Across the Stars

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Dedicated to samninja10. Hope you like it, my beautiful beta! ♡

The halls of the Star Destroyer were lined with stormtroopers, their gleaming white armor greatly contrasting with the black-uniformed generals who were currently marching a prisoner up the silent corridor as the troopers looked on.

If the officers were personally escorting him, this prisoner must be extremely dangerous, but he certainly didn't appear to be. His worn black leather jacket had an ancient-looking Resistance patch on the left shoulder, and his black pants and white shirt were splattered with mud. Judging by his stature, he was only in his forties, but his hair was already predominantly grey.

One of the officers, a young recruit with close-cropped black hair and dark skin named General Hargrove, shifted his blaster slightly away from the captive as he covered a cough, the rasping noise echoing loud in the hall.

Suddenly, the Rebel whirled, ending in a perfect drop kick to General Hargrove's face. Stunned, the officer dropped his blaster, which the captive grabbed, switching it to kill and executing a perfect back flip over his escorts and barrel rolling into a few stormtroopers, who he promptly shot. Their bodies wedged in the door gave him enough cover to shoot off the lock and scramble through the narrow crack in the door amid rapid blaster fire.

The door slammed shut, and General Hargrove frantically tried to stop his bloody nose and organize a search party at the same time. "That man's price on his head is two million! We can't let him get away!" He howled, as the stormtroopers lining the hall sprung into action. "Hurry up and find him! If he escapes, Lord Vader will have us all killed!" The young general desperately ran through the door, his only thought saving his cowardly hide, and pleasing his master.

Meanwhile, the fighter pilot was crawling on his hands and knees through the main ventilation system, swearing profusely. When he pulled a Luke Skywalker-style flip, he had briefly forgotten that such acrobatics did a number on your back if you didn't have the Force there to cushion your fall, and he was definitely feeling the pain. So instead of running to the hold, hot-wiring Darth Vader's TIE fighter (he would escape in style), and blasting a giant hole in the side of the Star Destroyer and getting out scot-free, he was crawling through the foulest-smelling ventilation system imaginable. Maybe it was the corruption that made it smell so bad, he reflected. Squirming deeper through the tunnel, he heard something that made him freeze in place. Directly under him, he could see two figures in black conversing, the taller one clearly displeased.

The shorter had a blond ponytail trailing from under her hood, and was holding a wicked-looking weapon, tapping her black combat boots on the slick floor impatiently. She had done well, catching Lestrade by pretending to be a child in the aftermath of a Imperial assault, and then capturing him in a hydroelectric beam to take to Vader. Agent Pate had a perfect record, an all black wardrobe, and no time for Imperial officers trying to weasel her out of her reward.

"Agent Pate, I believe the agreement was that you would get your reward as soon as Lestrade was safely in our custody. As of now, he is on the loose, and a highly dangerous armed traitor running amok on Lord Vader's ship doesn't quite fill our terms." Although the spying fugitive could see that she was shaking, the bounty hunter put up where her chin would be under the black hood in defiance. "I delivered him, and now I want my two million. Don't cheat me out of my money."

The tall man said something elese, but he was inaudible over a sudden scraping noise. Someone must have had the bright idea to open the vent, and at the rapid rate at which the grate was being removed, there had to be at least four troopers up there, all armed to the teeth.

Lestrade considered the odds. On one side, the bounty hunter who had turned him in, strong but almost a child, and the mysterious man. On the other...well, he'd rather not die today.

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⏰ Last updated: May 30, 2017 ⏰

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