Марта Уэллс - From a Certain Point of View

I double check that my Relby-K23 blaster is secure underneath my cape with the vibroknuckler in my pocket. I try to ignore the disapproving voices in my head but it’s not working. A bounty hunter must be single-minded and focused. I’m none of those things. I’m just torn.

Recnelo scurries past me without uttering a word.

“No insult for me, Recnelo? It’s not like you,” I say, matching her quick stride.

“I need to be somewhere, but you already know that.”

“I’m heading to the carbon freezing facility, too,” I say. “We can go together.”

“You’re joining the work stoppage then. Correct?”

She stops when I don’t respond.

“Open your eyes, Isabalia. You think the beldons are floating out there for your viewing pleasure. They once were fierce creatures,” she says with frustration. “Did you know Cloud City sedates them to keep them docile?”

“There’s more to life than what Cloud City can offer. Don’t you think I deserve it?” I ask. “Please tell Joy I’m sorry.”

“No, Isabalia, you’re wrong. You are Cloud City.”

Recnelo walks away and I’m left to contend with this truth. She meets Joy at the end of the passageway, and they head toward the carbon freeze. Along the way they collect a couple more people and eventually stop at the entrance of the facility. Like a fool, I follow a few steps behind and watch as things unfurl.

If the work stoppage begins here, I can easily slip into the facility through a side entrance. Boba Fett is surely waiting inside. Joy briefly looks my way, as does Recnelo. Everything is converging at once and I must make a choice. Follow Boba Fett to a future I’ve been planning for months or join the others. Joy, Recnelo, even my parents, see something in me I’m failing to see. A person I’m meant to be. Which future do I embrace when both are so uncertain?

“Stop right there!”

A stormtrooper appears out of nowhere, blaster at the ready. Recnelo and Joy argue with the trooper but he refuses to listen. He aims a blaster at them.

Before I can think I run toward the stormtrooper, brandishing the Relby-K23. I shoot toward the stormtrooper’s knees right as he turns to me. He buckles, but still shoots, barely missing me. I don’t stop. I head straight toward him, kicking his blaster out of his hands. I straddle the trooper. Punching with all I’ve got. Finding ways past his armor to inflict pain with fear and adrenaline propelling me. Only a few more blows cement who is truly in control of this situation.

“Listen up, Imperial trash,” I say. “Your ugly white uniforms are not welcome in Cloud City.”

The last punch is more than enough to knock the stormtrooper out cold. I get up, wiping beads of sweat from my forehead. My new outfit is ruined by a large tear down the side of the jumpsuit.

“I heard there’s a work stoppage happening,” I say after a couple of beats. “Not sure if I’m dressed for it but…”

Joy chuckles, flashing that smile.

“There’s hope for you yet, Isabalia,” she says.

This time I hold her stare. Maybe I can even hold it for a lifetime.

“Enough of that, you two.” Recnelo says. “The work is before us.”

“C’mon!” Joy says. “Our people are waiting.”

She grabs my hand, and I don’t let go.

NO TIME FOR POETRYAustin Walker

“Can you believe they pay us for this?”

It wasn’t the excitement in Dengar’s voice that surprised IG-88, who stood next to the Corellian bounty hunter as he piloted his way through wreckage and debris. As the galaxy’s deadliest assassin droid, IG-88 had crossed paths with plenty of overexuberant bounty hunters, the sort who convinced themselves that obsessive thrill seeking was a vocation. Dengar, yanking back the yoke of his JumpMaster 5000 as it dodged incoming detritus, was just one more fool with a blaster.

“C’mon, c’mon…Come to Dengar.”

Nor was IG-88 nonplussed by the bounty hunter’s mangled Imperial accent. Compared with the elegant edge of Imperial officers’ speech, Dengar’s voice was a makeshift shiv. This evaluation was not a judgment on the part of IG-88, though. People seemed to think that accents reflected intelligence or authority, but the droid knew better. The way an organism spoke was only one more patina layer of ugly organic inefficiency. Eventually, the assassin considered, they wouldn’t be around to speak at all. So much would be improved, then.

“Damnit! Lost him. Iggy, start a thermal scan would you, mate? We can’t let him get away now.”

There it was again. The second-person plural. “Us.” “We.” That was what had taken IG-88 aback. Had the organic forgotten the terms of their arrangement? Was this a ploy? Better to confirm now that Dengar remembered that the moment they had their prey in hand, his life would be forfeit. Best to remind him.

“One of us will be paid, Corellian. Or do you not recall our agreement?” IG-88’s cylindrical head twisted to face Dengar. This was, of course, only for effect. The sensor array in the IG series was not limited by simple organic limitations such as “facing.”

Dengar let out a playful sigh as he brought his ship to a halt, hidden behind the massive sublight engine of a wrecked frigate. “Yeah, yeah. Don’t get your circuits in a twist, you walkin’ vaporator. You and me, we each got coordinates from Fett. Just like Bossk an’ the oth—”

“Those coordinates were fraudulent.”

“Of course they were! I’m gettin’ there, you absolute lamp. ” Dengar readjusted his posture, stretched his fingers, regripped the ship’s yoke, and cleared his throat. “As I was sayin’, Fett gave everyone dummy info. But you and me, we’re too smart for that. We cracked his system and found the coordinates he was keepin’ for himself. And hard as it is to admit, two of us together got a better shot at catchin’ Solo.” Dengar’s voice twisted in subdued rage as he said the name. “Especially if he’s got his rebel pallies with him.”

“That is not the deal, ” IG-88 said, in as close to a scold as the machine could emit. “That is the circumstance of the deal. Confirm that you understand the arrangement.”

The already cramped cockpit of Punishing One, Dengar’s ship, felt a little smaller for a moment. Both of its inhabitants were killers, and each knew that a deal like theirs could fall apart at any moment, even now as they neared their prey. IG-88 was, after all, a droid known for ruthless opportunism. And even in their short time together, he had realized that Dengar was fond of claiming not to have a conscience at all. Whether it had been taken from him by a life of violence—the tragedy scarring his face and body—by a poorly installed cybernetic modification, or by some other loathsome quirk of illogical organic life, IG-88 did not know and did not care.

Dengar’s voice dropped, stone-cold serious. “When we get him, our truce is over. You and me, we’ll have a prizefight fit for the dueling arenas of Nar Shaddaa. And only one of us will walk away with the purse.”

“Good.” It was fundamentally a productive understanding. The pair would have higher odds of capturing Solo than the independent hunters like Fett or the Trandoshan Bossk, who had no one to watch their backs. But neither would IG-88 and Dengar be weighted down by the ungainly sentimentalism that came with being long-term hunting partners like 4-LOM and Zuckuss.

The bounty hunter sank a little lower in his seat before a thought seemed to cross his mind, lifting him back up into his normal, spirited posture. “Now, wait a second, assassin. Why all this effort into making sure I remember the particulars? You ain’t secretly a protocol droid, are ya?”