Марта Уэллс: From a Certain Point of View

“Lando won’t be happy,” Mizz said.

“Let him be unhappy. It will help him learn. Perhaps it will give him reason to return.”

Mizz nodded. His eyes followed the streets below, and his body straightened almost imperceptibly.

“You really think there’s some good we can do?” he asked.

Yathros Condorius the First swung an arm around Mizz’s shoulders, and they descended the stairs together. “What do you think would happen,” the king said to his assassin prince, “if the royal ruler of Cloud City were to proclaim a treaty with the Rebel Alliance? Now, that would be a pact to shake the universe…”

—

Nowadays most people have forgotten the king and the Kouhun assassin. But they were the subject of many stories in the days of oppression—stories told by the people who needed them.

If you don’t believe it, look around in the plazas. You’ll find a bench over a marble slab inscribed by the famed artist Or’toona Fleenk. Read the tribute there, and see the faces of the men who saved Cloud City.

(Or at least who saved their own small part.)

THE BACKUP BACKUP PLANAnne Toole

“Lay down your weapons!”

Tal Veridian slid her blaster under the table, then held up her hands. She was sitting with her back to the entrance, the mirror in her alcove providing a covert view of the entire saloon. Stormtroopers poured in, their armor oddly tinged lavender by the evening light still streaming from the high windows. She had been waiting with a few fellow drunks, waiting to hear the outcome of Lando’s latest plan regarding the princess and her guard. Obviously, it hadn’t gone quite as planned.

“Go, go,” she said under her breath.

A few of her companions ducked behind the bar. She watched out of the corner of her eye as their cloaked forms slunk out the back. The rest of the denizens behind her would not be so lucky. Two stormtroopers guarded the door as another two hassled a few Cloud City miners sharing a drink at the bar. Tal recognized them as Rajin—who’d been waiting to hear about the birth of his child—and his friend, whom they’d once caught gambling on tip-yip races. Already administrators from the mine, one an avid but terrible Twi’lek musician, the other prone to droning on about organizational minutiae, had been relieved of their weapons and ushered out the door.

“You there.”

Tal didn’t dare turn around. The mirror reflected her dark skin, hair framing her face and matching brown eyes. Unlike the light, flowing garb favored in Cloud City, she wore a vest over dark leather pants and a loose chambray shirt. Right now she looked every bit the foreign trader she wanted to portray. “Your burlap fashion,” Lando would endlessly tease her. She would counter that with a cape like his, she expected to see him fly off a platform one day. She supposed he finally had.

One stormtrooper loomed by her side. “You work with Cloud City mine? Lando Calrissian?”

Ever since the day he’d plucked her from that rickety merchant vessel. Happy to find someone who looked like him who wasn’t family, he always said. Her family…well, let’s just say she’d been in the market for a new one. And that’s what she found working with Lando on Cloud City. She considered herself his second-in-command, but good luck getting him to admit it. They weren’t perfect, but they had each other’s backs.

—

But that’s not what this lavender-hued stormtrooper needed to hear. Instead, she launched into her best Mando’a. “Meg cuyir gar—?”

His E-11 blaster inched closer to her eye. “Lando Calrissian.”

“Londo?” she mispronounced.

Lavender boy yanked her to her feet, gave her a once-over. His companion called to him. “What have you got?”

“Nothing.” He released her arm and headed over to fish out an Ugnaught trying to disappear behind a chair.

Tal didn’t dare breathe a sigh of relief. Lando’s decision to liberate the princess hadn’t included the Imps capturing their people. She needed information, she needed help, and, most of all, she needed a plan.

—

“Baudu, Kiren—I need you.”

The following day, Tal strode across the platform toward the two mechanics, working atop a ship set to depart from Dock 3. The brilliant white city pods punctuated the morning sky. They hosted vessels of all shapes and sizes on docks and platforms evident well into the distance.

Kiren’s fur fluttered in the wind as they grunted in her direction, but their gaze stayed focused on a side panel a story above her.

Beside them, Baudu looked down from his wire panel and squinted at her. His gray eyes matched his graying hair, though his face was still so young. A peculiarity of his family, the one he’d come to Cloud City to get far, far away from, he’d once told her. As for his personality, he had no excuse. “You got eyes. The Imps got us working—”

Tal gestured impatiently for them to come down as she slowed to a stop by the docking ramp. “That’s the point! While you’re here doing your job, they’re kidnapping the rest of us.” Tal shaded her eyes and looked toward Dock 4, the bleak gray of a U-33 loadlifter, its inverted wings typical except for its contents. “You heard Lando hightailed it out of here, right? The Imps are taking over the mines from us and targeting workers. Retaliating.”

“Why?” Baudu had twisted up his face, trying to think it through.

“To punish Cloud City for what Lando did. I can’t stand by and watch this!” She gestured angrily in the direction of the U-33. “I knew what he was planning. I’m just as much…the fool.”

Kiren held out their arms, their brown jumpsuit already soiled by grease.

“Yes, I know,” said Tal. “We’re going to fix that. Come on. Lando’s left a real mess.”

Kiren shrugged and started to climb down, but Baudu reached out his hand to catch Kiren’s arm, earning him a snarl from their snout. “Heyyy, come on now!” Baudu protested, then turned back to Tal. “Why not get the Wing Guard? They know you work for Lando.”

“They’re being watched.”

Even Kiren had to snort at that.

“Okay, yeah, and Lando didn’t give me any authority over them, what’s your point?”

“Why should we listen to you?”

“Don’t listen to me. Listen to Lando.” Tal tapped her chin. “Oh, wait, that’s right. He betrayed the Empire and took off.” She grinned.

“Listen—forget Dock 4 for a second. You can see Lower Dock from up there?”

Baudu, suspicious, squinted down at the lower pods, where they loaded and unloaded the particularly ripe goods, far from the pristine noses of Cloud City’s upper crust. “Yeah…?”

“Second dock from the bottom. See anything?”

“Nothing special.”

“Because it’s an Imperial secret.” From her vantage point, Tal couldn’t make out more than the edge of the dock below. “The perfect location. Minimal security. Empire doesn’t want anyone to know what they’re doing down there, and wouldn’t you know, the Mining Guild has caught wind of it. So you team up with me, and we put them on a collision course with each other…the Imps’ll forget all about us.”

Kiren grunted quizzically, a noise that never failed to make Tal smile. She hid it well this time.

“Let’s just say I pumped my Imperial source for information last night. The intel is good.”

“No.” Baudu, thoughtful, tapped his tool on the ship. “Kiren wants to know how you know they’ll forget all about us.”

“Trust me!” Tal held out her hands, confident. When they still hesitated, she tried a different tack. “It’s all I got, kids. Come on. You don’t really want to end up one of the Empire’s bootlickers, do you?”