Fear No Darkness by Independence1776

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Chapter 3

N42: Darkness Darkness, slavery

B12: Color Burst Green, secure and Late Great Mary Oliver, wild geese are headed home again

So I've more than doubled the story's wordcount; this chapter is nearly 5600 words. Also, I think, the last of the beginning flashback chapters.

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Maglor leaned against the building, catching a moment to simply breathe before returning to the battle. His unlit lightsaber was clasped loosely in his right hand, the metal warm. He’d been using it nonstop since the battle for the Havens had begun an hour after dawn. It was now nearly noon.

He’d lost track of his brothers-- the ones who had survived Doriath, that is. Caranthir and Curufin had been blasted down by stormtroopers; Celegorm and his dog died protecting Beren and Lúthien’s escape route. He didn’t know what happened to the couple after they’d made it to the dubious safety of the woods. He shook his head to clear his thoughts: his focus needed to be here and now, not wandering the past.

An Imperial gunship roared overhead, but the troopers on it didn’t seem to notice Maglor. They probably thought he was another civilian cowering away from the battle. Their mistake: he lifted his hand and yanked with the Force, bringing the gunship down so fast the pilot didn’t have a chance to react. It crashed and immediately burst into a rather satisfying fireball.

He thumbed his lightsaber on and turned the corner, nearly running into a group of Sindarin soldiers. They stared at each other for an instant when one of them blurted out, “Your twin brothers!”

“Where are they?” Maglor growled out.

The woman looked away. “I’m sorry, Master Jedi. They’re two squares west if you wish to see their… bodies.”

He closed his eyes briefly. He hadn’t felt their passings in the Force… but given the amount of death in the past few hours, that shouldn’t have surprised him. “It is not necessary.” He reopened them. “Where were you headed?”

She gave him a wicked grin. “Another squad passed along the information some stormtroopers are marching on Starfish Square. We planned to give them merry hell. Feel free to join us if you want.”

“I do.”

He deactivated his blade and followed the squad down the street.

He split off from them not long after; they were handling the stormtroopers well enough on their own. He took to the roofs and ended up in a square halfway across the city, just in time to see Maedhros and Fingon fall side by side under a barrage of blaster bolts, their lightsabers turning off as they slipped out of limp hands.

He immediately lay as flat as he could on the roof, trying to go unnoticed as the troopers fired at the bodies until they were sure the the Jedi and the Singer were dead. Maglor breathed through his mouth, suddenly sure why the Sinda had hesitated about what to call the corpses of Amrod and Amras. He was the last Fëanorian left: Father had died in Aman dueling Vader; his brothers had fallen defending Beleriand; and Mother… well, he hoped Mother was still alive. But he didn’t know and had to assume not. The galaxy was not a friendly place for Jedi.

He reached out with the Force, quietly, seeking to gain information rather than draw attention. The farther he looked through the city, the worse it became. The Quendi had lost. There were pockets fighting here and there, but the worst of it was over. There was nothing left he could do, not without needlessly sacrificing himself. He needed to retreat, to hide in the wilderness and regroup, the better to prepare an effective resistance to the Empire.

He ran across the rooftops, heading south until he reached the outskirts of the city. He slid off the roof and landed in a crouch on a side street, one that looked a little worse for the wear but not as if it had been an active battle zone. He kept his lightsaber in hand and crept down the street, listening with ears and the Force. The warning came almost too late: a gaggle of stormtroopers came around the corner and spotted him. His electric green lightsaber blocked the blaster fire, but he was growing weary-- and then one hit the hilt, directly above his right hand. The lightsaber’s circuits shrieked and the metal grew red-hot. Maglor yelled as he threw it in the direction of the troopers and ducked down, protecting his head with his arms, as the lightsaber exploded.

There was nothing left of the squad: only armor and body parts scattered around, a small crater in the street and scorch marks on the nearest houses. Maglor panted for breath, trying to ignore the pain in his right hand. But a glance at it told him that he would not be able to ignore the burn for long, Force or no Force. It was far too severe; he didn’t want to think about the glimpse of bone through the charred skin. He needed to leave the Havens now, find a place to hide, and enter a healing trance.

He looked up at the clatter of more stormtroopers rushing to site of the explosion. Maglor stood just as two troopers rounded the far corner. One of them shouted, “Halt!”

Maglor twisted out of the way of the blaster bolt, barely. It grazed his abdomen and he gasped at the sudden pain. He took off running, shunting the pain of both burns into the Force. The troopers followed him down the street, shooting at him and missing. Maglor stumbled, came to the end of the street where it dead-ended into the forest, and turned around to face the troopers. They hesitated and that was enough for him to use the Force to toss them all back.

It gave him just enough time to run to the brush pile where his brothers and he had hidden their bags that morning. He scrabbled for his, hearing troopers in the woods behind him, flung the strap over his left shoulder, and pressed the bag to his abdomen. It wasn’t the best option to cover the wound, but he had no time to bandage it. And it would keep his bag from bouncing all over.

He made it to the beach and looked north. Parts of the Havens were on fire, which he’d known about, and parts looked untouched. Gunships flew back and forth, escorting the fire brigade. And Maglor turned south, trudging down the beach, leaving tracks behind him in the sand.

He’d gone no more than a kilometer, hearing no sign of pursuit behind him, when a ship came out of the sky to hover over the Sea. He stopped, the waves crashing about his feet, and turned to face it, expecting to see cannons pointed at him.

It was Eärendil’s Vingilótë and the man himself stood on the lowered ramp. “Get on board!”

Maglor stared at him, looked back at the burning Havens, and jumped using the Force. He landed on the ramp and lost his balance to sprawl at Eärendil’s feet. Eärendil crouched down next to him. “Give me the bag. I need to toss it overboard.”

Maglor shook his head. “I--”

“If they don’t find it, they’ll think you lived.”

That… was a good reason. But it held his last holocube full of family pictures-- and one thing of far more importance. “I need my false ID.”

With some difficulty, Maglor pulled his bag off and slipped his left hand into the main compartment, sliding his fingers into the concealed pocket and pulled out his wallet. He shut the bag and nodded. Eärendil used the Force to drop it into the surf near where Maglor had staggered into the waves, his line of footprints clearly visible heading to the north-- but no further southward. Eärendil then helped Maglor to stand and used the Force to shut the ramp once they were inside. “We can go!” Eärendil called and the ship accelerated out of the atmosphere.

“Won’t the Empire--”

Eärendil shook his head. “We had clearance to leave.” He sat Maglor down on one of the chairs surrounding a circular holotable. “How badly are you injured?”

Maglor put down the wallet on the table and gestured at his abdomen. “This was a graze.”

“It should still have bacta--”

Maglor shook his head and held out his right hand. “This needs it more.”

Eärendil’s face lost all color. “I’m not sure we have enough.”

“Anything will be helpful; a healing trance will do the rest.”

Maglor felt the ship enter hyperspace and then heard Elwing leave the cockpit. “What needs to be done?”

“We need the medkit and the boys to stay in their room,” Eärendil said. “They shouldn’t see this.”

Elwing’s lips thinned when she saw Maglor and the condition he was in and hurried out of the room without comment. He heard her faintly down the corridor ordering her twin sons to do exactly that and returned with one of the largest personal medkits he’d ever seen. Elwing chuckled. “Elros is accident-prone. We learned the hard way. Now, stay still. This will be… painful is the mildest word I can use.”

Maglor took a deep breath and then nodded, closing his eyes and letting the pain bleed into the Force. Once the bacta was on and the bandages wrapped around his hand and his abdomen, he opened them to find Eärendil holding a mug of water out. “Drink this. We’ll show you to the guest cabin and you can heal there.”

“I’ll be in trance for at least a few hours.”

Elwing and Eärendil exchanged an unreadable look and Maglor was frankly too exhausted and in too much pain to attempt to read their emotions in the Force.

Elwing said, “That will be fine.”

Maglor nodded, grabbed his wallet in his good hand, absently noting that his shirt had been cut to give better access to the blaster burn, and followed Eärendil down the corridor.

*

He woke up in an oversized tunic and sleep-pants and a note on the blanket that told him he had three sets of clothes in the middle drawer under the bunk. Maglor carefully sat up. His abdomen no longer twinged and his right hand no longer hurt, though it felt distinctly odd. Elwing appeared in the doorway almost at the moment his feet hit the deck. “You’ve been out for nearly a day, not just a few hours. We’re on Corellia.”

“Corellia? What in blazes--”

“We were able to depart Arda because of my shipping business. We had a run scheduled; we had our cargo and ship inspected to ensure we weren’t hiding rebels; and we left.” She paused. “Not that we aren’t rebels and Singers ourselves, but the point is you are safe. We aren’t going to turn you over to the Empire; they think you’re dead. We’ll drop you off on our next planet in the schedule. You can make your own way from there; it’s safer if we don’t stay together. Now come and eat; I know you’re hungry.”

Maglor silently followed her to the living space he’d been treated at. Two identical boys stared at him from where they were watching a holovid of some sort at the holotable. “Mama, is he okay?” the one on the left said.

“He will be, Elrond. Go back to your vid.”

Elwing gestured him into the kitchen/dining room and the door shut behind them. “We keep the door closed and locked. Valar know we don’t need Force-sensitive kids playing around in a kitchen.”

Maglor bit back a smile. “What do you need from me, Lady Elwing?”

She glanced at him as she reached into a cupboard. “Right now, for you to sit down and get out of my way. You’re getting instant gruel and vitamins; I’m not going to cook you a full meal when Eärendil’s due back in two hours with takeout from our favorite restaurant here.”

“Ah.” Maglor said and sat at the table against the far wall, ignoring the datapad left on it. Honestly, he’d probably eat a gundark. Healing trances were not the easiest things to do. Reminded of that, he felt no bandage on his abdomen-- not a surprise-- and then unwrapped the light bandage around his hand. A burn scar covered half of his palm and a ridge that matched his lightsaber grip went up each finger. He flexed his fingers as best as he was able: it was a good range of motion but not what he should have had. He stared down at his hand, trying not to cry. But this was flat note that made the song fall apart. His family was dead; his dominant hand was injured; and there was no returning home.

Elwing touched his back and put a bowl of gruel down in front of him, the purple vitamin powder clearly stirred in. “Eat. And you’ll want to use the datapad to read the HoloNet News to see what the Empire’s saying about Arda.”

She left him alone then and a tear dripped into the gruel as the door shut.

____________________________________________

Maglor swirled the dregs of the crastelvelian tea around in his mug and sighed. He’d been here all morning and most of the afternoon, waiting for someone to respond to his posting. Usually, he had jobs lined up so he was never on planet for more than a day at a time. Now he was going on three thanks to a cancellation.

He looked around the room, at the other cargo pilots also waiting for jobs. Some of them did have customers at their tables, but those were uniformly pilots with large ships and crews. Even after two years in the job, he preferred to operate alone. The rest like him, well, they’d all end up with cargo sooner or later. It simply happened to be one of those brief weeks where supply outflew the demand.

The transparisteel door slid open and two young Humans, a man and a woman, dressed in clothing that was frankly too nice and in-fashion for the environs, stepped into the room. The secretary pointed at Maglor and they walked over to him without thanking the droid. Maglor hid his frown as the customers sat down in front of him. “How may I help you?”

“We saw your job availability. We’d like to hire you to fly us to Arda.”

Maglor barely kept the reflexive “no” from being spoken aloud. “Why did you choose me?”

The young woman looked at her friend and said, “Well, your ship and your name are both Quenya, one of the Quendian languages. We thought you’d be more than willing to fly home, take a break, see your family.”

“My family died during the rebellion,” Maglor said softly. “I haven’t been home since.”

“Oh. I’m sorry,” the man said awkwardly. “Do you have some other objection to going there?”

Maglor suddenly placed their accents: Coruscanti, high society. They truly didn’t see the problem in asking him that question immediately after he implied he had no interest in returning. “I have no job contacts on Arda. An empty hold is money lost.”

“We’ll pay you double-- no, triple-- the maximum amount you’ll make with a full cargo,” she said. “To fly us there and to fly us to wherever we fly next. Triple each trip.”

“I only fly in the Mid Rim,” Maglor said. He couldn’t turn down that amount of money. Nothing said he had to leave the ship. “And I won’t stay on Arda waiting for you unless it’s an extremely short visit. How long will you be there?”

“Seven days,” the young man said. “We’re visiting Khazad-dûm.”

Maglor hadn’t realized the Dwarves had opened their cities to tourists. Given the Empire, though, they probably had no choice. “Then I’ll take another job in between.”

They looked at each other and he shrugged a shoulder. “Fair enough,” she said. “But if you’re late returning, we’ll only pay the standard passenger fee.”

“Also fair,” Maglor said. “When will you be ready to leave here?”

“Midmorning,” she said.

“I’ll pull up the contract and we’ll sign it,” Maglor said. At their nod, he did so. Surprisingly, they took the time to read it before affixing their signature. “I’m in Docking Bay 7.”

They nodded, thanked him, and hurried out the door. Maglor frowned after them and looked at the signatures on the contract. Their surnames bothered him with their familiarity, so he used the computer terminal to look them up. Woena Talifa and Makri Storshif, respectively the daughter of a Moff and the son of the Imperial governor of Chandrila, both off on a gap year adventure. He wanted to bang his head on the wall and delete the contract. Neither was an option, but he took the precaution of printing the contract onto flimsi before logging off the terminal.

“Bad news?” the pilot sitting next to him said.

“Hopefully not,” Maglor told her and left the independent cargo pilots’ collective’s office. If he had to fly Imperial brats to his homeworld and they sought him out specifically because he was Quendi, they’d be expecting “exotic” Quendian fare on his ship, not the random foodstuffs he’d felt like buying that morning. He honestly wasn’t sure anymore if the money and the chance to get off this planet would be worth it.

*

Woena and Makri showed up precisely when they said they would. Given who they were, Maglor had arranged to rent stairs to the airlock rather than make them climb up the ladder in the cargo hold. Woena moved out of the way of her friend and set one of her two bags on the dining table. She looked around, frowned at the two-dimensional screen showing a picture of a desert to her right, and then said, “Quaint.”

“The cabins are this way,” Maglor said.

They followed him to the corridor and let them decide for themselves who got which cabin. Maglor had been tempted to say that they couldn’t share, but it would draw too much attention to himself. Noldorin morals did not match Imperial Court morals. If they were traveling together, it was assumed they were lovers whether they were or not. To his surprise, they actually did choose separate cabins.

“Please strap in for takeoff,” Maglor said when they emerged. “You can do so on your bunks or in the dining area.”

They chose the dining area. “Pilot, why don’t you have more items from Arda here?”

Maglor turned his head to look at Makri. “I’m a cargo pilot, sir. I don’t have room for knickknacks. Those flatscreen photos are the easiest thing for me to travel with.”

“Oh! Are they all from Arda?” Woena said.

“Some of them. I bought the landscape package with the most images of Arda I could find.” They didn’t need to know there were only three images in a chip of thousands. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be in the cockpit.”

They were shortly in hyperspace and Maglor no longer had the excuse of needing to pilot to stay away from them. So he went out to the dining area and told them they could unstrap their restraints. They did so and proceeded to ignore him, talking something about caverns and carved cities and some sort of mountain sport. “I’ll be in my cabin if you need me.”

Makri nodded, so Maglor left.

Once his cabin door shut behind him, Maglor leaned against it with a sigh. His cabin had a lofted bunk, a desk and chair underneath it, and a set of cabinets and drawers on the opposite wall. The wall between the head of the bed and the drawer was painted a light green. There was enough space for him to pace in a constrained oval, which he didn’t feel like doing.

One fourteen hour trip there, one trip away to a planet they hadn’t yet told him: and then he’d be free of people he truly didn’t want on his ship. And if they told his friends about him… Well, he’d made it perfectly clear to them he was a cargo pilot. Why couldn’t they have used their own ships to travel around the galaxy rather than pretending as if they were everyday citizens? It would have been easier on everyone-- and probably safer for them. But they were just young and naive enough they probably thought themselves in no danger in Empire-controlled territory.

Maglor sighed again and moved away from the door to sit down at his desk. He pulled his datapad over and the datacard for his logs and other data. The shipping collective needed their monthly documentation and the Imperial income tax was due soon.

*

“It was a great flight! We’ll see you in a few days,” Woena waved as she trotted down the stairs.

Makri said, “Don’t be late.”

“I won’t.”

His cargo run was a short hop to a system three hours away and back. Though he was leaving as soon as the inspector left, he’d be there for three days before his cargo would even be ready. Better there than here.

Maglor signaled to the droid driving the ladder that he was done with it and shut the airlock. Then he lowered the cargo bay ramp and went down to the meet the inspector Traffic Control had said was mandatory for any Quendi ship landing on Arda. Maglor knew better than to complain. The very little he’d seen on the HoloNet in the past four years had made it quite clear how deeply entrenched the Empire was in the system.

He didn’t wait long and when the door opened to admit the inspector, Maglor’s first thought was shit. His second was to run and his third was to stay put because fleeing would expose him.

Finarfin, wearing an Imperial uniform and a black leather shoulder bag, walked up the ramp, eyes wide. “You survived! I thought-- how did you escape?” He shook his head sharply, once. “No, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.” And then he embraced Maglor.

Maglor stiffened and his half-uncle released him. “What are you doing here?”

Finarfin snorted. “As the king of the Noldor, it is my duty to inspect every Noldorin ship that lands here. As you can imagine, there aren’t many.”

“What else do they have you do?”

“I’m a figurehead and a bit player in King Ingwë’s court. The Empire kept me on despite my… family problems. Being a Senator worked to my favor for once.”

“You aren’t Senator any longer.” Maglor paused with one hand on the ladder. “Do you really need to inspect my ship?”

Finarfin shrugged. “Technically, yes. So we have some time to talk.”

Maglor sighed. “Are you going to turn me in?”

Finarfin froze, staring at him. “Maglor, I would never do such a thing. I remain where I am because it’s the bare minimum I can do to keep the Empire from further devastating our world.” He scrubbed his hands over his face. “Do you have a place where we can sit and talk?”

Maglor nodded, reading his uncle’s sincerity in the Force. “This way.”

They settled at the table. Maglor hadn’t bothered to serve drinks. “What do you need to tell me?”

Finarfin clasped his hands on the tabletop. “Ingwë has some power here and cooperates fully with the Empire. He’s the only reason we don’t have a governor instead. Aman become limited to his court, those who serve them, and the bare minimum of people needed to maintain the city and palace. Droids are far more common now. The rest of the moon has been declared an Imperial hunting preserve. Everyone else has been relocated; Tirion and Alqualondë are deserted. All of the Quendi save for the court now live on Arda itself. Unless you have a permit to go to the moon, you simply can’t.

“That’s not the worst of it: the Dwarves have been forced to open their cities; the Empire won’t tolerate them mining for anyone else, not even themselves. There are persistent rumors that they’ll be enslaved if there’s a hint of organized grumbling. The Empire’s already enslaved the Shire and its surrounds; there are only a few hundred Hobbits left in the system.”

Maglor stared at him. The Hobbits, slaves? They largely kept to themselves, uninterested in the Big People. He couldn’t think of a single Hobbit who had ever left the system.

“What else?”

Finarfin closed his eyes. “The Singers are dead.”

“I expected that,” Maglor said softly. “But how did the Empire kill so many?”

Finarfin opened his eyes and looked down at his hands. “There are beings called Inquisitors. They’re Force-wielders and they specialize in hunting Force sensitives. They use red lightsabers to execute any they find. There were three of them and they were here for months. By the end, there were no Singers anywhere on the planet. The Inquisitors also destroyed what documentation there was about training methods and philosophies. There is very little left, Maglor.”

Lightsabers… and he no longer had his. “Do you have any good news?”

“Three weeks after the Battle of the Havens, Beren and Lúthien stole an Imperial shuttle, sent an open broadcast that showed they still had the Silmaril, and disappeared into hyperspace.”

Maglor grinned. “That is good.” And then his smile vanished. “What happened to their granddaughter? I know she ran a company out of the Havens.”

“The Empire immediately absorbed their shipping company and the Vingilótë turned pirate. They broadcast every few months to let us know there are free Quendi and they attack all over the galaxy. They’re vexing the Empire, but there’s no pattern to catch them by.”

“Yet,” Maglor said. “All four of them are Singers or could be; the Inquisitors will find them eventually.”

“Let us hope not.”

At the very least, Maglor had to hope that. If they were captured, so would he be. “Is there anything else?”

Finarfin sighed. “Out of our extended family, the only survivors are Mother, Findis, and myself. Everyone else…” He trailed off.

Maglor reached out and rested a hand on his uncle’s. They were the only baseline Quendi in the family. Everyone else, all whom the Quendi considered Force-sensitive, either died in the brief rebellion or been executed. “Uncle, please remember that the Empire likewise considers me dead. You have to pretend I’m just another trader.”

He nodded and stood. “Then it’s time for me to go. How long will you be here?”

“I’m leaving as soon as you get off my ship and returning in seven days to drop off a small cargo of luxury items bound for Ingwë and to pick up the passengers who disembarked today.”

Finarfin nodded. “Don’t return after that, Maglor. It isn’t safe.”

“I know. But I can’t explain that to junior members of the Imperial Court.”

Finarfin’s face lost color. “Junior members of--”

Maglor nodded. “The only worse people to have approached me for passage would have been people who either recognized me or spotted me for a Jedi. I’ll take a couple of brats over that.”

“As would I. May the Force be with you, Maglor.”

Maglor bowed slightly. “And with you, Uncle.”

*

The seven days passed all too quickly. Maglor landed again at the Havens, commed the Imperials to let them know he had landed, and turned over his three crates of cargo to a young Vanya who paid him little mind and left as Finarfin arrived.

“Every ship, every time,” he said with a sigh as he walked up the ramp. “Are your passengers here yet?”

“Not for another three hours,” Maglor said.

“Good.” He followed Maglor back to the dining table and put his shoulder bag on it with a metallic clank too loud to be just a datapad. He opened it and withdrew three items: a holocube, a large tin, and a small leather bag. “Sit,” he said. “They’re not going to bite.”

Maglor unfolded his arms and sat down. Finarfin turned on the holocube and handed it to him. “I doubt you have any holos of your family.”

Tears pricked Maglor’s eyes as he looked at the last family portrait of the House of Fëanor, taken shortly after Celebrimbor’s birth. That had been the year the Clone Wars broke out. “What else is on here?”

“A hodgepodge. And the little bit of Singer material I was able to save.” He slid the tin across the table. “Open it.”

Maglor did so and smiled when he inhaled the scent of the mixture that was uniquely Noldorin grown and blended tea. “That will be enough to last me a few years.” It was the largest tin he’d seen outside of mass storage.

Finarfin picked up the leather bag and Maglor held out his hand. “Your mother… she gave this to me for safekeeping. You were always too good at finding gifts hidden in your house. It was supposed to be for your two hundredth begetting day, but the Empire…”

The invasion happened three months before then. Maglor untied the knot holding the drawstring closed and pulled out a metal armband. Diamonds in the pattern of the spring sky were scattered across it and a Durindfire the size of his thumbnail, shining brightly silver, was placed in the center. “It’s beautiful.”

“I’m glad I was able to give it to you, Maglor.” He stood and pulled the shoulder bag back over his head.

“So am I.” He put the bracelet back in its bag and left everything on the table to escort his uncle out.

Finarfin clasped his arm at the bottom of the ramp. “May the Force be with you, Maglor. Don’t return.”

“I won’t,” he whispered and his uncle released him.

Maglor watched him walk out of the docking bay and hurried back into his ship, shutting the ramp behind him. He put the tea on his desk and the holocube in the locking drawer where he usually kept his blaster when he wasn’t wearing it. The armband, he couldn’t help but study. It was worth a good amount of money if he needed to sell it. But he had enough money in his bank account that it wouldn’t be required unless the Empire froze it. And if they froze it, he’d be in serious trouble because that likely meant one thing: they’d learned his identity.

He opened his wardrobe and took the hanger holding his formal outfit off the rod long enough to loop the drawstring around the hook. He put it back in the wardrobe: the safest place for it, hiding in plain sight. The tea had to stay in his cabin until the Imperials were gone and then he’d move it to the galley. The holocube could probably use a better place. Imperial inspectors who weren’t Finarfin generally liked checking weapons lockers.

Maglor left his cabin when his comm beeped, making sure to lock the door behind him. The stairs had arrived and the Imperials would shortly.

*

“How was Khazad-dûm?” Maglor asked Woena and Makri when they came through the airlock.

“Wonderful!” Woena said with a little twirl. “The Dwarves are so industrious, you’d never know they were uncivilized a decade ago. Have you ever been there?”

“No, ma’am; I’ve never been to any Dwarven city. Please secure your luggage and we’ll leave as soon as you tell me where you want to go next.”

“Bothawui,” Makri said.

They’d gotten half a dozen steps away from Maglor when Woena’s comm beeped.

“Ah, shit,” she said as she pulled it off her belt. “Hello, Daddy.”

“Woena. It’s time to return home. We have put up with your galavanting around the galaxy long enough. You and Makri have duties to the Empire; it’s time to fulfill them.”

“We’re in the Mid Rim, Daddy. It will take a day or two to return to Imperial Center.”

“Get here as fast as you can. I have lost my patience.”

A click and Woena sighed as she returned the comm to her belt. “I guess we’re not going to Bothawui.”

Makri turned to look at Maglor, folding his arms across his chest. “You will fly us to Imperial Center.”

“Maybe Malda’s only licensed in the Mid Rim. We can find someone else.”

“I’m licensed everywhere in the galaxy,” Maglor said, hating that he had to say this. But he knew Makri’s type: he would do everything in his considerable power to ruin Maglor’s life if he didn’t cooperate. “My shipping collective only operates in the Mid Rim. But I can fly you to Imperial Center.”

“Good,” he said. “We said we’d pay you three times your maximum fee. We’ll pay five for the inconvenience.”

Woena nodded. “Thank you! How long is the journey from here?”

“We have to reach the Corellian Trade Spine first, but once we do, it’ll be faster. About a day and a half on the outside, most likely close to a day. Settle in, please. It doesn’t sound as if we have the luxury to wait.”

“No, we don’t,” Woena muttered and they stowed their bags in their cabins before returning to the dining table to strap in.

Maglor entered the cockpit then and stared out the viewport at the docking bay wall for a moment. Imperial Center, the planet formerly known as Coruscant. Of all the places in the galaxy he needed to avoided, he was headed for the top of the list.