The metal door slid open with a soft hiss.
Lance stepped inside, eyes sweeping the room on instinct.
Thirty or forty square meters, worn around every edge.
A large metal desk sat in the center, and behind it slouched a heavyset Rodian nursing a bottle of liquor.
Expensive clothes did nothing to hide the grease stains or the rolls of fat spilling over his belt.
His green skin caught the overhead light with a dull sheen, bulging black eyes set above a snout that pushed forward like a tapir’s, disc-shaped antennae twitching faintly atop his head.
Trash and greasy food wrappers littered one corner of the room.
On the wall, a large screen ran a news broadcast that immediately pulled Lance’s attention, a hoarse, amplified voice filling the office.
“Today we witness the end of an era, and the birth of something new.”
“The Jedi Order…
conspiring in secret…
their plot has finally come to light.”
“They attempted a coup.
They broke into my private chambers in the dead of night, meaning to assassinate your Supreme Chancellor.”
“The remaining Jedi will be hunted down.
Eradicated.”
“This attempt on my life has left me scarred.
Disfigured.
But let me assure you, my resolve has never burned brighter.”
“The Galactic Republic shall be reorganized into the first Galactic Empire!”
Lance kept his eyes locked on that twisted, self-satisfied face filling the screen, fury climbing up through his chest with nowhere to go.
Palpatine.
The man who’d kept the whole galaxy blind while he fed an entire war for his own ends.
The same man who’d walked Anakin straight into the dark side, gutted the Order, and buried countless innocent lives along the way.
Lance breathed in slowly, forcing the anger back down, layer by layer.
Do not be ruled by desire.
Stand as steady as a mountain.
An old Jedi teaching surfaced unbidden.
Anger only ever burned the one holding it.
Clarity, patience, waiting for the right opening- that was the only real path to bringing down something this powerful.
For now, only two things mattered.
Survive.
Find his Master.
“Strange days we’re living in, huh.” A voice thick with drink cut through his thoughts.
Lance looked over to find the Rodian studying him.
“They are.” He nodded and stepped toward the desk.
Thump.
Xantos set the half-empty bottle down hard, eyes narrowing as he sized Lance up, a slow, calculating smile spreading across his face.
He’d clocked the N-1 the second it touched down.
Another easy mark, dropped right in his lap.
That robe wasn’t fooling anyone as far as he was concerned.
He’d seen through better disguises.
Either some rich family’s runaway heir, or a very confident thief.
Either way, I’m bleeding him dry today.
He’d already half planned how he’d spend the profits before the kid even opened his mouth.
Drinks at the bar, or maybe the Twi’lek healing center for something a little more relaxing.
The healing center, probably.
Old Wyatt would understand if he had to cancel their usual night out.
A man had priorities.
Xantos hauled himself up, arms spread wide, plastering on a warmth that didn’t reach his eyes.
“Welcome, friend.
Though if you’re here for fuel, I’m afraid the timing’s poor.”
Lance’s tone stayed level.
“Name your price.”
A fat one indeed.
Xantos’s eyes lit up.
Rich kid, definitely.
But timing mattered in business.
Rush it, and you lost half the profit.
He cleared his throat, lacing his slender, suction-tipped fingers together, gold rings catching the light, and arranged his face into something apologetic.
“It’s not really about price.
Our stock’s genuinely thin right now.
You understand how things are these days; the war’s cut off half the supply routes, and we haven’t had a fresh shipment in ages.
We’re scraping the bottom of the tank, truly.”
He sighed his way through the whole performance like every word of it was true.
Lance didn’t believe a syllable.
His tone didn’t shift.
“Name your price.”
Reading the moment as right, Xantos let his generosity bloom.
“Well.
For your sake, I’ll part with a little, painful as it is.
Normal rate runs five hundred credits a liter.”
He rubbed his fingers together, smile deepening.
“Given the circumstances, though, call it five times that.
And Republic credits are worthless out here.
I’ll need something of equal value instead.”
Lance’s brow tightened slightly as he studied the man in front of him.
The going rate ran closer to a hundred and fifty a liter.
Even black market prices rarely climbed past two twenty or three hundred.
This man had opened at five hundred and then multiplied it again on top of that.
A parasite, plain and simple.
Lance had planned to keep his head down, stay a law-abiding citizen through all of this.
But rules didn’t owe anything to men like this.
And besides, he hadn’t fled the Temple carrying enough credits or valuables to cover even the honest price. Enjoying the story? Read on at g.com.
He didn’t argue.
He simply looked up, and let the Force move quietly through him.
A slow wave of his hand, voice flat and even.
“Fill the tank.
I’ve already paid in full.”
Xantos opened his mouth to push back, and then simply stopped, his gaze going glassy for a moment.
He repeated the line back mechanically, then reached for the comm and ordered the worker droid to proceed.
Outside the window, the droid was already lifting the fuel hose toward the ship’s intake.
Lance gave a small nod.
A genuine mind trick, cheap and endlessly useful, one of the more practical skills any Jedi carried.
With that settled, he didn’t want to leave Grogu alone in the cockpit any longer than necessary, and turned to head back.
He made his way down the corridor toward the N-1.
Inside, Grogu sat in the pilot’s seat, fully absorbed in the little metal sphere, breath mask tossed aside somewhere in the seat.
Lance let out a quiet breath of relief and glanced over at R4-P18, whose orange-yellow shell already had the hatch cycling open before he asked.
He dropped into the cockpit and sealed it shut behind him.
The brief drop in oxygen hadn’t fazed Grogu at all, still perfectly content sitting in his lap.
Back in the office, the comm buzzed.
Xantos blinked through the haze of drink and picked up.
“You sober yet?” A familiar laugh came through the line.
“Cut it out.” He grunted.
“What do you want?”
“You forgot, didn’t you?
Come out for that drink.”
“No time for…”
He stopped mid-sentence.
His eyes had drifted, unprompted, toward the window and the yellow fighter parked outside.
Something nagged at him, some detail slipping just out of reach.
“…Hold on.”
He smacked his own forehead, checked his pockets, then yanked a drawer open.
His expression froze there, then slowly curdled.
“Son of a…
nobody pulls something like this on my own turf.”
Anger flooded through him fast.
He didn’t fully understand what had just happened, but he knew he’d been taken, and he intended to collect twice what he’d lost.
“Stop that fuel line!” he barked into the terminal, then slammed a red button beside it.
An alarm tore through the fuel depot.
A dozen security droids jolted to life and surged toward the landing pad.
The light on the fuel line flickered, and the transfer stuttered to a halt.
In the cockpit, Lance felt the shift in the air immediately.
The trick didn’t hold.