“Transport Relay 2, you are cleared to land at Trepeis Spaceport. The berthing fee is one hundred credits plus fifty for each additional day.”

Emon glanced at Masch, “Do you have any money?”

“Do I look like a fool to you?” was the reply.

Emon punched the transmit button and spoke into the microphone, “Copy, Opsth. Beginning landing maneuvers now.” The boxy Imperial transport descended gracefully, but slowly, toward the planet Opsth. “Blasted broken plasma inverters. I hate going this slow,” Emon complained again.

“Do you always complain this much?” asked Masch.

“Only when people have been trying to kill me. Are you sure this is a good idea?”

“I’m sure. I’ve got some allies on Opsth who’ll be more than willing to help us out.”

“I don’t know. I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

The planet Opsth, about as far away from Warlord Zsinj’s Super Star Destroyer Iron Fist as one could get in a stolen Imperial transport on one tank of fuel. Which isn’t far. An average planet all around-except for its rather large polar ice caps that encroached on the temperate zones in the wint­­er-Opsth had no large tourist industry, and without masses of visitors coming and going, would be more likely to check identifications and such. That’s what worried Emon the most. He had no valid ID. The ones he’d had were taken from him when he was captured by Zsinj. Like it or not, they had to land. They were running out of fuel and supplies. Buying some food and risking getting caught was better than starving to death on what was basically a flying rock.

Trepeis Spaceport was Opsth’s largest spaceport. It was built rather artfully on a cliff along the shore of a tranquil ocean. Most of the landing pads jutted out over the sea and were supported by a massive network of steel girders imbedded in the rock under them. This design allowed ships the luxury of an extremely wide open airspace to maneuver, no buildings or trees to restrict movement.

Relay 2 landed on one of these landing pads with a quiet thud. Masch unbuckled his crash webbing and opened the hatch.

“I’ll go find my friends,” Masch said as he exited the ship, “Zsinj wouldn’t have put a price on your head yet. He wouldn’t want to admit that you escaped within a day of being captured, so you don’t have to worry about being seen. Just don’t go too far from the ship. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

After Masch had left, Emon started exploring the spaceport a little bit. As soon as he left the confines of the transport, he felt better. Emon walked around the port, watching the various ships and their pilots. The salty sea air filled his nostrils. The sky was nearly cloudless, and he could hear some waterfowl flying overhead. Emon loved the ocean, unfortunately, he never saw much of it in prison. It’s too bad the beach is fifty meters down, Emon thought.

“It’s a nice day, isn’t it Mr. Kaaren?” Emon turned to face the stranger who had spoken. A stranger who knew his face and name. Bounty hunter. Emon’s hand shot towards his blaster at his side, but his arm met resistance half way there. The bounty hunter had seen Emon’s hand reaching for the weapon. Somehow, he had managed to grab Emon’s hand before it reached the pistol. Now with a gloved left hand clenched tightly around Emon’s right arm, the bounty hunter said quietly, “Don’t do that again.” And to emphasis his point the bounty hunter increased his grip around Emon’s wrist. Surprised at the bounty hunter’s lightning quick reflexes, Emon stood frozen for a slight second. Glancing over his captor’s shoulder, Emon spotted Masch weaving toward him through the crowd of passersby, his blaster drawn. The movement of Emon’s eyes, however, betrayed Masch’s presence to the bounty hunter. The bounty hunter released his hold on Emon, spun around with his left hand out to face Masch, shot a jagged blue light out of his palm hitting Masch square in the chest, spun back around to grab Emon’s hand again which had nearly finished the maneuver it had begun before it was stopped the first time, and forced it to point the weapon harmlessly into the air all in a fraction of a second. “I told you not to do that again,” he said.

Emon swore, “A Jedi!” The fight had attracted a crowd and after seeing the blue bolt come from the stranger’s palm, many nodded their head in agreement with Emon’s assumption.

The Jedi released Emon again but did not disarm him. “Come on.”

“What?” Emon was completely baffled, “You killed my friend!”

“I have killed no one. We must hurry.” The Jedi grabbed Emon by the scruff of the neck and pushed him through the crowd.

Emon half ran, half stumbled along in front of the bounty hunter/Jedi. Emon tried to resist, but the Jedi was too strong for him. Probably using the Force, thought Emon. The Jedi shoved Emon into a nearby abandoned shop.

“Get away from the window and hide,” ordered the Jedi.

Emon crouched under the window. “Why am I hiding? I should let whoever you’re running from find you.”

“But they’re not after me, they’re after you. You are in danger. You will have to trust me.”

“What have you done that I should trust you?”

“I let you hold on to your blaster. That should count for something.”

“How do you know I won’t just shoot you now.”

“Because you’re afraid that if you try, I’ll kill you first.” And the Jedi was correct. There’s something wrong with a normal person who thinks he can kill a Jedi. Emon knew that if he tried a third time to shoot the Jedi, he would end up with a neat lightsaber hole in his chest. The Jedi signaled for Emon to be quiet and flattened himself against the wall he was standing near. Emon heard voices outside the shop.

“Who’re we looking for again?” one voice asked.

“Some guy named Emon Kaaren,” answered another voice. After hearing that, Emon dropped from his crouching position to lay flat on the floor under the window. He looked over at the Jedi who gave him a look that said, “I told you so.”

“What’s Kaaren look like?” asked a third voice.

Emon’s sudden drop to the floor had kicked up some dust in the old room. His lungs burned as he struggled not to cough.

“I’m putting up flyers with his holo on them,” said the second voice again, “Here take one.”

“A former bounty hunter, eh?” commented the third voice, “Good luck catching him.”

Emon waited sixty agonizing seconds after the footsteps had disappeared before he let out a couple rather large coughs to clear the dust from his throat. The Jedi was right. There were people after him, again. Emon sat up behind the counter, still out of view of the window. The Jedi went outside and returned with Emon’s wanted poster in his gloved hand. There was his picture on it, and the New Republic was offering quite a reward too.

“You’ve got to get off this planet,” said the Jedi.

“You expect me to follow you around the galaxy after you shot Masch? I can’t just leave him here.”

“Stop being a fool. Masch brought you here to be captured. Think about it. The New Republic throws you in jail to rot. When they find out you know something dangerous, they destroy the whole prison and kill all the prisoners trying to erase what you know from the galaxy. But you escape only to be captured by Zsinj. Then a man offers to help you escape an Imperial brig and admits to being a New Republic agent. The New Republic tried is trying to kill you, and you accept help from one of their spies. Not too smart.”

“You expect me to accept your help, and I know nothing about you,” Emon pointed out.

“Yeah, but I didn’t try to kill you.”

“I don’t think Masch was out to get me, either.”

“Oh, really?”

“No. He said he was looking for the rogue New Republic general who ordered the attack on the prison, and I believe him. I don’t know why. It’s a gut feeling.”

The Jedi snorted, “He’s got the rogue general part right because that’s who he’s working for.” The Jedi walked to the back of the empty store to the stairs, “My ship’s one the roof. I can get you off planet, but if you’d rather stay...” he trailed off as he reached the top of the stairs and went out the door to the roof. He stuck his head back through the doorway and looked back down at Emon still on the first floor. “Don’t think that just because Opsth is in Zsinj’s territory that it isn’t crawling with New Republic undercover agents,” he said before pulling his head back through the door.

Emon lingered on the ground floor for a second then hurried up the steps. He found the Jedi standing near the edge of the building looking down at the spaceport. He heard Emon’s approach and pointed to where some medics-New Republic agents, obviously-were loading the still unconscious Masch onto a stretcher. “Still think he is on your side?” the Jedi spoke without looking back at Emon, “They’re treating him like a fallen comrade, not a traitor who was allowing you escape. He’s not even restrained.”

“They don’t have to; you knocked him out, remember?” The Jedi did not reply. “You are not certain about Masch’s loyalties,” Emon said, “You think you are, but you’re not.”

“What makes you say that?”

“If you thought he planned to capture me, why, when he was charging you, did you stun him? Why didn’t you just kill him?”

“Too much paper work,” the Jedi said simply. “If you think he’s been on your side the whole time, why aren’t you more worried about leaving him here?”

Emon didn’t have an answer to that.

The Jedi at last turned to face Emon. “We’re running out of time,” he said. Here on the roof, there was finally enough light for Emon to get a good look at the Jedi. The first thing Emon noticed was the Jedi’s less than average height, nearly a hand’s width shorter than Emon. Though, it was hard to tell, Emon guessed the Jedi was pushing forty standard years old. The Jedi’s left half of his face was covered in poorly healed scars. The scars, which mostly likely were burns long ago suffered, started on the left side of his head and crawled their way up his bald head and across his temple and check before dying out just past his left eye. The Jedi had a rather interesting left eye, as well. While the right eye contained an emerald green iris, his left was solid white, no pupil, no iris, nothing. In fact, it seemed to glow ever so slightly-obviously artificial. I wonder what he can see with it, Emon thought. The Jedi’s black shirt and trousers seemed vaguely Imperial style, and unlike the stereotypes of Jedi Emon had in his mind, this one wore no robes.

Emon followed the Jedi to his ship, a Kuat Drives K14 Haste-class scout. As the hatch closed behind him, a thought came to Emon’s mind. He squeezed through the doorway into the cockpit where the Jedi was in the pilot’s seat preparing to depart.

“Scout-ship Too Many Secrets requesting departure clearance, over.”

“Sorry, Secrets, traffic’s backed up,” said a voice from the ship’s speakers, “People are hanging around trying to see what happened at the spaceport. Please wait.”

Emon sat in down in the copilot’s seat next to the Jedi. “How many people were in front of that store looking for us?” Emon asked.

“Four. Why?”

“Only four? How come you didn’t handle them...you know, take them out?”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I’m not the one who’s a Jedi!”

The man in the pilot’s seat laughed, “Who said anything about me being a Jedi?”

“But, but...you did that thing with your hand. Shot lightning out of it at Masch!”

The stranger chuckled again. He rolled up his sleeve and opened a panel on his wrist revealing several circuits and wires. His whole left arm, from the middle of the forearm down, was a prosthetic replacement with a blaster built into the structure.

Emon was tired of being lead around. “I want some real answers.”

“I have never given you any ‘fake’ answers.”

“You let me believe you were a Jedi.”

“I’m not responsible for your assumptions. You never asked.”

“Who are you?”

“Just a pilot, a commander in the Imperial Navy,” answered the stranger.

“That’s conveniently vague. What’s you name?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

That means he’s Imperial Intelligence, thought Emon. “Why are you so interested in me?”

“I just want to help a friend in need, someone like me. We are both in the same boat, as it were. We have a mutual enemy.” The commander paused for a moment, then added, “The Empire doesn’t know, but...I know what you know.”

“No one knows what I know.”

“I do. Not too long after your heroics during the Battle of Hoth, strange things started happening on the fringe of the galaxy: whole ships disappearing entirely, survivors running back terrified to the point of insanity. The Emperor sent you there in Operation Energy.” The commander continued the story, retelling everything Emon had done while on his secret mission. Every last detail was repeated to Emon with perfect accuracy.

When the commander had finished, Emon was in complete shock. “How do you know that?”

The commander didn’t answer.

“How do you know that?” Emon demanded more forcefully.

The commander still didn’t answer. The silence was broken by a voice from the comm, “The skyways are clear, Secrets, please exit along the following vector.”

The commander entered in the coordinates without a word.

Emon asked, “Where are we going, anyway?”