Star Wars: Cruise Control | Scene 10.3

Tcho ditches his hover jet ski where the swim-up section of the bar starts and pauses outside the main establishment just long enough to make sure the sergeant sees him heading in. Apparently, it is too long, as a Kel Dor in a topaz-encrusted swimsuit whines at him to move out of the way because he is ruining her artificial sun. He steps inside the Border Town Cantina, decorated to look like exactly the sorts of places Tcho has sought to distance himself from. As he moves through the customers, he notices a large monitor on the wall showing a Holo News report about civil unrest on Naboo. He catches a flash of scorched Stormtrooper armor and still, bloody Gungans and wonders how this fits into what Dargon and Panaka met about. Surely Panaka would not glass his own home planet like Dargon did to Froz. Remembering what JT posited about a targeted hunt of some kind, he supposes the Gungans could be the focus of such a persecution.

In the midst of the bar’s clientele, Tcho hesitates, suppressing the impulse to hide among them. He briefly makes eye contact with Kerr-Lonn-Ny and then lingers near his exit, waiting to be spotted again and trying to look casual about it rather than anxious. A squad of Stormtroopers comes in from the bazaar district via the door that he himself had originally intended to enter by. He feels a flash of alarm that so many soldiers will be after him again, but Kerr-Lonn-Ny steps up to the plate, just as she said she would. The sergeant enters from the water, and Tcho spins toward his own door. In his haste to get moving again, he collides with an incoming patron, taking an elbow to the gut from the surly tough. He catches his breath, and then he is off running again.

* * *

The chase continues across to the other shore, where some sort of bar spills out into the water. Renault experiences a rare sense of fortune as he spots the distinctive Imperial armor among the establishment’s patrons. It looks like he has found his missing backup.

“We’re waiting for your orders, Sergeant,” one of them drawls into his radio. When he enters and gets closer to them, Renault is sure he hears one of them mutter about “the stickler” being here. 

“Cut off the perp’s exit,” Renault orders. “We need to funnel him into a less crowded area.”

Silver Squad’s idea of a pincer movement is sorely lacking. They saunter slowly into positions,  one even going so far as to announce that he is guarding the martini bar. The third appears to have his hands full with an insistent and surprisingly well-muscled Cerean. “You! You’re security, right? To serve and protect or whatever? I was stabbed by a droid. I overheard a conversation of someone wanting to do in the captain.” The trooper at first tries to calm her down and redirect her, but as she continues on with her story, he turns to Renault and claims that he has a new lead he has to follow. 

Renault growls to himself. He sees the Pantoran weaving through the crowd by the exit to the hallway. Something does not quite add up, though. Given the lead the alien had, he should have been through the room by now with how useless Silver Squad is. I’ve got to take him out; he’s planning something. Renault turns back to Silver Squad to order them on but then dismisses that as a lost cause. I can handle this myself. I cannot let him get away. Renault pushes his way through and out into the ship’s corridors. Reliving his old cross-country days, he chases the alien down passage after passage. When they reach an empty stretch with no witnesses, he unslings his heavy blaster rifle and lets off some shots. Capture or kill.

* * *

Tcho flinches at the blast splashing off the wall near him. Suddenly, this is not just a race. Uncomfortably confident that he still has a tail, he alters his stride to focus less on moderating speed and more on evasive movement to avoid the incoming shots. At least he waited until there was no one to get caught in the crossfire, Tcho consoles himself as he tictacs off a wall to dodge a blast coming in at his feet. I’m still in control. Nothing terrible has happened yet. This might actually work.

* * *

Renault tears off his helmet and flings it clattering to the ground. Though he is still fit, his hard-lived fortysomething years have aged him prematurely, and his short hair has already grayed. An old battlescar runs up his left cheek and continues as a thin white line across his tan forehead; a cybernetic eye glows a furious red in the damaged socket. Up ahead he sees the entrance to the observation lounge. Before the target can disappear through it, Renault fires one last barrage of angry shots at him. If he’s dead, he can’t mess with the moff’s stuff anymore. Though the blast sears across the alien’s back, the hit offers no satisfaction. Renault throws his heavy blaster rifle to the floor and pulls his vibroknife, shouting, “I will cut you!” The Pantoran stumbles through the door, but Renault has substantially narrowed the gap.