Watch Your Back [Star Wars]

Chapter 4: Rest is not on the horizon

Song of the day is Ship in a Bottle by Fin

Back on Bandomeer, Storm burst into the cantina at breakfast-time proudly swinging his third place medal.

"Guess what I won?"

"A bantha?" Cersei mumbled, face down on the table, caf in hand. Péla stroked her exhausted wife's curly hair with a sympathetic chuckle. Cersei had part of her hair woven into little braids above her ear while the other half was styled in looser than usual ringlet curls. Storm thought it looked nice.

"Good morning, Storm. How are you?" Péla asked.

"Great! I won a swoop race!" he declared excitedly. "Well actually it was only third place- but it was also my first time in a competition."

"That's amazing!" Péla said. Cersei lifted her head to give him a thumbs up. Péla turned to the dark skinned woman and softly told her, "Darling, maybe you should go to bed. There's no need to keep me company if you're not doing well."

"You sure?" Cersei said. Péla nodded in response. Standing up, Cersei leaned over the table to press a kiss to where Péla's lekku joined her head. She then came over to Storm and pulled him into a light side hug. Surprised, Storm leaned into her slightly.

"Good to see you back, kid," she said, pulling away.

"Not a kid," Storm muttered. Cersei snorted quietly, pat him on the shoulder and walked away.

"Late night?" Storm asked Péla, sitting down on the barstool next to Cersei's and pulling over her abandoned mug of caf. A common practice among the three of them nowadays. Every once in a while, Storm was reminded of all the times he did the exact same thing with his sisters. Péla and Cersei weren't them, he knew that, but even so, he thought that maybe they could be in the realm of family... one day.

"Yeah. A rowdy group caused two separate fights that Cee had to break up," she explained. Storm's lips pulled into a lopsided frown.

"Was anyone badly injured?" He took a sip of the caf.

"I don't think so."

Storm nodded and contemplatively slurped his caf. "You know how I mentioned a syndicate a few days ago?"

"Yeah. What about it?" Péla asked warily.

Storm gazed at the table for a few long moments. This actually wasn't a good idea. Péla and Cersei shouldn't be involved in his mess. "Did you hear anything about it?"

"No, nothing. Why?"

"I was just wondering," Storm lied, twisting the fabric of his pants between his fingers under the table, "the person who asked me seemed pretty worried."

"I'll keep an eye out, but I doubt anything is going to turn up."

"Yeah," Storm sighed.

Margo had said she'd be in contact, but when? How? And why him? There were so many other bounty hunters across the galaxy and he's fairly sure they're better at getting jobs done than him- Storm certainly wasn't setting any records for efficiency.

Unless they knew somehow that he was Force sensitive...? And they wanted a powerful tool. Surely they'd turn him over to the Empire if he didn't comply. Storm dug his teeth into his bottom lip. This was spiralling out of control quickly. What if he just... ran? He could just get on his ship and get away. The galaxy was massive, they wouldn't find him. But that was cowardly.

Or he could just be incredibly frank with them. Storm was not okay with dedicating the rest of his life to a syndicate- and that was what happened with those types of groups. Once you were in, they wouldn't ever let you leave. He'd heard all the warnings from Greez- the besalisk that used to be his manager. Storm suspected that Greez had been involved in some syndicate during the Clone Wars and had used the chaos created by the rise of the Empire to escape, the man had hinted at it occasionally.