The Last Venator: A Star Wars Story

Part 1

"For our brothers!"

~ Battle-cry of the Grand Army of the Republic

6 BBY

"Try it again!" An called out. She had to raise her voice to be heard over the sounds of the flight deck. The grinding of equipment and shouts of officers trying to be heard became a cacophony that required ear protection just to safely walk around in, so she only lifted one earpiece of her sonic dampeners to listen for a response.

There was a shudder in the rail and An instinctively yanked her hand, still gripping the grinder that she had been wielding, away before it was crushed by the mechanism. The loading grip ground its gears for a moment, then jerked forward along the rail, transitioning into a smooth glide. It reached the end of the track before it reversed and came back to the opposite end without a hitch. The repaired loader reached down to pick up a TIE-Fighter from the deck and swivel it into position, carrying it to its place near the hangar exit. The fighters were all stacked against one another, unable to launch, nearly a quarter of the ship's TIE complement packed wingtip to wingtip. The loader locked the first fighter into position for launch and then proceeded to grapple the next from the stack.

An sighed in relief and let her head roll back, leaning into the harness that suspended her above the deck. "Nice job, Weave."

R2-W7 beeped and trilled below her and began to lower An's harness to the deck. He was a green and black astromech with a well-polished chassis and jacked into the lift crane that they had rolled out for repairs on the modified hangar.

"Petty Officer Trahson!" The shout could be heard through An's ear protection. She turned as she removed her harness and saw a pudgy lieutenant in starched Imperial gray crossing the flight deck toward her. He narrowly avoided being clipped by one of the TIEs moving into position and stumbled. When he reached her he was red in the face and sweating. "You were not answering your commlink!"

She placed one muff of her ear protection behind an ear and continued to shrug out of the harness. "Sorry about that, Lt."

"Lieutenant to you, Petty Officer Trahson," corrected the officer, going a darker shade of red.

"Sorry about that, Lieutenant Lt. Weave?"

The astromech chortled as the officer's expression turned apoplectic and the droid produced her handheld commlink from an outer compartment. She took it from the droid and held it up, then spoke into it. "Lieutenant Lt, Engineer Petty Officer Anubha Trahson here, sir." She clicked the communicator for emphasis.

No sound came out of the officer's mouth the first couple of times he opened it. When he spoke it was a hoarse shout. "You will address me as Lieutenant Tenenbaum, Petty Officer. The captain has ordered you to report to him at once!"

"Oh. Well, couldn't they have sent a protocol droid for that, Lieutenant Tenenbaum?"

Weave rocked from leg to leg, emitting a quiet whistle of undisguised amusement, but Tenenbaum did not seem to notice or be amused. "Insubordination! I will have you on report, Petty Officer!"

She tossed him a salute, as crisp and as sarcastic as she could manage. "Yessir, Lieutenant Tenenbaum. Shall I bring your report of my insubordination to the captain when I see him?"

Tenenbaum took a deep breath and seemed to regain some measure of composure. "I will deal with you later," he snarled. "You should be on your way, Petty Officer. You are already late to meet with the captain."

"Yessir. Mind cleaning up my tools for me?" She tossed her harness across her toolbag sitting on the deck and pointed. "Or should I break with protocol and just leave them here?"