Star Wars - A Servant of the Empire - Unpublished by James L. Cambias Page B

Panatic’s normally immaculate boots were soon filthy.
    About a hundred meters from the ship they found the charred remains of a dozen crude huts. The wood walls and roofs were burned away completely, but the stone foundations and some clay pots had survived the blaze. A couple of Shkali bodies lay face down in the ash.
    “Captain! I’ve found something!” Sergeant Ivlik called out.
    Panatic hurried over to the edge of the burned area, where Ivlik was kneeling by a rock outcropping.
    “Down here.”
    In a hollow formed by two large boulders a Shkali child huddled, staring out at the two humans with terrified eyes. It clutched a comlink with both hands.
    “Come on out, there’s a good little one. The fire’s out now. It’s all right. Come on. There, I’ve got you. What’s this you’re holding? May I see it?” Ivlik was a family man, and had little trouble coaxing the frightened little alien out of the crevice. He gently pried the comlink from its grasp and handed it to Panatic. The captain examined it while the sergeant stood by, nonchalantly jiggling the Shkali child and making baby talk.
    The unit was an expensive commercial model, with a built-in recorder. Panatic pressed ‘replay.’”

    A woman’s voice, tense and breathless, almost drowned out by the sound of shouts and blaster fire in the background. “Mace, I hope you find this soon. The slavers are back—two ships this time. They’re using speeder bikes and nets. Warn the other villages.” A long pause, then some rustling sounds, then a man’s shout, and finally a whispered, “go!” Then the message cut off.
    The little Shkali wailed.
    “Slavers.”
    “Lot of that going on nowadays, Captain. Even legal some places.”
    “That doesn’t make it right.”
    “What about this little tyke?” The Shkali child was shivering in Ivlik’s grip.
    Panatic sighed. “It looks like there’s another village a couple of kilometers north of here. Leave the child there. Take Kamlok and Lancer with you. The natives will probably be nervous about strangers right now. Set your blasters on stun; we don’t want an incident.”

    The Sentinel’s brig was designed to be cheerless. The walls and floor were gray metal, and a pair of cameras watched from the corners. Mace lay on one of the hard bunks and stared at the flickering glow panel in the ceiling. He was counting the flickers. When the door opened he was up to eight thousand.
    The Imperial captain stepped in. followed by a guard. He took a comlink from his belt and pressed a button. “Mace, I hope you find this soon…”
    Mace’s elation turned to horror as the message played out. “Did you find her?” he asked, knowing the answer already.
    “I think you’d better tell me everything,” said Panatic.
    “It can’t make things any worse. That’s Nadria’s comlink; she’s my business partner. Knows a lot about primitive cultures, art, things like that. We’ve traded a fair bit with the Shkali in the past, but on our last visit they were all spooked. It took us a while to get the full story. Seems about a month ago some strangers showed up in a ship. They rounded a couple dozen Shkali up at gunpoint and took them away.”
    “Why didn’t you report it to the authorities?”
    Mace laughed derisively. “As if that would do any good. Half the slavers in this sector are on some Moff’s payroll.”
    “You’ve been listening to too much Rebel propaganda.”
    Mace stared at the captain for a moment. “You Imperials are such kidders; for a second I thought you were serious. Anyway, we decided to do something about it. Nadria stayed here to try and organize the tribes, so they could help each other against raiders in the future. I went off to get some blasters so the Shkali would be able to shoot back.”
    “You got the blasters from the Rebel Alliance?”
    “I… got them. Anyway, I was bringing them here when you stopped me.”
    “Do you know anything else about these slavers? Where they might be