The Knight's Move

The first explosion hit Bait Camero by surprise. Before his brain had even enough time to think of an appropriate swear word, the second shot hit his ship's rear hull. By the third hit, his controls stopped working and the final fourth hit blew off his right engine, with the left one being deactivated. Helplessly, Bait mashed every button on his control panel, well aware that none of them would continue to work.

Without active propulsion, his ship was only exposed to the gravity of the nearby planet. Slowly but steadily it accelerated towards it, only barely avoiding further hits by the Star Destroyer's deck cannons. Just as it was about to enter the dense atmosphere, a fifth shot hit the broadside of the ship, sending it into a spiralling descend into the storm, where lightning strikes and fast winds were jogging his ride downwards.

As he sunk deeper into the foreign planet's deep, deep atmosphere, the clouds suddenly loosened up, exposing a solid, rocky surface underneath, but the air was still opaque and green. A particularly strong wind grabbed Bait's ship by the wings and propelled it forward into a group of high trees. Hundreds of branches pounded the already damaged hull, but they also slowed him down until finally he crashed into a muddy swamp. Having nothing of value on board, all he grabbed was his blaster, and then he climbed out the sky-facing emergency exit.

Despite his expectation, Bait's ship had not exploded, but it was certainly wrecked. Both engines were blown out, with the right one outright missing. The rear hull had several holes in it, wherever the bolts had hit, and the fuel tank was fully burned out. It was a mess if Bait had ever seen one.

The air had an uncomfortable stench to it, but it didn't appear to be poisonous. The water was not acidic and there were no vines trying to suffocate him. If anything, it looked like a gross, disfigured replica of home, in the most morbid kind of way.

With the blaster in his hand, he searched the surroundings for any sign of intelligent life, when an imperial shuttle, accompanied by three fighters, roared across the sky. As if it wasn't enough that they had shot him down on an alien planet, they had to come look for him to make sure he was dead. The shuttle landed near the wreck of Bait's ship and a group of four troopers appeared, their weapons drawn. Bait watched them from the cover of a fallen log. As they searched the remains of his ship, he carefully took aim. With the sight right on a trooper's head, he pulled the trigger. Before they were able to react, Bait fired a second shot, this time for the trooper's chest. The remaining two soldiers took cover and returned fire, forcing Bait to sink deeper into his cover. The mud exploded wherever the blaster bolts hit.

From the corner of his eye he saw the shuttle pilot still in the cockpit. He took aim, but quickly realized how pointless his handheld blaster would be against an armored shuttle. Instead he fired a covering shot at the troopers hiding behind his ship and leapt to his feet. Using the thick trees as cover, he quickly closed the distance to the shuttle, just as it was about to take off. With two more shots he forced the troopers to stay in their cover, then he jumped onto the shuttle's boarding platform, which was already closing. Only seconds later and his legs would have been crushed, but he made it through. The ship vibrated below his feet as the turbo engines lifted it off the ground.

With calm steps and listening for any movement, Bait searched the shuttle for the cockpit door. It opened with the press of a button and he stepped inside. Before the pilot was able to turn around in surprise, he was already dead.

It took Bait a moment to familiarize himself with the controls. The shuttle's autopilot was set to hover 50 feet above ground and he was unable to figure out how to deactivate it. Meanwhile, blasters hit the bottom the shuttle, where the hull was the weakest, an there was no doubt in Camero's mind that the troopers would call for reinforcements immediately. So there was no time to waste on the stupid autopilot. Instead he shut the entire computer off, including all communication, and took over manual controls.

With a violent thunder the main engines activated and the shuttle jumped forward. Its steering was much more sensitive than Bait had expected, so it took all of his focus to not crash into a tree. He resisted the urge to fly up into space, because the Star Destroyed was still there and they would blow him up on sight, like they had tried before. Instead he kept the shuttle low, using the clouds as cover.

While he made his way around the planet, whizzing by far above the highest trees, he tried to remember any place he could go. Alderaan was gone and all imperial facilities were now hostile ground for him. He couldn't simply turn up at the rebel alliance with an imperial shuttle either. He had to keep his head down, for ever if need be, but not even the Outer Regions would be safe enough. So only a single location came to his mind.

Just as he was certain to have circled half the planet, he pulled the shuttle up into space. With his right, he turned the navigation computer back on and searched the records, flicking through the systems like the pages of a book. Finally, there it was. The Rishi maze. When he found the correct star system, he noticed with a smile on his face that there was no planet on the record. That could only mean, the Empire had not found it yet. He set the computer to calculate a route, then his vision blurred as he jumped to hyperspace.

As the shuttle continued to dive through a tunnel made of white and blue light, traversing the galaxy faster than light could ever hope to achieve, he searched the ship for anything the Empire could use to track his location. He destroyed every droid there was, even if it was shut off, and demolished any long range communication devices. Even the emergency signal had to go. Under no circumstances could he allow the Empire to locate him, without putting himself and the lives of thousands of others at risk.

Finally, the ship left its hyperspace route through the galaxy and beyond, and there it was. The remote moon of Galgola VI, with its sheer endless grasslands, majestic mountainsides and peaceful waterfalls, had not changed a bit and for a moment Bait forgot about the rebellion that was ravaging the galaxy.

Once a farming colony during the golden age of the Republic, the thirteen moons of the gas giant Galgola had to be abandoned during the Clone Wars not too long ago. Once the Empire took control, a group of citizens gathered over all the moons made a daring endeavor to wipe all evidence of Galgola, including its moons, from the imperial archives. While their mission was a success, none of the adventurers ever returned to Galgola. Whether they were killed or taken prisoner was unknown. Ever since then, Galgola was a peaceful place with only themselves to worry about. It was rare that a foreign transport lost their way and stumbled across this system, but it was even rarer that one of them left. Between the oppression of the Empire and the silence, the calm weather and the wonderful landscape of Galgola, the choice was a simple one. Over the years however, pirates had discovered Galgola and chose the sixth moon as a hideout for their illegal business, much to the distress of the inhabitants, who had close relations even across the various moons.

With a joyful smile Bait entered the moon's atmosphere, cruising across the fields and along a river. A flock of birds flew off as two gliders appeared on either side of Bait's ship. Immediately the radio came to life.

"Imperial shuttle, divert your course now or we will take offensive action!" It sounded like the voice of a young boy eager to make his way up through the ranks.

"This is Bait Camero, requesting landing permission. This isn't actually my ship." he stated the obvious.

"Camero? I am not familiar with that..." The voice disappeared and was replaced by that of a woman.

"You know, even the emperor himself would have better chances to land here than you, Bait."

"Charming as ever, Chora. Are you gonna shoot me down now?"

"I might. Hold your course and you'll find out."

"I'll gladly take that risk, to die with you on my side."

"Just shut up and fly."

A fortress emerged in the distance, heavily armed with orbital defense cannons and several fighters ready for takeoff. It was built on top of a flattened mountain to provide an overview of the landscape. Bait landed on a platform far outside the walls and the Twi'lek woman with the name Chora awaited him there. Her green skin was the same color as the grass in the fields.

"Bait Camero, you nasty, slimy, dirty piece of filth." she yelled over the sound of the engines, but she smiled while saying it. "Nice ride you got there. Have you gone back?"

"Yeah, but it only took ten minutes before they tried to shoot me down."

They both laughed.

"You should be happy, we didn't finish their job. Simply showing up here with an imperial shuttle. The only reason I chose to contact you, instead of blowing you into pieces, is because we barely detected a power reading from your ship."

"I was flying manually." he explained.

"As you always do." she commented with a grin. "So what in all worlds brings you here?"

"Well," he began, "things on Alderaan just got a heck of a lot more difficult. There is no Alderaan anymore."

Chora poured a thick, dark fluid into Bait's cup. The look was unpleasant and the smell was even worse, but the taste was wonderful. Filled with sweet and slowly melting on the tongue, the drink called Goliath was a speciality produced only on Galgola VI.

"Explain it to me again, I still don't get it. How can an entire planet just disappear?"

"It didn't simply disappear", Bait corrected. "It was blown into oblivion. People were calling it the Planet Killer for a reason. The Death Star."

A young woman entered the hut and brought a basket filled with dark red fruit. She put them down in the corner of the room, just away from the burning sunlight, and then joined Bait and Chora on the table. Her long auburn hair was in braids down her back.

"Thank you, Wando my dear." The Twi'lek handed a cup of Goliath to the young woman, then she turned back to Bait. "So what's your plan?"

"My plan? What are you talking about?" Bait frowned.

"Oh come on. I've known you for a little while now, Camero. You can't tell me you don't have a plan of how to get rid of that thing."

"You'll be disappointed, Chora." His frown turned into a bright smile. "But that thing is a fortress. Nobody gets on board without permission and blowing it from the outside is impossible."

He paused.

"Oh, I know that look. There is a "but" coming. And it's a massive but."

"You really do know me too well. Indeed, there is a "but". Blowing the station from the outside is impossible, but there are rumours it might be possible to blow it from the inside."

"You just said, it's impossible to get inside. So how would you do that?"

"I don't know, I don't have the plans. But allegedly the rebel alliance does. And I'm sure they are ready to jump on the slightest flaw they can find."

"Fantastic." The Twi'lek woman twirled her left Lekku around her finger. "So we're waiting for a group of outlaws to free us of that Planet Killer."

"What are you worried about? Don't forget, you're not on their radar after all." He gave Wando a quick look. Her eyes were pinned to the ground, following an invisible ant.

"I don't know", she confessed. "I'm worried about all the innocent people that will have to suffer while we place our hopes on the Rebels."

"Calm down, it's gonna be alright. It's not always the knight in shiny armor that saves the day; sometimes it's the Pawn who makes the Knight's move." He turned to the young woman.

"Wando, isn't it?" She nodded. "Have we met before?"

"Perhaps."

"Perhaps we have, yeah. And perhaps it was you who did the Knight's move back then, was it not?"