Chapter Text
The ship shuddered beneath her as another blast hit its mark.
Kriff
Her day had started so well. She had been lucky enough to get a chance at scamming the Hutts out of a good load of spice. The drop-off point to their customers had been leaked by some greedy employees or something. Obviously, the Hutts were rather unappreciated throughout the Outer Rim, even though they were the major syndicate in said region. But, even after sharing profit with their loose allies, they would have still been able to make a decent amount of money off their scam. The risks were high, nevertheless, but who could have said no?
But of course, as her copilot snarkily remarked, the Hutts wanted their spice back. Right now. Not as if they didn’t have enough of the stuff, but slimy obese slugs apparently needed an upped dosage to get high. Oh well, damage done.
“We gotta jump to hyperspace, Captain, or we‘re dead.” With that statement, ZO-E3 brought Leia out of her senseless thoughts.
"Come on flip the bypass switches for the hyperdrive!”
She didn’t need to tell Leia twice. With practiced ease, she flicked the five switches on the console to her left and released the hyperdrive control.
“Everything’s firing! Make the jump to lightspeed,” came from ZO-E3.
“Let‘s make them swallow our dust,” Leia exclaimed while pushing them into the blue spiral of hyperspace.
“Nice one, Captain,” ZO-E3 cheered when they were finally, safely away from their attackers.
“Oh that never gets old,” Leia could only agree. The vast expanse of nothing but stars and darkness had always brought her comfort and by now the blue nebula of hyperspace felt like home to her. Finally calming down, she turned right to where her only and most trusted friend sat.
Z0-E3 had once been supposed to be a medical droid, but various changes to her appearance by her former owners had turned her into a mix of Medical, Protocol, and Engineering droid. To go with her expressive personality, that had developed over years without a mind wipe, she was quite the package. Leia remembered first meeting her clearly.
She had been brought to her owner’s hangers as additional help for his ever-growing shipyards. Back then she had still possessed her legs and had been covered in the complete tan plaiting typical for her model. Nowadays she had an old repulsor lift instead of legs, her platings were mostly lost, all sorts of cables were hanging loose and her arm was a blue replacement.
She had been assigned to Leia to be worked into the force. Within minutes of arriving, Zoe had already called their overseers incompetent and lazy without them even noticing. Leia had always been attentive even as young as she had been back then and she knew from the start that something special was between her and Zoe. She wasn’t merely a droid (just as Leia never really had been simply a child). She had more personality than anyone Leia knew.
“As soon as we upload these spice crates on the shadow market we are sitting pretty!“ She also had a lot of criminal energy, which just made her more perfect. Seeing as the two of them had had to make a living on the streets for…
…ten years soon.
Time just flew when you had fun (or were trying to survive in this crazy galaxy).
Zoe continued, unaware of her captain‘s musings, “You know maybe then you can make those ….ahh…repulsorlift upgrades you‘ve been promising to me since …uh… forever… and ever?“
Or as much fun as you could have with someone who was constantly reminding you of that one time when you had accidentally gotten her legs crushed…
Leia only rolled her eyes. But Zoe was right, they should get themselves some upgrades after this…She herself could use a new helmet, after all. Maybe one that would make her look taller. That would be nice. Every single inch she could get would be an improvement to her meager height.
“You know, we‘re gonna stay in hyperspace for a while. If you wanna like go back and check our loot feel free. Sky‘s the limit!“Zoe continued.
“Haha, funny.“ But Leia did end up moving towards the back of the cockpit, despite the less than an amusing allusion to her name.
The Windfall wasn’t by any stretch of the imagination a large ship, especially since most spaces were taken up by their “goods”.Leia‘s cot was located a few feet away from the controls, allowing her to stay alert at all times, which helped soothe the paranoia rooted deeply within her.
Right now she didn’t feel tired and consigned herself to tidying up her space. On her cot laid various hijinks and tools from when she had been tinkering before leaving for the Hutt's secret loading point. Stowing all her stuff away was finished rapidly, which left her with only her old helmet to put away. She stroked the top of it slowly while a smile crept onto her face.
Zoe noticed,“Ah, still remember the Vinta Harvest Classic?“
Her smile turned into a grin. Yes, she did remember that race. It had been her first but she had done very well, especially considering that humans could not race pods.
Never mind little girls. Her memory whispered.
Well, she had shown them that it was never wise to underestimate her.
“That sure got us a lot of money! But if you ever did go back, I‘m sure they‘d rip you apart for taking them out for what they were worth! Hah!“
“Can't really help it. It‘s in my blood,“ she laughed.
Zoe only shook her head fondly. Leia put the black helmet back into her personal compartment when Zoe asked,“Hey, while you’re here can you help me with something?” She had been working on the ship's computer to check for any harm they might have received during their escape.
“Sure. What do you need?“ Leia approached the console.
“It looks like we took some damage back there. Why don’t you scan the ship while I reroute the power?“
Leia started to have the computer rotate through the various parts of the ship until the symbol for the main sensor antenna began flashing.
“Scrag, looks like that one took some damage. Alright let‘s switch to back-up.” The backup was easily activated and before she knew it, Leia was back to scanning. When she got to the defense system she sucked in a breath, not going unnoticed by Zoe. “Well, the deflector shields are completely down. One more hit and we would have been toast!“
Not a very nice thought. But they had been in worse situations and as long as they'd make it to their next stop without further trouble they would be fine. Once in safe harbour, she could easily repair the hull of the ship herself. Or so Leia hoped. She was quickly proven wrong by another shudder of the ship.
Suddenly the blues and whites of hyperspace were interrupted by splashes of red and purple. If the sight wasn’t so terrifying it would have been beautiful.
Alarmed, Zoe suggested, "Something‘s happening. Let‘s go check it out.“
Both of them moved towards the pilot and co-pilot seats. Leia had just enough time to grab her helmet and put it back on.
Reaching the pilot seat, or more pilot area in Leia's case, since the typical chair that came with the ship had to be removed in favor of letting Leia reach the controls, took a few precious seconds.
When she had finally made it to her designated spot just in time to hold onto the console, another shudder took them by surprise only to…
…to pull them out of hyperspace?!
“What in the galaxy?” Both she and Zoe screamed at the same time. In front of them laid a planet practically emitting red light from its atmosphere. It was covered in thin, puffy clouds and underneath rivers of lava had spread all over the surface.
Leia had a bad feeling about this.
No time to dwell on the uneasiness staring at the planet brought. Something had pulled them out of
hyperspace, which was supposed to be impossible.
"Please don’t be the Hutts. Please don’t be the Hutts," she softly prayed.
Zoe remarked, panicking just as well, “We’re in the Atravis sector. In the outer rim.”
Leia wanted to ask her which planet they were flying over when a screeching from outside the ship halted her. Green laser bolts were being aimed at the Windfall. Their new attacker came closer and was easily identifiable as a TIE-fighter.
Even after that shock, nothing could have prepared her for the shadow that slowly crept over them. The ceiling of the cockpit was made out of glass and afforded them the terrifying view of an Imperial Star Destroyer floating over their heads.
Leia had seen Star Destroyers before, but never this close. She categorically tried to avoid the Empire as much as possible and was usually quite adept at it.
“That doesn’t look like any Star Destroyer I’ve ever seen,” Zoe mused timidly,” How did they catch us ?”
She had no answer for her friend. All she knew was that her instincts were screaming at her to get away as fast as possible.
But what was she supposed to do when an entire Star Destroyer with a fleet of TIEs was looming over her head?
The solution came to her in the form of the old holo-screen right to the view-port of the cockpit lighting up.
A man, half-covered in shadows, appeared on the flickering screen and promptly introduced himself as Admiral Karius of the Imperial fleet.
“Surrender control of your ship immediately.“
“This is Z0E-3 first mate on the Windfall. Zoe to my friends. Uh. There must be a mistake, Admiral. The Windfall is a humble salvage vessel,”Zoe tried to tell the Admiral, which was met with an interruption and yet another hit to the ship.
“Anything short of immediate compliance will result in your destruction.”
“My bad, Admiral. Slaving our ship’s guidance to your Imperial command now,” Zoe was laying it on rather thickly.
“Ah scrag. We didn’t do anything that bad!” Leia grunted after the holo of the Admiral had disappeared again.
Slowly the approach to the planet commenced as the two TIEs that had been attacking them moved into position to flank them during their descent.
Leia didn’t know what to expect when they were forced to enter Mustafar’s, as Zoe had informed her the planet was called, atmosphere.
Certainly not the flight through dense fog clearing to reveal fields of bright glowing magma only disturbed by occasional rocks and black shores. A single spire, reaching into the red sky as if it were trying to tear it apart disrupted the scene. From it, a stream of lava flowed, mocking every sort of waterfall Leia had seen on the rare occasion, as it emerged from the middle of the structure into a sheer endless fall, only to result in more smoke billowing towards the sky and thus clouding the castle even further.
“What are the imperials even doing here? Mustafar is a mining planet,” Zoe spoke more to herself than to her captain. Leia couldn’t answer her anyway. Mustafar didn’t have any sort of value to the Galactic Empire and yet it seemed as if they had gone out of their way to build this massive castle with an additional garrison on this remote planet.
Not as if Leia wasn’t impressed. The closer they were driven to the spire and its slowly opening hangar doors, the better she could make out the various TIEs stored neatly on huge racks and the lights eliminating the otherwise black and grey hanger. But, what she also noticed was the hoard of stormtroopers waiting for their arrival with loaded guns.
Once the Windfall had touched the ground, Admiral half-face spoke to them again,”This is Admiral Karious. Prepare for boarding immediately.”
As always when they got such a threat Leia sprang towards the nav computer to delete all of their recent movements while Zoe hid their mostly hard-earned credits. While they were occupied with erasing all the proof of their illegal schemes, the Admiral spoke to them once more, this time from their hold, “Open your door!”
“I’m officially worried, Captain!”Zoe whispered only for an explosion to erupt at the entrance of the cockpit. From the smoke emerged two stormtroopers with their guns trailing first Zoe and then Leia, closely followed by Admiral Half-face. She remembered his name being Karious, after all he had taken the time to introduce himself twice, while he was stalking towards her. One of the stormtroopers pushed Zoe out of the way to make space for him.
Every damn step that Admiral took in her direction made a clunking sound on the floor, which only increased her anxiety. Once he got close to her she could tell why. His right arm seemed to be a prosthetic and judging from the sounds he made while walking that wasn’t the only part of him that was made of metal. He stopped barely half a meter away from her. Upon this unwanted proximity, she could tell that his face was not shrouded in darkness at all. The left half of his head was covered in a metal plating, making him look even more terrifying.
Leia was used to people towering over her, but not like this. With him being easily over 1.8 meters tall and the added shadow from the respirator on his face, he seemed to come straight out of a nightmare. His blue ice-cold eyes pierced right through her as he sighed and said,
“You’ve caused us considerable inconvenience, Smuggler!”
Zoe tried to salvage the situation by denying,“Smugglers? We’re not smugglers. Who said anything about smugglers!” ,which led to her being shot by one of the stormtroopers before Leia could intervene.
Suddenly, the anger of seeing her friend being hurt outweighed her fear of the Imperials. She screamed at the Admiral and moved forwards to punch one of the stormtroopers before she was promptly taken out by a stun bullet and everything went black.