The cantinas on Bestine were different than the ones back home, more relaxed, more friendly, the patrons far easier on the eyes than the grizzled scoundrels, pirates, and bounty hunters that frequented Tatooine’s watering holes. At least here you weren’t likely to insult a guy simply by scanning the crowd for a place to sit and for that reason alone, it was a novelty.
Biggs had to admit, for all that he was uneasy with the education he was receiving at the Imperial Academy, the Empire certainly knew how to get a person from one side of the galaxy to the other and dump them in a reasonably nice place for shore leave. The most cynical parts of Biggs wondering if this wasn’t a recruiting tactic or a way to ensure continued loyalties. ‘See what the Empire does for its best and brightest. You won’t find beaches and sun and crystal-clear waters on that hunk of dust you came from, but you can if you join us.’ That sort of thing.
It wouldn’t work on him or the people around him, not the way it was supposed to, that much was clear given the talk going on, but that didn’t mean Biggs couldn’t enjoy what he had while he had it.
To think, an Outer Rim boy like him making it as far as the Inner Core. Remarkable. And exciting. And ever since he’d stepped foot off the transport on one of the many island spaceports that dotted the planet, it had been one thrill after another. Starting with the fact that this world was covered, absolutely, nearly one-hundred percent covered, with water—it was like stepping into a whole different universe—and ending with this moment, far more dangerous than any moment up to this point in Biggs’s life and that counted all the times he and Luke got into one scrape or another for the sake of a story, a competition, or just a plain good time. Sometimes all three when they were feeling particularly feisty about it.
“Ssh,” he said, leaning forward, his body covering nearly half the table, Klivian and the others arrayed around him, as he tried to convince them not to act like the fools they were being. Klivian, at least, understood. But the others? It was like they’d never gone any place where people had the worst of intentions and information was power and credits and safety in turns. “You want us to get caught?” He slapped the back of Dovie’s head, light, not intending to hurt the man, but to drive his point home and maybe shame him into behaving the way he ought to. “Keep your rambling to a minimum, all right?”
Not that it did any good.
Dovie just laughed and shoved at him, drawing more attention their way, most of it passive-aggressively unfriendly, not genuinely, you’re-about-to-find-a-fist-in-your-face unfriendly. It was a joke to Dovie, the thought of defecting, something beyond his reach, and it seemed like something out of a dream for Biggs, too.
He got it, though. He did. They weren’t ever going to get out of the Imperial Navy now, it seemed like. Not this far in. And blowing off a little steam never hurt anyone.
Except when it did.
And except when, deep down inside, maybe they all meant it a little bit. About defecting.
Biggs sighed. At least they weren’t in uniform, but if anyone heard what they were talking about and saw them in the daytime, put two and two together and came up with traitor… well, Dovie’s career as the great savior of the galaxy was gonna be a short-lived one, that was all Biggs had to say on the matter.
Scrubbing at his mouth and smoothing down his mustache, he stared hard at the table—wood, real wood even, smooth and warm and almost alive to the touch—and thought. Thought about all the ways these kids, and they were kids, most of ’em a few years younger than Biggs, were going to get themselves killed out of sheer audacity and disregard for the way the galaxy really worked.
The Empire wasn’t real to them and Biggs himself was only just starting to realizing the enormity of what it was and what it could do to the people who served—and didn’t serve—it.
He didn’t want to make a mistake. He didn’t want these fools he’d surrounded himself with making a mistake either. And not when who knew how many of them were just batting the idea around and didn’t even mean it.
“Look, we’ve just gotta be smart about it,” Biggs insisted, his arms forming parallel tracks down the middle of the table.
He lifted his eyes and looked each one of them in the face, as severe as he ever got, and dared them to laugh again. If he had to show them the way, so be it. He could lead them down the path of discretion.
Then Dovie cracked, his palm scrubbing at Biggs’s hair, and said, abashed, “You’re way too serious, mate. Let’s get you another drink, huh?”
Biggs went to answer, relieved to have at least distracted Dovie from his own grandiosity, but a prickling sensation that he was being watched overcame him, and so he lifted his head instead and searched the room for the source.
Across the way, the evening light, rich with hues of orange and red as twilight approached, a dark-skinned man looked up at him and smiled. The sun glinted on the thickly woven shimmersilk of his shirt, pale blue and white and purple in turns, almost mesmerizing in its iridescence. He raised his drink in acknowledgment, setting the shirt to sparkling again, and winked.
Biggs wasn’t a blusher. Hadn’t ever been, but when he lifted his own nearly empty glass in response, warmth suffused his face and a giddy wildness charged around his stomach before settling down into a pleasant, fleeting moment of connection with someone who wasn’t part of the Empire and who probably didn’t see the Empire in him either.
“All right, Dovie,” Biggs said, pushing his glass into Dovie’s hand, “go ahead and get me that drink.”
Biggs didn’t go over and introduce himself to the man, not with Dovie and the others riling each other up, but he wanted to.
He really, really did.
They usually found their way to this particular bar around the same time every night, sometimes for drinks and sometimes just for dinner. He would’ve remembered this particular man if he’d seen him before, but he didn’t let himself feel discouraged.
Maybe he’d see the guy again.
He hoped he would.
*
“Tell me, you ever get any card players coming through here?” the man asked, this time seated at the bar, a deck of cards in his hands and a game of soli spread before him. It was a portable sabacc deck if Biggs knew anything about it, which he did, the randomizer built into each card rather than a central board, an expensive commodity even at the best of times. A cape sat across his shoulders today, a pearl gray color that only shone the faintest bit in the light and only then when it caught the texture of it just right.
“Not really,” the bartender said, swiping indifferently at the bar, his hand working in a slow, repetitive circle on a single, lucky spot, visibly cleaner than the rest of the counter. His body was hunched and his pale skin had taken on a permanently red tinge, like it didn’t know what a life without sunburn might be like. He didn’t seem terribly amused by the man, but Biggs had no idea why. The man seemed like he was probably a lot of fun.
“You play cards?”
The bartender stared at him, blank. “Not really.”
He swung his legs and twisted on the stool, the cape swishing around his ankles. “But I bet you do,” he said, pointing at Biggs, a welcome, welcoming smile on his mouth, even better than the one he’d worn the night prior. His shirt, Biggs noted, matched the cape.
“Who, me?” he asked, lifting his hands and pointing at himself, eyes as wide and innocent as he could make them. “I’m just a tourist passing through.”
The man’s eyes racked over his body and both his eyebrow and mouth twitched in disbelief once he was done scrutinizing Biggs. “There’s a philosophical school of thought on Baarabir that suggests we’re all ‘just tourists passing through.’ No matter where we go. Even when we’re home. There’s something comforting about that, I’ve always found. Makes a person feel less alone in the galaxy. ’Course, that may have just been their way of marketing to tourists. You never know these days. It does find its way into a lot of their advertising.” Without looking and with a smoothness of gesture that suggested he knew exactly what he was doing, the man swept the cards splashed across the table back into the stack he was holding. Hopping down from the stool, he strode forward. “Lando Calrissian. And whose acquaintance might I be making?”
“Biggs Darklighter.”
“Darklighter.” His grin widened. “You might really be a tourist. That’s Outer Rim, isn’t it? Darklighter?” Bringing his palm within inches of Biggs’s elbow, he gestured toward the same table he’d sat at yesterday.
“Tatooine,” he confirmed, unsure why he should trust Lando with this information, but doing it anyway. Somehow he knew no harm would come to him for this particular admission. Besides, everyone who could threaten Biggs now already knew where he was from.
Lando whistled. “That is definitely Outer Rim. Worked a job there once, in fact. Gotta see the Boonta Eve Classic with my own eyes, too. Tell me, is that sleemo, Jabba, still lording it over a bunch of bounty hunters in his little sand castle in the dunes?”
Choking on an unexpected laugh, Biggs coughed and as best he could, cleared his throat. “Yeah,” he said finally. He’d never heard of Jabba’s empire spoken of with quite that much… irreverence before. Biggs couldn’t decide if he should be offended or scandalized. Neither, he settled on. “Jabba’s still out there.”
“I hope someone takes him out one day.” Lando’s hands twitched through the cards, sorting them as he reached the table he had in mind. Wrapping his fingers around the back of one of the chairs, he pulled it out and gestured vaguely at it. “Doesn’t seem fair, what he does.”
Biggs shook his head in agreement and took the seat offered to him. He thought about Luke stuck on that moisture farm, thinking rightly that he was being left behind. It chewed him up inside knowing that Luke hadn’t gotten out yet, might never get out at this rate. If anyone deserved a chance at the stars, it was him. He was, on the other hand, glad that Luke hadn’t been forced to experience the Imperial Academy first hand yet. It sure wasn’t anything to be proud of. “There aren’t a lot of places where life is fair, I’ve found.”
Lando’s lip quirked in acknowledgment. “An excellent point.” He splayed the cards across the table, the motion so smooth, it looked almost like it could have been the prelude to a magician’s trick—a trick requiring skill, too, one of the ones a magician would claim required ‘the use of mystical Force powers.’ It was all nonsense, of course, but people liked to play along. “What’s your poison?”
“You know anything about Horansi?”
The grin Lando wore spread impossibly wider, like dawn breaking across the horizon, irrepressible and blinding, to spill across the sand.
“I know a lot more about Horansi than you probably want me to.” His hand darted up to brush at his upper lip. “How long until your buddies show up?”
The table was very, very smooth beneath his fingertips and a little waxy and if he tapped nervously on that waxy, smooth table, it was no one’s business but his own. “I don’t know. I don’t think they were planning on coming tonight.” It might yet give away more than Biggs wanted, him having admitted that, but he didn’t have it in him to lie about it either. “I didn’t ask.”
“Well, then,” Lando answered, brushing aside with the wave of his hand whatever awkwardness Biggs had invited into the conversation with his admission, “I guess I have all the time in the world to wipe the floor with you.”
“We’ll see,” he answered, polite, and took each card as Lando handed it to him.
When Lando got to laughing later, enough hands dealt that the early evening crowd had melted into the late evening crowd had morphed into the night crowd, Biggs wasn’t sure he’d ever heard a more pleasant sound. His presence seemed to fill the room and press against the walls, threatening to push everyone else out of the place in the most cordial manner possible. “You’re not bad, kid,” he said, not quite able to shake the delight that flavored his words as he laid out his cards.
They sure as hell beat Biggs’s.
He didn’t much mind that fact.
“That’s real funny,” he answered, showing his own, “seeing as how you can’t be all that much older than me.” Looking down at the cards, he added, “We never settled on what we were playing for.”
Curiosity and heat flared behind the rich, deep brown of Lando’s eyes. “I didn’t know we were playing for anything.”
Biggs shrugged. Don’t get self-conscious now, he thought. And: you’ve never been self-conscious in your life. But though his nerves may have tried to get the better of him, he didn’t let them win. However it ended, he’d still shared a pleasant evening with clever, interesting company and never once thought about the enormity of the decision that still hung above his head. And that was worth something to Biggs. It was worth enough to take a chance anyway. “We could be,” he said, “if you want.”
Lando understood. Of course he did.
“Who wouldn’t with an offer like that on the table?” Lando lifted his hand and waved at the bartender, gesturing sharply with two fingers. “I’ll take care of the check.”
Ducking his head to hide his grin, he waited. When Lando was ready, he stood and offered Biggs his arm.
And when they were outside, strolling down the street side-by-side toward Lando’s lodgings, the lateness of the hour gave the briefest of respites from the day’s relentless heat with the gift of a mild breeze blown in from the ocean that carried the crisp, wet scent of salt and seaweed with it. Pulling Lando beneath the awning of what might’ve been a restaurant, chairs perched upside-down on tables, visible through dim lights set into the walls at floor level, Biggs held him by the hips and dragged him into a kiss, unwilling to wait any longer.
Though dragged may have been the wrong word for it. Lando was certainly willing enough, his mouth pliable and warm, tasting of that last sip of tart ooio-berry wine and stale cigarra smoke. He pressed Biggs against the wall and slid his hands down Biggs’s sides and grasped Biggs by the wrist.
In the morning, Biggs would go back to being an Imperial cadet and everything that entailed.
But for now he let himself catch Lando’s palm in his own and laced their fingers together and thought about a time when, if he were to say, “I’d like to see you again,” he could do so. It wasn’t now. It might not ever be. But he liked the idea of it all the same.
Luckily, he knew how to enjoy a good time in spite of setbacks.
*
His comlink’s chime shrieked its way through Biggs’s sluggish, morning-addled brain. Groaning, he rolled toward the edge of the bed, Lando’s arm a heavy weight across his stomach, and groped over the side for his trousers. The comlink chimed again, like it didn’t already know it had disturbed him, and Biggs merely shushed it for all the good it didn’t do. “Come on,” he said, accidentally dislodging Lando entirely, and cursed, fingers finally catching on the pain in the ass contraption.
“Darklighter,” he said finally, hushed, but too late. Shifting, Lando pushed himself up and peered, bleary-eyed, at Biggs. As the seconds passed, though, and there was no answer, Lando came fully awake.
“Biggs,” his caller answered finally, worry threading through his voice.
“Klivian,” he said, shrugging helplessly at Lando. He didn’t want to give anything away to Derek, but he didn’t want to make Lando think he had something to hide either. “You ever hear of a thing called sleep?”
The bed shifted as Lando climbed out of it, his hand covering his mouth as he yawned and headed toward the small kitchen unit inset into the wall. “You want some caf?” he mouthed, shaking the carafe as he lifted it from the machine.
Biggs shook his head.
“You with Dovie and the others?” Klivian asked.
Biggs’s brows furrowed. “No.”
“Oh.” There was another pause, pregnant. Made Biggs’s nerves jangle. “Huh.”
“They haven’t got back yet?” Biggs swallowed around the dryness in his throat. A million things could’ve delayed Dovie and the rest of them, but somewhere deep down inside, Biggs knew it wasn’t a million things that had kept them from coming back to their quarters.
It was one thing composed of a million parts. So much more dangerous than all those innocent possibilities Biggs couldn’t entertain. “They’ll turn up,” he said when Klivian didn’t answer, because he was still a bit of a coward and couldn’t bring himself to commit to the truth. Because the minute he did…
He’d have to get out.
“Everything okay?” Lando asked, crossing his arms and ankles as he waited for the caf to finish brewing, his weight pressed against the wall.
Rubbing at his arm, Biggs nodded. “Yeah. I should be getting back though.”
“I’m planning on striking out toward the Anoat sector,” Lando said, “you ever find yourself out that way, look me up. I don’t like ending good nights without breakfast, but I don’t think I’ll mind owing you one.”
“What’s in the Anoat sector?” Biggs asked as he stepped into his trousers and scooped up his shirt in turns. His face warmed all over again as he turned over Lando’s compliment in his mind, the generosity of the suggestion. It was nice to think there might be someone new out there who’d like to see him again. A pleasant distraction, that was what Lando was. And more than that: a good man, Biggs was willing to wager.
“A city in the clouds,” Lando answered with a longing so infectious, Biggs felt it, too. “It’s got my name on it and everything.”
“Good luck with that.” Crossing the floor, Biggs held out his hand for a shake. Maybe not the most appropriate gesture, but Biggs couldn’t think of a better one.
“Good luck with that Imperial uniform, kid,” Lando answered, serious as he took Biggs’s hand before he pulled Biggs flush against him to kiss the corner of his mouth, brief, friendly.
A little more than friendly maybe.
Finishing, Lando added, “I hear they chafe.”
“How did you…?”
Biggs had seen a couple of different smiles cross Lando’s face and each of them had conveyed something different. Now he could add sadness to that list, or disappointment. He didn’t know Lando well enough to say for sure. “It’s not hard to spot if you know what to look for, but in my experience they don’t like people with doubts.” Lando’s eyes cut to the caf machine where the last bit of caf was dripping into the glass carafe, waiting to be poured. “Just something to think about.”
Biggs drew in a deep, steadying breath and wasn’t anymore set to right by it than before. “Thank you, Lando. I hope we meet again.” He inclined his head. “For breakfast.” And maybe more time.
Time. Biggs would definitely like some of that.
Maybe he’ll find some someday.
Because he now knew what he had to do and time was the one thing he needed to do it.