Main Offender

The cigarette case caught the light on its chrome plating, sending brilliant flashes across the engraved letters Mern and Resh. They stood for Miko Risant.
        Bet you're spinning in your urn, huh Dad? Morran Risant thought as he pocketed the case, took a long drag off his cigarette, and blew a wisp of smoke out toward the Cuun'yaim's viewport and the tidally locked planet beyond. He sat with his booted feet up on the console, watching Troiken grow as it dredged up long-lost memories and dreams. He imagined a captain's insignia and a jubilee of medals on his chest, and young men saluting him respectfully. A far cry from where he'd ended up.
        Somewhere in that space between Troiken and the approaching freighter, his father had died in the opening shots of the so-called Stark War, over a decade ago. The troop transport he'd been piloting had taken a direct hit from the Combine flagship and started breaking up as it fell toward the planet. His Old Man had held it together just long enough for most of the passengers to make it to the escape pods but paid for it by riding the wreck all the way down. He'd saved a lot of lives with his sacrifice and Morran had decided then and there that when he turned eighteen two years later, he'd join the navy too.
        And where had all that pride and ambition gotten him? A dishonorable discharge after a year of academy training and only five on active duty. A decade of his life lost, and his early twenties to boot. No legitimate companies would hire Morran as a pilot, not with his service record hanging like a shadow over his reputation, in spite of his skill.
        He'd been forced out onto the fringes, freelancing as a hunt-saboteur, keeping criminals out of prison instead of helping lock them up. The first few months of that had been… conflicting. Only the growling of an empty stomach managed to quiet the little voice in his head that sounded like his father's and told him what he was doing was wrong. After all, what could be more wrong than starving oneself out of pridefulness?
        Still, though he may have come to enjoy the thrill of out flying bounty hunters and Judicials, his father's little voice never went completely silent. Now, as Morran approached Troiken with his captain's intent of loading up the cargo hold with several crates of spice, it came roaring back at him.
        Suddenly the pilot's fingers stung and he snapped back to the present, yelping in pain and dropping the smoldering cigarette that had burned down to the butt during his reverie. Stamping it out, he reached for the comm and flicked it onto an open channel. "This is Morran Risant in the Cuun'yaim and I'm talking to whoever's listening out there." He'd taken to broadcasting a running monologue to alleviate the boredom of interstellar travel, regardless of how stealthy an enterprise the crew may have been running.
        "I've flown from one side this galaxy to other and seen a lot of strange stuff if my time and I got to tell you, one of the weirdest involved a Zeltron burlesque show in the Bozhnee sector. I'll never forget the things I saw them do with a ping-pong ball and a bottle of Whyren's Reserve, no matter how hard I try…"

        The Dire-cat cruised along the outer edges of the Troiken system, its sensors on the lookout for spice freighters departing the planet's surface with a full hold. No one ever considered how easily the skills acquired working drug interdiction could be applied to piracy. Both involved disabling an enemy ship, detaining her crew, and confiscating her cargo. What law-respecting member of CorSec special operations, decorated with the Corellian Bloodstripe, would ever turn to such activities?
        One determined to get ahead no matter what.
        Sellek Minisi sat in his captain's chair aboard his illegally acquired Corellian gunship, his feet propped up on a keg of lomin ale, and listened lazily to his crew working on the bridge. He twirled an oversized blaster pistol back and forth in one hand, admiring the chromed finish as it blurred into a silvery disk around his finger, as he thumbed lazily at the priceless Corusca gem ring on his opposite hand.
        "Captain!" one of the sensor officers called out to him. Minisi ignored him and kept twirling his gun. "Captain!" the man called again, more urgently. It showed a lack of discipline, something that Minisi, as a highly trained special ops commando, hated.
        Finally, the sensor officer got up from his station and walked over to the captain's chair. "Captain?"
        As soon as the word escaped his lips, Minisi ceased his gunplay and trained the barrel right between the man's eyes. The sensor officer froze and his brows shot up. "This is the bridge of a starship," the captain said, narrowing alien lavender eyes flecked with blue. "Not a cattle market. If you have information for the captain, you bring it to him. You don't shout it in his general direction. Clear?" The officer nodded, swallowing hard. "Good. Now what is it?"
        "Spotted a ship headed inbound for Troiken, sir," he stammered. "But… but it's just a piece of junk, probably not worth our time—"
        "Show me." Minisi stood.
        The sensor officer led him to his station and pointed out the vessel headed for the planet. "Just a trashy old tramp freighter," the officer said. "Barely worth anything as parts. Sorry to bother you."
        Minisi leaned over the monitor and studied the readout. "Yeah, but when you put those parts together, you get a Firefly, see? Corellian Engineering's best kept secret."
        Suddenly the comlink crackled as someone broadcasted on an open frequency. A cocky male voice declared, "This is Morran Risant in the Cuun'yaim and I'm talking to whoever's listening out there."
        Minisi snorted. This was his lucky day. "Keep a sharp eye," he told the sensor officer and turned back to his chair. "When they're headed back out, we'll hit them hard and fast, disable them, and take their cargo. Then we'll sell the ship and the crew."
        "Aye, with pleasure, Captain."

        "All right, I want this to go smooth," Buruk said, draping his poncho over his civilian attire. He was trying to be discreet; too much rampaging around in his beskar'gam would get him noticed and that was one aaray he didn't need. Not while I'm planning to make a jailbreak in the near future. "We need this payoff so we can buy our friends' location from Mulokhai's contact in the Judicial Department. Also want to get moving again quick; local METOSP says Bando Gora were spotted picking a derelict clean in the next sector."
        "Right," Lynli agreed as she strapped on her gun belt and mounted the new repulsor dolly they'd invested in. She punched a few buttons on the control panel and the vehicle rumbled to life, rising half a meter off the deck.
        "I love a woman who can operate heavy machinery," Buruk chuckled and helped Aerek up onto the back of the swoop bike. "Come along ad'ika. Got to learn how to negotiate the right price for your services some time."
        As he swung his leg over the bike's saddle, he heard footsteps clanging on the catwalk overhead. "If you don't mind," Morran called, jogging down the stairway to the cargo room floor, "I'd like to come too."
        Buruk raised an eyebrow at the pilot. "Any particular reason?" He'd hired him on as the ship's pilot specifically so he could stay with the ship in case of trouble.
        He held up his heavily tattooed arms, prominently displaying a winged Republic roundel on one and a dreadnaught heavy cruiser on the other, and said, "I could use some Vitamin D. Look how pasty I'm getting staying cooped up aboard ship all the time."
        Buruk rolled his eyes and motioned with his head. "Alright, climb up on the dolly with Lynli."

        "Why did you join the Corellian Sector Navy, Cadet Risant?"
        Morran stood at rigid attention, shoulders back, hands cupped at his sides, and eyes straight ahead, betraying nothing as rain drummed against the assembled training flight. . "Sir, Cadet Risant reports as ordered: The noblest of endeavors is the service of others!"
        The drill instructor leaned in close so that the brim of his campaign hat nearly brushed against Morran's temple. "Quoting Berethron e Solo won't score you any points, Cadet," he barked. Unlike the cadets, he was perfectly dry and comfortable in his waterproof poncho. "But that's correct." He turned and strode to the front of the formation. "Since Cadet Risant wants to serve others," he bellowed, "he can serve the flight by calling cadence! Double time, Risant! Move 'em out!"
        "Yes sir!" Risant responded. "Flight—for-ard—harch! Double-time!" As one, the column broke into a run, splashing through puddles, as he shouted out a rhythm, keeping them in step. By the time they made it back to their barracks, they were drenched.

        Morran puffed lazily on another cigarette as he wandered through town with his hands stuffed into the pockets of his shabby yellow flightsuit. Buruk may have warmed up to having him around but he was still a fifth wheel when dealing with clients so he just headed off by himself, to "see the sights" such as they were, and continued to reminisce about his time at Camp Kinrath.
        It went on like that for a whole year, exactly three-hundred and sixty-eight grueling days of blood, sweat, and tears. He'd sacrificed so much every day, his body during brutal physical conditioning courses, his mind in advanced classroom lessons, and even his social life for hours of in-depth study. But the day he graduated, the day the camp commandant pinned on his ensign's insignia and shook his hand, all the sacrifices had been worth it. He'd qualified for flight school.
        Things had only gotten harder from there, but he was determined to come out on top. Nothing was going to stop him, not even all the other hotshots that were both his comrades and competition. With his drive, Morran's skill flourished and it wasn't long before he was a lieutenant, junior grade certified on everything from small, one-man fighters to the biggest battlewagons in the fleet. His next duty assignment was aboard the Dreadnaught-class heavy cruiser Cerulean Spirit, hunting down pirates and smugglers within the Corellian sector.
        That's where he met Sellek Minisi and learned that he could spend all his time serving others, but no one was going to look out for him.

        The op had gone all wrong and now CorSec's six-man Tactical Response Team—TRT—was pinned down on a rooftop, taking heavy fire from neighboring buildings. After months of planning and prep work, they'd stormed a villa belonging to a prominent drug lord on Xyquine II, on the sector border, only to have his goons turn the tables on them and spring their own ambush.
        Morran flew the evac shuttle, screaming down through the atmosphere faster than any sane pilot would have considered feasible. "We won't be able to pull out in time!" his copilot insisted as the altimeter wound down so fast the numbers were a blur.
        "To hell with the odds!" Morran bellowed as he held the controls steady. He had to get those men out of there. He could see them huddled together, taking cover behind a low planting trough with vines creeping up from the soil, blaster bolts raining down at them from all directions; three men were wounded, one in critical condition, but they still put up a fight. The team leader directed their fire while holding his sidearm on a morbidly obese man in khaki fatigues, the cartel's tin-pot general. So, they still managed to achieve their objective, Morran thought admiringly.
        At one hundred meters off the deck, he pulled the shuttle's nose up, leveling out and hovering over the rooftop. He could hear small arms fire ping off the hull like handfuls of rocks being thrown at the tin shed; he tuned it out, focusing on the beleaguered men below. IR and EM sensors picked up their attackers' positions in the surrounding buildings and Morran reoriented his craft to bring weapons to bear. Dispassionately, he said, "Open fire."
        The shuttle's main cannons, a pair of big, crew-served rotary blasters on either side of the passenger cabin, sounded like giant zippers, firing too fast to hear individual shots as they stitched the buildings, hurling rubble and masonry through the air. Once the hostiles were clear, Morran settled the craft down on its repulsors and waited anxiously; this was the most dangerous part of an extraction. Would enemy reinforcements arrive? Would they be packing heavy ordnance like plex rockets or mass drivers? Some of the bigger drug runners could afford that kind of firepower.
        At last, he heard the TRT leader say, "All aboard, take us out."
        The trip back to the Spirit was silent. Medics greeted them in the hangar with stretchers for the wounded, whisking them off to sickbay. The TRT leader turned to Morran and offered his hand to shake as he removed his helmet and shook out red-streaked black hair. "Hell of a rescue, El-Tee," he said jovially. Morran could see the relief in the near-human man's lavender eyes. "I owe you a whole case of Whyren's Reserve for that."
        "Don't mention it," the pilot replied. He motioned his head to the fat man in uniform being lead away by the MPs; Morran couldn't quite put his finger on it but the drug lord somehow appeared thinner than he had from the air. "I can't believe you managed to take him alive after all that, Sergeant…"
        "Minisi," the commando supplied with a grin. "Sellek Minisi. He was real cooperative when I threatened to put this where the sun don't shine." His grin widened as he held up a spike-shaped bore-bang.
        The pilot chuckled. "Call me Morran. Let me buy you and your men a drink."

        Buruk found his pilot in the city square, sitting on a bench in front of a tall bronzium statue of a human male in a military uniform, striding over debris and the body of a fallen soldier while looking back over his right shoulder. At the base of the statue was a plaque that read, "Ranulph Tarkin—The Hero of Troiken/Senator, General, Martyr."
        "Paying your respects to the champion of the Republic's outreach program?" he asked, crossing his arms beneath his poncho. He knew Risant was some kind of Judicial fighter jock before moving into the private sector. It figured he'd want to come visit a Stark War memorial.
        To the Mandalorian's surprise, Risant took a drag off his cigarette, blew out a wisp of smoke, and then spat square on the plaque. "Yep," he answered, standing up and stamping out his cigarette butt. "That's about all the respect I have for the Republic." He started walking away toward the spaceport where the Cuun'yaim was docked.
        "That's funny," Buruk said, falling into step beside him. "I thought you vets worshiped the Republic Roundel."
        "I'm not that old, Buruk," Morran scoffed, throwing him a sidelong glance. "My dad died in the War, though. Made me want to join the navy and fly just like him."
        "Nothing wrong with that. I guess you could say I'm from a military family too. But if you respected him and his sacrifice here, why the hostility?"
        Morran reached into a vest pocket for his chromed cigarette case and clamped another between his lips. "The System," he said, cupping his hands around his lighter. Then, after blowing out a smoke ring, he explained, "Tarkin was incompetent, a politician playing soldier, according to the rank-and-file vets; you know, the ones no one listens to. Didn't know a broadside from his backside and fell apart under pressure. The system goes to work on him and makes him a hero."
        Buruk nodded. He knew plenty about military history and was more than familiar with the aruetiise habit of heaping undeserved glory upon the formchair generals that sat safe and snug in their bunkers well behind the lines. "That's why we Mando'ade have a drinking chant that ends with kote lo'shebs'ul narit."
        "What's that?"
        The Mandalorian hesitated; they were on a public street and he didn't want to offend any old women or children that may have been in earshot. "You can keep your fame," he said at last. "But more coarsely."
        Morran snorted and twin streams a smoke blew out of his nostrils. "Well, I was an academy graduate, top five percent of my class. Best pilot on our ship—probably in the whole kriffing sector. Never a disciplinary action to my name, not even a letter of counseling. Somehow, this son of a Sith harpy got me implicated in his spice smuggling ring. Since they were trafficking across sector lines, the Republic claimed jurisdiction; dishonorably discharged the whole lot of us, no questions asked. The ringleaders did jail time. To this day, I still don't know how he got the drugs out.
        "And you know the worst part? I saved the schutta's life."

        "That Firefly is headed our way, Captain," the sensor officer said, standing at Minisi's shoulder. "Full load, by the look of the mass readings."
        Minisi sat up in his captain's chair. "Engines ahead full," he ordered, coming alive with the thrill of the chase. "Cut them off and come about to port." The bridge crew responded immediately and a feral grin crossed his face; discipline may have been lacking in some places with these brigands, but in others is was up to snuff. They were just as eager as he was for a big haul.
        The Dire-cat surged forward, reorienting onto an intercept course with the transport ship. Minisi began checking over his personal arsenal of blaster pistols, starting with his favorite, the big one he'd held on the sensor officer earlier. "Soon as they're in range, hit them with one volley from the turbolasers to overload their shields. Then ready the net."

        "Captain, we've got company!" Morran shouted into the ship-wide comm then jerked the Cuun'yaim's control yoke violently to the left as the gunship bored down on them.
        "What is it?" Buruk demanded, bracing himself in the cockpit hatchway.
        "Corellian gunship," the pilot stated, gritting his teeth as he looped the ship through an intricate corkscrew, evading turbolaser fire. "Looks like they're flying the Blazing Claw."
        "Bic ni skana'din, shabla jehavey'ir!" Buruk swore in Mandalorian. Into the comm, he called, "Lynli, engine room! Now!" He then turned and Morran heard his boots stomping away down the corridor.

        "Pilot's good, Captain," the Dire-cat's helmsman reported as he matched maneuvers with the Firefly, which had started returning fire at the pirate ship.
        "Of course he is," Minisi said, idly admiring his ring; its dark surface shone with an inner fire as though it had its own internal furnace. "Risant used to fly my Tee-Are-Tee's insertions and extractions all the time. At my request, of course." He chuckled. "He made a great patsy. It's a shame I couldn't have hired him even if I'd wanted to."

        Morran may have been one of the best pilots in the Corellian Sector Navy, but even he was only human. Jedi who fancied themselves aces liked to talk about how they trusted their feelings when at the controls, rather than thinking about their actions; any real pilot knew that was a load of shavit because anyone who flew had to made decisions as fast as their synapses would carry them. That meant trusting their instincts and it didn't take a mystical energy field to do that.
        Sometimes, though, a man's instincts, like his comrades, could betray him. Eventually he juked left when he should've gone right and the Firefly took a turbolaser blast square on the dorsal surface amidships. The Cuun'yaim had been built for speed, not heavy combat, and their shields collapsed as suddenly as if Morran had flipped a switch.
        Morran started to sweat. Not that he was afraid they'd be destroyed, oh no; he was afraid they'd be disabled and taken prisoner. Losing power to the shields just made it that much easier for their attackers. "Oh Lynli," he called.

        "Shields are down, Captain," the sensor officer reported.
        Minisi smiled like a predator. "Fire the net."

        "Lynli, Conner net!" Morran cried over the comm.
        Lynli was buried up to her lekku in wires, trying to reroute systems to return power to the shields. "Sithspit!" she growled, digging her way out of the cramped alcove back into the engine room proper.
        Wally, the ship's red and gold utility droid, trundled across the deck as fast as his wheels would carry him to the master cutoff switch she'd installed just for this sort of contingency. If that net caught them, it'd be lights out for the Cuun'yaim; the only way to prevent the ship from being disabled was to cut all power themselves. It may have had the same effect as being caught by the net but at least they'd have the option to turn everything back on at will.
        The droid wasn't fast enough. Just as his servo-grip arm took hold of the switch, brilliant blue sparks crawled across every metal surface in the room. Wally squealed in terror, then his big blue photoreceptor went dark, followed by every light in the ship. Lynli gazed down at her deactivated companion and let loose with a long stream of Ryl, Huttese, and Mandalorian invective.

        Minisi strode triumphantly into the disabled Firefly's cargo hold, taking a moment to admire the stacked crates of spice as his men fanned out to sweep the ship. It was a great haul, yes it was. He could almost smell the narcotic in anticipation of the credits it would bring him; he never touched the stuff, but in his CorSec days, he'd been trained to identify different types of spice by their odor in a controlled environment.
        One by one, his men returned with a member of the ship's crew in tow; a violet-skinned Twi'lek woman in a greasy mechanic's coverall, a prepubescent brat in clothes three times his size, and an unconscious, red-haired man, half-dressed in sand-colored armor. "Found him suiting up, Captain," the man dragging him explained. "Just stunned him, don't worry."
        And last but not least, the ship's pilot, Morran Risant. Minisi smiled up at him and said, "Hi there El-Tee. Been a while. What'd you do to your hair?"
        "Never thought I'd see you again, Sergeant," Risant replied.
        Risant's guard smashed the butt of his blaster rifle into the pilot's stomach, bringing him to his knees. "That's Captain to you, sleemo." He followed up with a blow to Risant's face that knocked him over onto his back.
        Minisi chuckled and motioned to his crewmen who weren't busy watching the captives. They slung their weapons and started carrying the spice-laden crates through the airlock to the Dire-cat. To Risant, he said, "I had a real good thing going on the Spirit. After I served my sentence, I was surprised to find they'd kicked you out too, seeing as how you blew the whistle on me and all. Even after I was nice enough to offer to bring you in on the deal and cut you a share of the profits."
        Risant rolled over onto his hands and knees and spat blood onto the catwalk. "You covered your tracks too well. How'd you do it, anyway?"
        Minisi raised his eyebrows and laughed. "Imagine that, all that Academy schooling and you still can't figure out how I got the drugs out?" He snorted derisively. "Typical officer, don't know a damned thing worth knowing."
        "Enlighten me."
        "Remember that drug lord we nailed that first time you flew extraction for my team? The really fat one? Well the reason he was such a large gentleman was because he was wearing a neat little vest under that ridiculous uniform with pouches for about fifty kilos of spice in convenient, power pack-shaped bricks. We swapped them out for our ammo, turned them in to our man in the armory, and he moved them to our distributors."
        "And the real power packs were just written off as expended ammunition," Risant finished. "Not bad."
        "Not bad?" Minisi chuckled as he made his way up the stairs to where the pilot lay. "It was kriffing brilliant! Those so-called drug lords we arrested, those were just cartel flunkies surgically altered to look like the real kingpins who got to go free and keep supplying us our product."
        "And that's how you took me down with you. Residue from the swap outs left behind in the ships I flew. The investigators just assumed I was in on the whole scheme."
        "Well, I guess that higher education was worth something after all." He stood over Risant; unholstering his blaster pistol, he twirled it a few times and said, "No hard feelings. It's just business."
        Risant nodded. "It takes a true friend to stab you in the front, huh?"
        Minisi leveled the gun at the pilot's head. "That it does, mate."
        Before he could squeeze the trigger, his comlink chirped. "Captain, we've got a ship approaching." It was the sensor officer and he sounded nervous. "Gozanti cruiser, transponder says it's the Brocklander out of Almania, approaching fast." There was a pause and Minisi could hear the man gulp noisily. "Spast, they're red-lining their reactor, sir, heading right for us."
        Minisi bit back a curse. "Everybody back to the Dire-cat," he ordered, turning and trotting down the stairs. "Forget the spoils, leave everything." The time it would've taken to put a blaster bolt through the snitch's brainpan would've been a delay he didn't want to risk with a pirate-killer bearing down on them. Oh well, he thought. Another time.

        Once Minisi and his men were away, Morran climbed to his feet as Lynli and Aerek rushed over to check on Buruk. "I'm fine, by the way, thanks for asking," he said.
        "Did you send a distress signal?" the Twi'lek first mate asked, holding a vial of smelling salts under the Mandalorian's nose.
        He abruptly came to, jerking into a sitting position and pinching his nose. "Did I miss the fight?" he asked disappointedly.
        "No," the pilot answered Lynli nervously, making his way back to the cockpit; he had his suspicious about the nature of the Brocklander. The others followed, crowding in behind him as they watched the Dire-cat blast away from their disabled ship in a hurry.
        With the sensors down, Morran had to rely on the plain eyesight to get a look at their apparent savior. It was a big, bulky Gozanti cruiser all right, bristling with weapons and altering course to make a beeline for the fleeing pirate ship as it tried to evade. Oddly, it listed slightly to starboard, slowly spinning on its axis as it pursued, probably caused by a damaged maneuvering thruster.
        "If my hunch is right," he whispered, though he wasn't sure why, "and that's a Bando Gora ship, then our being disabled may just have been a blessing in disguise."
        Buruk nodded and whispered back, "Try to run and they'll chase you down."
        A shiver ran up Morran's back. He hoped he was wrong and it was just a Judicial patrol that had been tipped to the pirate attack in this system by some random concerned citizen. As the Gozanti caught up with the fleeing gunship and opened fire, he doubted it.