overkill; not everything works against everyone. So it's Bloodstripe break-action scattergun, electroray carbine, and two Tenloss Ambassador pistols, plus a Fringe Taserblade as long as my forearm. It's a heavy loadout, maybe enough to make this work.

 

[Jorus Merrill]

TUSKEN'S EYE SHIPYARDS
UTEGETU NEBULA
CAPTAIN'S LOG: RECORDING

Oof. OK, contact. I couldn't fire equal-and-opposite with the pellet gun or someone might hear it on the hull, so I've been, uh, approximating, like tacking into the wind. So I've been zigzagging toward this ship, one of the big industrial ships. Airlock's that way, but I'm not going for airlock. See, like ninety-nine percent of the galaxy, the Viis really dig impressive bridge towers.

Their bridge crew is also entirely Viis.

Poking a mirror around the edge of the bridge viewport. I can see'em pretty well. Tall, skinny, green, small jaws, big colorful neck frill. Their uniforms are immaculate, I'm talking polished aurodium buttons that'd pay for a frigate's food and drink. They've got sidearms.

Backing off and loading my Bloodstripe with three concussion shells.

 

[Jorus Merrill]

TUSKEN'S EYE SHIPYARDS
UTEGETU NEBULA
CAPTAIN'S LOG: RECORDING

Bracing the stock against a structural element -- and there goes the viewport. Long cold walk for our slaver imperialist friends. Maneuvering to the bridge. Nobody left. Automatic door closures, and a bulkhead's coming down. I'm going, I'm going...I'm in. Room's repressurizing, decompression alarm's getting louder with the air. Bridge controls are still operational but not in any language I recognize. Viis, I guess. My gut says that panel's the helm -- I've been in a lot of Unknown Regions xeno ships.

Turbolift's coming up. Reloading.

Taken care of. Viis security wear very shiny armor and carry very shiny stun clubs. I'm not in the business of getting stunclubbed.

All right, what I think is the helm is still operational. I'd make a run for it but it's taking a while for the alarm to get the tethered Aaroun reeled in. I'm starting a nice gentle acceleration, but tweaked like I'm listing with the damage.

 

[Jorus Merrill]

TUSKEN'S EYE SHIPYARDS
UTEGETU NEBULA
CAPTAIN'S LOG: RECORDING

Turbolift's coming up again. They'll be a lot more careful. Might be they think there's some technical problem up here, some collision whose aftereffects took care of the security men and the bridge crew. I don't see any cameras in here; the Viis officers probably didn't like to feel watched. Common in aristo ship designs. I need a translator -- something palm-sized would be perfect, or an Aaroun if they're literate in this language -- but it's time for team two.

BLAMBLAMBLAM

Just went for standard eight-gauge buckshot. Turns out it works great against Viis dress armour. In their shoes I'd send an Aaroun or two into the ducts and try to peg me through that vent over there.

All right, blocked the vent with a couple of bodies. Viis don't weigh very much.

 

[Jorus Merrill]

TUSKEN'S EYE SHIPYARDS
UTEGETU NEBULA
CAPTAIN'S LOG: RECORDING

No droids so far, and no jacks made for droids that I can spot. The electroray carbine might not have been my best ch-

Aw feth. The blast shield is rising, they're decompressing me, and there's a-

That chunk just pinged off-

-no shields-

All right. Situation managed. That...was too close. One of the attack craft came to take a look in the bridge. Fether didn't have particle shields up, maybe didn't have them at all, so I popped an EMP charge on his shield generator. Electroray carbine did the rest. He's out of commission, just drifting. At this rate he's going to run into the bridge tower -- yeah, that's his nose grating on the hull. Looks like all the tethered Aaroun are in. It was uniform, so I'm thinking an automated reel-'em-in, which lets me downgrade my estimate of how many Viis are aboard. Accelerating.

In their shoes, the next thing I'd do is make a recon pass on the open bridge. Followed by a strike. That's going to happen and soon.

 

[Jorus Merrill]

TUSKEN'S EYE SHIPYARDS
UTEGETU NEBULA
CAPTAIN'S LOG: RECORDING

But as soon as I give up the helm, I'm just another joe with too many guns and too little backup. I'm not seeing weapons fire out there -- they haven't picked up the D'Lessio, but I haven't had the chance to set up the tightbeam comm or try to peg the periscope. All right, let's see, let's see...

Feth. I don't think hyperdrive control is through this console. Better look around. There's another console that looks helmish. Looks promising. All I need is a really quick jump, and I don't feel like trying to jump a ship this size safely, not with this many innocents aboard. I couldn't do that on my best day, I don't think.

There goes the next attack craft, for that recon run. Right on schedule. I give it twenty seconds before there's concentrated fire on my position. I think I have a vector, and I think I know what button's what-

 

[Jorus Merrill]

TUSKEN'S EYE SHIPYARDS
UTEGETU NEBULA
CAPTAIN'S LOG: RECORDING

Badnoisebadnoisebadnoise. All right, not a lot of hyperdrive going to happen. Feth. And the turbolift's locked, looks like. Time to jump for itohfeththereitis-

Feth. Feth. Feth. All right, bridge just got hit and hit hard. Attack craft coming around for another pass. I'm moving as fast as I could jump, parallel with the bow. The hull's going by about ten metres below me. Now it's splitting into the two prongs, all modular like...like prison cells maybe. And the rest of the hull back there, that's got to be reactor, engines, officers' quarters...they would make the divide right at the prongs, to keep from...

Yeah, all right. This can work. I can make this work. There is no emotion, there is peace. I can do peace. There is no...how's it go again? There is no ignorance, there is knowledge. I know what I can do. There is no passion, there is serenity. This stuff used to make me furious. Now I've got balance. There is no death, there is the Force. If I fail, I fail, but fear of failing won't be what gets in my way.

All right. Here we go.

 

[Jorus Merrill]

TUSKEN'S EYE SHIPYARDS
UTEGETU NEBULA

Stars flared to starlines, then hyperspace opened up, and Jorus -- clad in about half an inch of insulation -- left what common convention called realspace. This, though, this dimension had always felt more real to him. It was the only place he had any significant influence on the Force. Most people visited hyperspace with a jump, then left as soon as the jump ended. But why not linger at home? And why not relax?

He turned with a pellet shot across his body, halted his rotation with another, and saw what he could feel with his mind's eye: The two forward hull segments, each crammed with Aaroun slave labour. Each trailing air and debris, but no bodies. Each dragged through hyperspace within a bubble of his own creation, no hyperdrive involved. And for the first time, he'd done this with serenity, not with desperation or fury or agony. Every other time had been darker than this, but this was perfect.

The bubble collapsed -- ten seconds' flight time, Class Twenty equivalency, just long enough to put them in the outer system -- and Jorus slapped his comm, hoping they'd catch it through the periscope. "Merrill to D'Lessio. Decloak and bail. I need you here now."

 

[Jorus Merrill]

GEROON
CAPTAIN'S LOG: RECORDING

I guessed wrong. The prison-labor section started a bit farther back. Twelve Aaroun prisoners were lost -- killed by me, by my carelessness and by me being timid. I should have tried to take the whole ship. There's two hundred forty-five alive and free, but if I'd just been a little more precise or a little more ambitious, it would have been two hundred fifty-seven. That weighs on me, uh, pretty heavily, and my gut says it should. Intellectually, I know I should look at how many got saved, but at some level that would just be me making excuses for myself. I went in thinking I had all the solutions, and twelve innocent people died for it.

There's another five ships' worth of Aarouns still out there, still enslaved. Debrief indicates there's a planet's worth of'em. Ruu-113, it's called. Promised land back under the Viis heel. What's twelve to all that? Twelve too many.

Anyways. Barclay is recovering well. The D'Lessio's hold is crammed full of the most interesting bits of Viis tech from the two-thirds of a ship I ripped off, plus the ancient tech the Viis were so anxious to get. I've been doing the salvage thing a long time, and I don't have names for most of this. Fortunately, where we're bound, there's plenty of folks with expertise in Unknown Regions technology.

I've sent word for a followup ship to come here and work with the Aarouns. Should be here in a couple of weeks.