Read Star Wars - Gathering Shadows - The Origin of the Black Curs - Unpublished for Free Online

there?”
    Tru’eb’s entire body tightened. There was a long silence as he focused on who was speaking: a man in a green Imperial uniform, like Platt’s. Beyond him, there were two rows of what looked like a patrol, maybe ten or twelve men, standing in a small docking bay. Beyond them were speeder bikes, neatly lined up and resting on maintenance cradles.
    “Um… coming through,” Platt said, stepping inside and pushing past the soldier nearest to the door. Tru’eb followed, his head down. He knew that was completely pointless. There was no way they hadn’t been made already, and yet the troopers were shocked into indecision for a moment as Platt made her way past them with stunning audacity.
    Finally one of them grabbed her by the arm and said. “I don’t think so.”
    “Run!” Tru’eb shouted, charging ahead. The Imperials around him were still confused, but the ones by Platt were already drawing their blasters. Platt jerked free, right out of Radlin’s jacket, and stumbled forward. When she had gotten her bearings enough to run at a decent clip, she started kicking the speeder bikes off their perches.
    Tru’eb followed suit. Blaster-fire spattered behind them, over their heads, into the speeder bikes. The soldiers who had gathered enough sense to run after Tru’eb and Platt came roaring blindly across the docking bay and tripped over the vehicles in their paths. This really is a pathetic operation. Tru’eb thought as he ducked behind a bike and fired a couple of shots.
    Still, the Imperials had numbers on their side, and he could see some of them digging comlinks out of their belts. In a few seconds the whole station would know what was going on.
    Tru’eb looked over at Platt, who had situated herself at a computer terminal near the turbolift. He squatted down, got one fist around the handlebar controls of the nearest bike and his other hand on the footpedal. Then he pressed the activation button, and set a random automatic course. The bike lifted off of its maintenance cradle, shook for a second, and plowed straight into a pile of its brethren strewn around the floor. There was a loud popping noise as the whole mess burst into flames.
    The blaster-fire stopped for a moment. Tru’eb ran over to Platt and ducked behind the terminal.
    A voice over the intercom announced to the entire station that there was a fire in docking bay three.

    “‘Droid maintenance hatch,’ indeed!” Tru’eb shouted, reaching around and firing at those troopers who weren’t busy running for an extinguisher. “Where did you get that one from, Platt? ‘Palpatine’s Military Guide for the Recently-Lobotomized?’”
    “All right, so they changed a few things!”
    “A few, yes!”
    “Calm down!” Platt shouted. “I found out that there’s only one detention level at this place!”
    “Where?”
    “Level eight! I already called the turbolift!”
    Tru’eb glanced behind them; several meters away the turbolift door was open and waiting. Ahead of them, some of the troops were still trying to return fire and the rest were shouting orders at each other or into their headsets.
    “You know it says here that the whole station only outnumbers us a hundred to one? They must have captured Dirk out of sheer paranoia! What do you wanna bet they don’t even have a shield generator?”
    “Just keep your head down and think up some other grand plan,” Tru’eb said, and ran into the turbolift.
    Behind him, Platt called, “I already thought of one.”

    “Fight back! Fight back! Fight back!”
    The interrogator’s voice came through between waves of dull pain across Jai’s stomach. Her hands were free, but she didn’t try to stop him.
    “In the face of the Empire, you are nothing. The Infiltrators were nothing, and you were a noncommissioned nothing because you didn’t have enough brain power to become an officer of nothing.”
    The pain stopped. Jai heard the interrogator step back and then begin pacing by her head.