Artur Phylas lurched out of his quarters, pounded the room’s exterior door control panel, and took off at a dead run down the narrow corridor toward the port-side lift.  Ahead of him, he could see the beings of the Duty’s Primary Shift bridge crew walking toward him, no doubt heading to their own berths for some rack-time.

“Make a hole!” Phylas called out, half demand and half plea.  The various crewers flattened themselves against bulkheads, and the light cruiser’s XO flashed past.  But by the time he reached the lift, the door had closed; his Shift was already on their way up to the bridge.

“Well that’s just perfect,” he said, slamming his palm against the durasteel door.  He hissed a long exhale, and waited for the lift to return.  It seemed to take hours.  Finally, the door slid open, and a half-minute later he paced onto the Duty’s command deck.

Captain Trykon was still there, staring out the viewport.  Come on, Trick, Phylas thought, shaking his head, give me a break.  You don’t have to feign bored stargazing to remind me I was supposed to relieve you two minutes ago.  “Sorry for my tardiness, Captain,” he said out loud, “but Secondary Shift is all present and accounted for, now; you can head off-duty, sir.”

For a moment, Trick didn’t say anything; he just kept staring, his expression unreadable.  Phylas braced himself for a public reprimand.

It never came.  “That’s all right, Artful,” the Duty's Kuati captain said cheerfully, “I think I’ll stay on for this shift.”

“Uh.  Yes sir.”  Phylas shrugged, sat down at the communications station, and began to watch his friend and captain out of the corner of his eye.

After a few minutes’ observation, there was no mistaking it: Wyl Trykon – always so serious, and vaguely somber – was…chipper.  The captain bounced from station to station, making small talk with the crewers of Secondary Shift, and even exchanged jokes with a couple of the beings.  Nice to see you in such a good mood, Trick, Phylas thought to himself.

A transmission interrupted the Executive Officer’s thoughts.  “Captain, we’re coming up on the convoy, now.”

“Excellent,” Trykon said.  And for once he sounded like he meant it.  “Bring us in line with the other escorts, and check our hyperspace coordinates against theirs.  Let’s go see Second Fleet’s new headquarters, shall we?”  Trick’s grey-green eyes seemed to sparkle with anticipation, and with hope; Phylas marveled that he’d never seen them that way, not without any hint of sadness.

“Yes, sir,” Phylas said, grinning openly.  “Stand by for the Belgaroth Shipyards.”  It’s really nice to see, Trick, he thought again.  It’s about time you left the pain of your past behind, where it belongs.

Phylas nodded happily to himself, and turned to tell the Duty’s pilot to put them in formation behind the big MedStar-class hospital ship hulking near the end of the convoy – the one whose transponder identified it as the Comfort, operating out of Kuat – next to what looked like a Starwind-class yacht with a couple of quad laser batteries slapped onto it...

OOC:

515 words.

Now that was an easy way to make some credits, Lysander Dromos thought, allowing himself a small grin as he thumb-signed the “Receipt of Payment” form on the datapad belonging to the Vast Imperial quartermaster – or whatever her title was.  Imperials, he thought with a twitch of contempt, staring at the uniformed young woman out of the corner of his eye, really do love their titles, don’t they?  “A pleasure doing business with you, ma’am,” he said aloud, letting his smile broaden.

The VE officer wrinkled her nose, and looked past him, motioning for the next being in line to step forward.

Well, at least the contempt is mutual, Lysander mused, as he left the woman’s tiny, tucked away little office, and walked out into the massive hangar in which he’d been “asked” to land the Remebered Joy.  The hangar – like the entire Belgaroth Shipyards complex – was a mess; the invasion had taken its toll on the facilities.  But the general disarray didn’t both Lysander in the slightest; if anything, the smuggler found the disorder comforting – almost familiar, like the rag-tag operations of some of his more colorful “associates.”  But even as he smiled at the thought, a squad of stormies marched by, and the illusion was broken.  Belagroth, like so much of Lysander’s Galaxy, was now an Imperial possession.

“The Vast Empire,” the Kuati muttered derisively.  What an arrogant, delusional moniker, he thought, shaking his head.  I thank you for the quick-and-easy credits, you mindless brutes, but I’d much prefer to see the 99.99% of the Galaxy that doesn’t belong to your greedy military junta, with its inflated sense of self-importance, if it’s all the same to you.  The Stormtroopers, for all their brooding malice, marched on, totally oblivious to his unvoiced assessments of their government.  “No enemy is beyond their grasp,” he sniggered, echoing the text of a propaganda holo he’d once seen in a cantina on Bestine IV, “and no threat beneath their notice.”  The thought of Lysander Dromos on an Imperial station – walking freely, outside of a detention cell, without binders on, while armed Imperials passed him by – was just too unlikely to not be amusing.

But then, suddenly, he remembered why he was in VE Space: he thought of Mother, dying on the MedStar-class while the Imps offloaded supplies, and of Wyl, the man he’d sworn never to seek out.  It had been, he thought back, the only promise he’d ever actually made in his life, given to the only man he’d ever truly loved.

But then, I never could say no to a Trykon, Lysander thought.  Whether Wyl or Myranda.  “I want to see my son,” Mother Trykon had told him, half plea and half demand, and nine days later he found himself at Belgaroth, a stranger in a strange land, acquiescing to the fevered whims of a dying woman and breaking his promise to Wyl, and to himself.  Nothing seemed particularly funny, anymore.  “Let’s just get this over with,” Lysander murmured.

He ambled over to a stack of plasteel crates clustered against one wall of the cavernous hangar deck, and waited, scanning the area and noting where all the Imperials were standing, and which direction they were all looking.  After two minutes, he ducked behind the crates, and shoved aside the one nearest to the wall, revealing a computer access terminal, just as he'd expected.  “I don’t exactly have time to search Abrae door-to-door for you, Wyl,” the smuggler whispered, his tone almost apologetic, “so I’m afraid we’re going to have to look up your home address.”  He slipped his own datapad out of his jacket pocket, and unceremoniously jacked into the terminal.  The one-time use pad worked perfectly, just as the slicer had promised it would, and the socket didn’t appear to have any feedback protection.  Instantly, the simple inquiry was sent – Where is Wyl Trykon? – and within two minutes, a complete and up-to-date dossier of Lysander’s one-time lover appeared on the screen.  The smuggler shuddered at the thought of the Imperial records, so extensive, easily-accessed, and utterly invasive, and then he started reading.

“You can’t be serious,” he said aloud.  The terminal did not deign to respond, but the read-out remained: Wyl Trykon was listed at Belgaroth, on the very same station as Lysander himself!  “I guess it's time to see what’s more important,” Lysander said, already keying in a request for a map of the shipyards, “Love or Loyalty.”

Idly, Dromos wondered which he was serving, as he edged out from the cover of the crates, and made for the nearest corridor.

OOC:

762 words.  Showdown with the past, coming up next time, on "Romeo and Juliet" "The More Things Change..."