Star Wars Republic Commando: Knight of Honor ✓

Chapter 67

Author's Note: If you have any tips writing tips, please feel free to comment.

As always, I continue to hope that I am doing justice to the spirit of Star Wars as well the respective authors and characters from which I borrow. Again, I gratefully accept constructive criticism as a means to help me develop my skills further as a writer.

Mandalorian (Mando'a) words

Buy'ce (BOO-chay, BOO-shay): helmet; Colloquially: pint, bucket

Ika (EE-kah): diminutive suffix written as 'ika - also added to a name as a very familiar or childhood form, e.g, Ord'ika - Little Ordo

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Chapter 67

I'm going with you to that hangar. If Princess Arlesse is with them, I want one last chance to reason with her before you take her by force. I'm prepared to deal with her as a prisoner, but I'm hoping to avoid that scenario because if she becomes a prisoner then nothing about her will ever be the same.

Moff Gillard Harkin's conversation to TK-2857 upon discovering the location of the ship, Galaar Woor

Tochin Moon III, 87 Days after Order 66

Another small break in the darkness was coming up before the group. They were growing accustomed to the tight spacing and the minimum lighting from Jas' buy'ce. While the break in the tunnel was always a welcome sight, there was also the danger that the Imperials had caught onto their plan and had set up posts on the street level to monitor their movements.

Jas turned his head backward, using his buy'ce lights once again as the signal to tell everyone to slow down while they cautiously approached the grate above them. So far, their only visitors had been a few hand-sized rodents that scurried around and a few clusters of crawling insects that had better things to do than get under their feet. For the most part, the rodents seemed to live in the main underground tunnels.

 Occasionally, though, the group of humans had run into a few nests embedded in the miner's tunnels, where the rodents appeared to be finding solace from the larger communities. No one had time to ponder a reason for that, but as long as the majority of the creatures remained in the main tunnels rather than the parallel and intersecting tunnels that the miners had built, then it was one less roadblock they were required to dodge around.

As they approached the opening to the world above them, it indicated that they had come across another intersection and they now needed to determine which pathway to follow.

Jas' buy'ce had been downloaded with a rough, hand-drawn sketch of the underground roadmap. The map had been recorded years ago in a very old flimsi that recounted the exploits of the palace guardians and their triumphs over the years. 

The flimsi was the only known reference to the history of the palace guardians, and Davi Saun was responsible for keeping it securely hidden in order to preserve that sacred history. The only reason Davi had allowed Jas to upload the images of the tunnel system was because of his intent to defend the life of Tochin's last surviving member of the royal family.

Glancing at the map, Jas saw that it was indicating for them to turn left at this intersection, as that was the clearest direction to the docking bay where they had stationed the ship. They had made certain to try and leave the ship away from the main traffic so as not to draw a lot of attention, but within sight enough that it wasn't too obvious that their presence wasn't fully innocent.

With the momentary break, Tarj took the opportunity to squeeze past the group at this intersection. The tunnels didn't allow for more than a person's width, but the intersections always opened up enough so that they could rotate whether he or Dusty would be in the back of the group.