***

Chapter 1
Escape

It had been a week since they arrived on the small, red, rocky planet. The bare, frigid cold was unrelenting; thin, cold winds whipped angrily across the dusty rock and water ice underfoot. The sky hung a dull, impassive yellow. Yet, it was an anonymous world in an unremarkable system. It was a calm, quiet port in a storm.

The boys' training continued, if only as something to occupy them and keep their spirits up, and to distract them a little longer from the realisation that there wasn't actually a plan. They had escaped. Now what? Aksel had no idea, regardless of how often and how thoroughly he racked his brain. He could only hope something came to him before time forced his hand.

He watched the boys at work, sat on the rim of the ship's hatchway, as they stood on the ice sheet, bundled up against the cold, faces hidden by their breathing masks and blindfolds. It had at least been one stroke of luck, Aksel reflected, that it had been winter when they left Kriboziah. Training could only be rudimentary out here, living from the ship. Lift that rock. Try floating while you do it. Meditate on this thought. Aksel could only imagine how bored they must be. Right now, as a stream of ice and dust fragments blew across their feet like a river of mist, they practiced the most fundamental, mind-numbing task of all: deflecting blaster shots from a droid without looking.

The droid bobbed in the flimsy carbon dioxide wind, twisting this way and that, firing off shots at random intervals. The boys, sabres drawn, had to sense the shots coming and parry them away. It was interesting and fun for all of about two minutes. This session had been going on for some time longer. Kris was the first to get restless; he was scraping his baby-blue sabre back and forth on the icy ground at his feet, sending up a rain of sparks and meltwater. Though he couldn't see, Pan had turned his head towards the older boy, distracted by the crunching of plasma on ice and the flash of the sparks. His yelp was barely muffled by his mask as he threw up his arm at the last moment, deflecting an incoming shot wildly onto the ship's shields. It would only have given him a light shock if it had landed, but Aksel had to admit it was impressive reflexes from the boy to prevent it. That would remind him to keep his concentration.

Tal, stood to the other side of Kris, cut a marked contrast with his younger companions. Professional as ever, he stood legs apart, on the balls of his feet, both hands on the hilt of his sabre raised in front of him. When he first built it, it had a pink hue, but the shade was darkening as he aged, the crystal at its heart now radiating something like a light amethyst. In time, it would probably burn purple. Tal parried the next shot with graceful ease, the pulse of energy reflected straight back at the droid, which weaved in the darkening sky to avoid it. The planet's sun had begun to dip below the line of huge mountains on the horizon, which cast long shadows across the icy flats below.

"That's enough, boys," said Aksel over the comms link to his pupils. "Get inside the ship and warmed up. We should have something to eat."

They pulled at the blindfolds under the masks strapped to their faces and stumbled back towards Aksel, sat at the side of the ship. The training droid bobbed noiselessly behind them. Tal and Pan had sheathed their sabres and wore them at their belts. Kris dragged his carelessly along the ground behind him, flinging up stones and chunks of ice. Aksel stood and put his hand on the boy's head as he drew close.

"Akristolan," began Aksel, softly. The boy still winced slightly at the use of his full name, knowing this probably meant a telling off. He gazed languidly at Aksel's feet. "Why were you hitting the ground with your lightsabre?"

"Cos I'm bored," mumbled Kris, talking to Aksel's boots.

"Is it boring for you to train in the Force?"

"No…"

"You realise how important your training is for your future?"

"Yeah…"

Aksel gently lifted Kris' chin to look into his pale blue eyes. "So you're going to take it seriously, even if you think the things you're asked to do aren't much fun?"

"Yes, master," sighed Kris, still using his eyes to avoid Aksel's gaze.

"I know things are tough at the moment, buddy," said Aksel, "but you have to keep going and keep looking forward. Have faith in yourself and the Force."

"I know," conceded Kris, still sounding forlorn, but he looked Aksel in the eye and at least tried to smile.

"Follow the other boys inside. We'll feel better when we've eaten."

***

Aksel did not feel better once he had eaten. The processed rations were yet another reminder that their supplies were running low. But, at the very least, the boys knew better than to question it. In fact, they ate in near silence. Pan and Kris were subdued; Tal pensive.

It was too early to reasonably expect the boys to just go to sleep. The shields trapped the air from the ship in an invisible bubble around them, allowing the boys a little area in front of the door to play. The younger two went back outside to throw a ball back and forth, watching it tumble oddly through the air in the low gravity of the small planet. Tal stayed behind with Aksel on the ship.

"I was thinking of changing the hilt on my sabre," the boy said. "I want to improve the grip so I can practise more one-handed stuff, like you."

"Okay," said Aksel, watching Pan and Kris through the ship's side windows. "Sounds good. But you know that's a difficult technique to master. I'm far from perfect."

"Oh, I know," said Tal, "but I want to put the work in. I think it'll really improve my overall technique."

Aksel laughed. Tal had always been a tall, athletic boy; lean and strong. At thirteen, he was head and shoulders taller than Kris and Pan, yet Aksel wasn't even sure Tal had properly started puberty yet. His voice was still sing-song and his body hairless but for the slicked-back white-blond mane on his head. Once he hit his growth spurt, Tal was going to be enormous. But it made him clumsy like there was a delay in his arms and legs processing what his brain way up on high wanted him to do. There had, apparently, been masters who made an art of appearing clumsy to wrongfoot their adversaries, but Aksel wasn't entirely sure how that worked. Tal could definitely benefit from making his sabre technique more precise.

"What are you laughing at?" asked Tal. "Is Kris doing something funny?"

"No," said Aksel. "Never mind."

"Right… What about my sabre hilt? Could we get new parts for me to rebuild it? Please?"

"Of course," said Aksel, staring past the boys and their ball into the dusk. "You'll just have to be patient, that's all."

"Master, is something bothering you?"

"No," said Aksel. "Well, maybe. I'm not sure."

In truth, he was starting to feel distracted and uneasy, but he couldn't put his finger on why.

"I have a bad feeling, too," said Tal. "Should I call Kris and Pan to come inside?"

"Maybe let them play a little longer," said Aksel. "We don't know that anything's wrong yet."

Pan noticed Aksel and Tal looking through the window as he waited for the ball to swirl down to him after Kris had thrown it up high. He waved and smiled. Tal gave him a wave back. Aksel wasn't watching, which made Pan scowl and wave again even more animatedly until the ball bounced off the top of his head. Kris laughed as Pan scowled again ran his hand through his dark, messy hair.

"Pan's doing okay," observed Tal. "Better, at least."

"He's still upset," said Aksel, "but he's a tough little guy. We'll all just have to look out for him."

"I can do that," smiled Tal.

"I mean, be gentle with him," Aksel replied. "You know he gets freaked out by your method of 'looking out' for Kris."

"I would be gentle!" laughed Tal. "Am I not gentle?"

"I couldn't comment," said Aksel, shaking a wry smile from his head.

Their R6 unit had joined the younger boys outside, and now Pan and Kris were laughing as they took turns to bounce the ball off its strange, trapezoidal head. R6 rotated to head the ball back and forth between the boys without protest. Aksel wasn't totally sure if maintenance droids could have fun, but R6 could certainly have fooled him; it was possible.

He was about to pass comment on this to Tal when a low rumble crackled from a distance, and a vibration shook the ground under the ship. R6 froze in its tracks, and Kris and Pan stopped playing, standing still and turning to Aksel, stares somewhere between quizzical and concerned. The ball floated limply to the ground.

"That bad feeling…" said Aksel.

"Yeah…" said Tal.

The sound wasn't heard, so much as experienced. Of course, the enormous boom rang out louder than war, as the rapidly darkening sky was lit up like high noon by the tops of the overhanging mountains. But the shockwave was inseparable from it, tearing through the air in all directions until it crackled against the ship's shields, distorting their shape and vibrating everything beneath, rocking Kris and Pan off their feet and face down into the dust. And with the explosion, and the shockwave, and the deafening sonic boom, came the rumbling again. The shaking and quaking; the ground pulsing spasmodically, ice sheets splitting and cracking all around the ship. The mountains glowed orange.

Somehow, through the ringing in his ears and his seasick feet, Aksel reawakened to his surroundings; tried to take some control of the situation. He was gripping the back of the cockpit seats with both hands, Tal's long arms clinging onto his waist. R6 had raced back aboard and was getting itself into flight position. From the windscreen, Aksel saw a huge fragment of glacier alongside the ship torn asunder, breaking to bits like an enormous stale cracker, the splinters and crumbs borne downhill at breakneck speed by a tide of meltwater emerging underneath as the angry ground heated it from below. Pushing Tal into the front left seat, Aksel grappled his way to the door of the ship, hanging onto any surface at hand.

"Get in the ship!" he screamed at Kris and Pan, still struggling to their feet in the dust.

Kris was up on his knees and managed to reach out for Aksel's hand. He hauled the light boy aboard without much effort. Pan was on all fours. He began to crawl towards the ship, then apparently had a second thought, turning and crawling in the wrong direction to recover his ball. The quaking of the ground caused his arms and legs to give way more than once, planting him on his front, but he kept going.

"Pan! What are you doing?" bawled Aksel in disbelief at the boy's stupidity.

Pan combat crawled all the more determinedly towards the ball, even as it bounced further away from the ship under the force of the vibrations beneath it. With no other option, Aksel leaped from the ship and bounded after Pan, being felled to his knees by the relentless force of the earthquake. Pushing forward, he grabbed Pan's ankles just as the boy reached the ball with his fingertips, yanking boy and ball back with him. Suddenly, he felt a sharp pull backward and was thrown into the hold of the ship, scraping his back on the hatch as he landed. The door closed. Aksel looked up to see Tal standing above him, panting and still holding out his arm.

"You looked like you needed some help," said Tal.

"Thanks, Tal," Aksel managed to choke out. "Really good work."

"You're heavy," said Tal. "I didn't know if it would work."

"It did," said Aksel. "Now go and get ready for take-off!"

Tal clambered back up to the cockpit above. Kris was evidently already in place; he was nowhere to be seen in the hold. Pan was cradled in Aksel's arms, still clinging on to his ball.

"What the hell were you thinking?" snapped Aksel, realising he still had the boy in his arms.

"My mom got me this ball," was all Pan could mumble stupidly into Aksel's chest. He sighed and ruffled the back of Pan's messy brown hair with his hand.

"Come on," he whispered into the boy's ear. "You need to be in your seat for take-off."

"I thought you said this planet was inactive!" whined Kris, voice being jolted and vibrated by the pulse still passing through the ground, as Aksel clambered into the cockpit behind Pan.

"I thought it was!" said Aksel, swinging into the front right seat. "R6 didn't detect any magnetic field!"

At this point, R6 made it abundantly clear that there had been absolutely no magnetic field to find.

"What's happening, then?" cried Kris.

"It doesn't matter!" said Aksel. "Whatever it is, we have to leave. Make sure you're strapped in!"

Aksel strapped himself into his seat and flicked three switches in a row to seal the doors, open the internal comms link and fire the engines.

"Ready for take-off, boys! R6, set coordinates for anywhere in this system; we can get a decent night's sleep!"

Aksel opened the throttle and the ship immediately began to rise from the ground. As it did, the last strength of the ice sheet gave way, a torrent of meltwater from upstream blasting it apart and tearing through the flats like a silver chainsaw. It was as if the heat of the volcano had revived an ocean beneath their feet. Aksel increased the acceleration, pitching the ship sharply upwards before levelling out again. The ship jerked and lurched forwards.

In his recollection, Aksel was already reacting before he heard the scream. He abandoned the controls, raising both his arms forward, catching Pan in mid-air without touching him, before even being aware of the boy flying past. It must have taken less than a second, but it felt like he was holding the boy there, his skull millimetres from the glass of the front viewport, for an age. Even in that time, the ship had begun to pitch groundward, out of control. Tal took up his controls and pulled with all his might to draw the ship back level. Aksel snapped the floating Pan into his lap and gripped him with all the strength in his arms.

"The buckle broke," he heaved, in between pants and sobs. "The buckle on my seat broke."

Aksel said nothing, clinging to Pan, barely aware that Kris was now screaming, convinced that they were about to crash into the inundated valley below. Tal was wrestling with the controls of the ship but to no avail. They'd picked up too much speed and even the momentary lapse of direction had the ship plummeting steadily back towards the surface.

"Aksel!" cried Tal, voice cracking with exertion, snapping the man back to reality. But there was no way he could grab his controls without releasing his grip on Pan and having him smash headfirst through the front screen. R6 whistled and squeaked incoherently.

Pan was still sobbing into Aksel's arms. "Pan, buddy," said Aksel. "You have to be brave. Reach forward for me and grab hold of the yoke. Pull back as hard as you can."

Pan sucked back a puddle of snot and wiped at his streaming eyes with a balled fist. Renewed, he stretched for the control wheel, but couldn't quite reach, brushing it with the ends of his fingernails. The white rush of the flood of meltwater below loomed ever larger in their view.

"Aksel, please!" screamed Tal. "Do something!"

"I've got you, Pan!" cried Aksel, tightening his grip around the boy's hips. "Stretch forward as much as you can! You can do it!"

Pan stretched his entire body forward so much his abdomen burned. He had his fingertips on the yoke but couldn't reach far enough to manipulate it. A maelstrom of foam raged just beyond the tip of the ship's fuselage. Pan took his hands away from the yoke, fumbled at his belt, and threw himself forward again with all his might. There was a lurch through the ship. It pitched upward, ever so slightly. Its underbelly skimmed the top of the water, splashing liquid in all directions. The viewports were opaque with foam. The ship rocked. Then nothing.

Pan was clinging to the steering yoke, the hilt of his lightsabre jammed behind it for leverage, weighing the whole thing downwards, pitching the ship steadily upward again. The water cleared from the windows, and Tal could see the hazy night sky above them. He began to steer the ship around.

"Well done, Pan," panted Aksel. "Good boy. You're the hero."

Pan said nothing. He was too overwhelmed to speak. He just held in place, stretched uncomfortably forward to weigh the yoke in place, the white-knuckle grip of Aksel's fingers digging into his hips. And the nerves and panic had made him feel like he was about to crap himself.

Tal had steered the ship around in a wide-arcing U-turn. "You can let go of the wheel now, Pan," he chirped. "I think we're stable."

Pan relaxed from his stretch and flopped back into Aksel's chest, breathing a heavy sigh of relief. "I think I need a poo," he said.

"Wait until Tal has us level," said Aksel, squeezing Pan around his chest. Tal levelled out the ship and Pan slid carefully to his feet, climbing as best he could out of the front of the cockpit to get down to the toilet in the hold.

"Oh my gosh, look at that!" said Kris, pointing through the front viewport as Pan made to descend the steep metal stairway to the hold.

"Oh, wow! That's awesome!" squeaked Pan, dancing on the spot. "But I really need to go!"

As Pan disappeared to the toilet in the hold, Aksel and Tal tried to come to terms with the sheer magnitude and beauty of what they could see below them through the front of the ship.

"That's the coolest thing I ever seen!" gushed Kris. "How tall d'you reckon it is? A thousand metres? More?"

"R6, how tall is the waterfall?"

R6 bleeped and booped.

"There you go," said Aksel. "Four thousand metres. Incredible."

"Wowww!" gasped Kris.

The waterfall was on a scale that was difficult to believe. From their altitude, they could see the water flooding the flats from whence they'd came in the distance ahead, forming a thick, silver serpent through the valley below, and broadening out to form a wide, mind-bogglingly deep waterfall as an unending cascade of water bulldozed its way into a ravine deep beneath.

"Okay," said Aksel. "I think it was worth coming here just for that!"

"But we nearly got killed!" squeaked Kris.

"Nearly," said Aksel. "What did we talk about earlier, Kris?"

"Trust in yourself, trust in the Force," parroted Kris, in the resigned tone of a boy repeating back what an adult has told them for the umpteenth time.

"Well, I guess that was one way to see it up close, at least," said Tal.

"What do you mean?" said Aksel.

"Why do you think the ship got covered in foam? Why do you think we skimmed the water but didn't crash?"

"R6," said Aksel, "did our previous course take us over the top of that waterfall?"

R6 confirmed that the ship had indeed skimmed the top of the waterfall and that it was very thankful they weren't consequently all floating pieces of scrap.

"Well, what do you know?" said Aksel, laughing a wry, mirthless laugh. "Well done, Tal. You're a better pilot than you thought."

Tal smiled but didn't immediately respond. Instead, he twisted to look over his shoulder at Kris. "What do you say, Kris? Want to go over the waterfall again?"

"No!" the boy shouted. "Tell him, Aksel!"

"Keep your pull-ups on," laughed Tal. "I was only kidding."

"Hmph!" said Kris.

"Oh. Well, if it's like that, then…" Tal flicked the control yoke of the ship, making it jump in mid-air. Kris let out a squeal of surprise. There was a loud clank from the hold.

"Tal!" snapped Aksel.

"Sorry, master," said Tal through a snigger.

Pan's high-pitched voice cut in over the comms. "Hey!" he complained. "What are you guys doing up there? Can't a boy poo in peace?"

"Sorry, Pan," replied Tal. "My bad."

"Well, watch it, you stupid idiot!" the boy whined. "I just peed everywhere because of you, so you can clean it up!"

"Pan, buddy, could you hurry up and finish and get back up here?" Aksel cut in. "I want to get off this planet; we're wasting fuel cruising around in the sky."

"I'm trying!" said Pan. There was a plopping sound in the background. "It doesn't help when Tal's throwing me around and then everyone is talking to me while I try to go!"

"Eurgh! Stay off the comms while you're actually dropping a turd, Pan!" moaned Kris. "That's disgusting."

The signal from the comms link cut out. Instead, there was a muffled shout from down below. "You lot are all really mean! I just nearly got killed, you know!"

***

R6 had set a course for a binary dwarf planet pairing on the inner edge of the system. It took a few hours to get there; the smaller two boys nodded off in their cockpit seats. The atmosphere on the bigger dwarf was tenuous, the star distant. Outside it wasn't quite 60 K. Nitrogen was frozen on the ground. It was cold, and it was isolated, and it was utterly freezing. But it certainly was a dark and quiet spot to park up for some much-needed rest.

Just as they touched down on the surface, R6 announced that there was a call incoming.

"Who is it?" said Aksel. "Oh? Really? Put it through to me and only me. Mute the boys."

Pan was sat on Aksel's lap. He had tied his seat straps around him in interplanetary flight, so as to be able to sit by himself without floating off in the microgravity, but Aksel forced Pan to sit on his lap for landing. Better safe than sorry. Now he pushed the boy off.

"Akselos Angorian!" drawled the voice on the other end of the call, like honey and bourbon drizzled over barbecue sauce. "Man, are you a tough dude to track down. I've been trying to call you for days!"

"Hi, Maldock," replied Aksel. "Sorry about that. I'm a little off the beaten track at the moment. It's been a hell of a long time. To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"I figured you must be on the move. I mean, no hologram, man! You must be in the ass-end of nowhere!"

"I don't hav–"

"Listen, amigo; have I got a hustle for you! I got word that Balchenian slavers have been tearing up a chain of systems out on the tail end of a spiral arm in the Outer Rim. I thought a man of your skills and ethical persuasions might be able to help a guy like me make a fast buck!"

"What do you want, Maldock?"

"Well, I just happen to be in their neck of the galaxy right now, and I think – if we act fast – we can get into one of their compounds, sneak around, free the slaves, bag some loot. I got the insider info. All I need you to bring is the muscle. Whaddaya think?"

"Free the slaves, Maldock? When have you ever been interested in freeing slaves?"

"Okay, okay. You free as many as you can handle. I take the rest for myself. But we split the loot fifty-fifty. I get some quality goods, crazy old look at me doing the right thing Jedi gets to free some innocents, and we both get a stack of credits. What's to lose?"

"Balchenian slavers? Who are Balchenian slavers? Where are you right now?"

"Oh, they mainly operate out in the sticks in the Outer Rim. They just hit up a few neighbouring systems the past couple months. Vaga, Ban-Hani, Kriboziah, Tra–"

Aksel's heart did jumping jacks against his sternum. Slavers who had attacked Kriboziah? This was too good to be true.

"I'll do it," he said.

"Say what?"

"I said I'd do it."

"Okay, man. That's what I wanted to hear! But you gotta come meet me quick because those suckers don't hang around too long before they move on to the next place. We wait too long and they could be gone before we even set out."

"No problem. Send me your coordinates and we'll work out a route to you. R6, prepare to receive and plot course."

"Sending you now. I'm on a planet called Tungares. Just a big marketplace – you know, for business."

"Okay. Sending our coordinates. Please, R6."

"Holy shit, you really are in the fucking armpit of nowhere, dude! Is that system even inhabited? What the fuck are you up to?"

"Just passing through, taking a rest for some sleep. Seems like we're pretty close by. R6, how long would it take to get to Tungares?"

R6 whistled the reply. A short jump through hyperspace and nothing more. Perhaps it was lucky that they'd dropped out of hyperspace at random in this system. And Tungares being a marketplace would work well; they could replenish supplies and refuel. Even the short hyperspace jump would probably all but clean them out.

"Okay," said Aksel. "It won't take me long to get to you. But I do need that sleep first. I'll see you tomorrow, I guess."

"No problem," said Maldock. "Gives me plenty of time to peruse the wares they got here."

"I hope that doesn't mean what I think it means."

"Don't judge. I ain't had a good pleasure slave for a long-ass time."

"Don't want to know, Maldock. See you soon."

"See ya!"

Aksel was suddenly aware he had six eyes focused on him.

"Who was that?" said Kris.

"A man called Maldock," said Aksel.

"Duh," said Kris. "Who's he?"

"Sort of a smuggler. A bit of a shady guy. But he has had his uses here and there. I think he might just be able to help us out again now."

"Are we gonna get my parents?" squeaked Pan.

"Just be patient," said Aksel. "I don't know that we're definitely doing anything yet. I need to meet him and see what he has planned first of all."

"Am I gonna get to go on a real mission?" asked Tal.

"Maybe," said Aksel.

"Yes! Finally!" said Tal, grinning around his face.

"Whatever we do," said Aksel, "remember to keep your head. We'll all get hurt if you get overexcited and do something rash."

"I'm always serious when we're working," said Tal.

"I know," said Aksel. "Just act as if it's all training."

Kris yawned loudly. "Can we go to bed now? My neck hurts from sleeping in this stupid chair."

***

There were two improvised bunks behind a curtain at the back of the hold. It had been home for the four of them for the past week. The bunks were firm and padded, looking clean and new, but the bedcovers were much more raggedy. They bore the hallmarks of being salvaged in a hurry and subsequently overused.

Tal and Kris stripped unselfconsciously, ready to bunk together. Neither boy was wearing underpants, and they were naked as the moment they were born as they slipped into the tight bunk together. Despite there only being a year or so between them, the size difference between Tal and Kris was made all the more obvious when they were in the buff. Tal was tall, lean, and becoming muscular. Kris was a weedy little boy with greasy strawberry-blond hair, baguette legs, and slightly bucked teeth. They wriggled and giggled as they slipped under the covers together. Pan rolled his eyes as he stripped down to his discoloured plain briefs.

Aksel was wearing his baggy undershorts and had put on a sleeping vest. He would have preferred to sleep naked, given a choice, but didn't think that would be appropriate around his young apprentices. He got into the bunk with Pan, who was like a little fleshy heater by his side. The boy snuggled into him, and Aksel put his arm around him, both for his own comfort in the cramped bunk and to soothe the boy before he slept. He'd had a hell of a week for such a fragile little thing, barely ten years old. He'd only just built his first sabre. And he needed a lot of help with it. Aksel felt Pan snuggle in more, nuzzling his nose against Aksel's vested chest. Pan found the manly scents comforting; he began to drift off in the deep darkness of the ship.

There was a squelching sound coming from Tal and Kris' bunk, which grew louder in the tight confines of the improvised bedroom. Aksel heard Pan sigh, with a little growl under his breath, and ball his fists against Aksel's chest.

"Why do they have to do that right here next to us. It's weird."

"Just ignore them," Aksel said. "Pretend you're somewhere else. Practise your focus."

"You taste like pure piss," came Kris' muffled voice.

"I last had a bath the same time you did," whispered Tal. "You're probably exactly the same."

"You'll find out," said Kris. The slurping and squelching sound started up again.

"I hate it," pouted Pan. "I don't want to have to think about what they're doing."

"Don't think about it, then," said Aksel. "Put your fingers in your ears if you have to."

"Why should I?"

Tal grunted. There was the rustle of bedsheets as he moved to place his hands on the back of Kris' head. The younger boy's warm breath and slippery tongue were pushing his throbbing member towards its tipping point.

"Hey, Pan-Pan," said Aksel, stroking the boy's back down to his fabric-clad bottom, hoping to distract him. "Those undies are getting super dirty. It can't be comfortable to wear them. How about you go without?"

"No!" whined Pan.

"I didn't mean now," said Aksel, cupping the pouting lad's bottom in his hand. "I meant when you get dressed tomorrow. You could leave them off as Tal and Kris have."

"No!" pouted Pan again. "They're weird. They like being naked and not wearing underpants. They even suck on each other's thingies!"

Tal let out a loud groan. There were a bounce and a creak on the bunk he shared with Kris as he bucked his hips into his bedfellow's jaw. Kris swallowed loudly.

"Just think about it when you wake up tomorrow," said Aksel, letting go of Pan's bum and drawing his arm back around the boy. "I don't want you to get a rash or an infection or something because I couldn't keep you clean."

Pan huffed again and nuzzled his face into Aksel's chest. He inhaled deeply and tried to relax into the drifting hypnic solar wind of slumber again. He did what Aksel said, tried to focus and ignore Tal and Kris' stupid, disgusting big boy games.

"Your turn to get piss breath now," said Kris.

Chapter 2
Funny Business

Barry had been holding it in all day.

The journey from the village had been horrible. His mother and father had been carried bound on the back of the viboes – stinking four-legged animals – sat behind the riders. He and his sisters, being littler, were stuffed into saddlebags with just their heads poking out of the top. And they rode for miles and miles and days and days, leaving behind the chargrilled ruins of everything Barry had ever known. But at least the riders had fed them and given them water. At least the riders had let them pee or take a shit when they stopped for a rest.

As soon as they arrived in the great glass town under the white mountain, they were thrown into a filthy jail. It was terrifying. So many people from so many different villages, crammed into the tiny cells. Barry had huddled against his mother, pressing his face into her bosom as she tried her best to soothe him, to make him think of happier times, stroking his hair – even though he knew she was frightened too. They were all so frightened.

That was when it really became like hell. He thought the village being sautéed under a stream of blaster fire was bad. People were screaming, running in all directions, trying in vain to escape the raiders. Then he thought being bundled along in the saddlebag was worse, having to eat and sleep and crap under close watch from some slaver or other. But that night in the prison – that was the worst. Standing packed into the tiny space like so many fish in a net. They couldn't sit to rest, nor could they lie down to get a wink of sleep. Nor, even, would they want to. The floor was soon a quagmire, so many people given no other option but to open their clothing and relieve themselves where they stood. The stink was unbearable.

First light brought relief. They were carried out and their hands were bound at their backs. Then heavy leather collars, almost like something a beast of burden would wear, were placed around their necks, and they were locked together with some glowing, electrical contraptions, all in a line. Then they marched to the market. The rider who had taken them, all the way back in the village, and carried them with him, passed them on to some other guy. A fat little man. His brother-in-law, they guessed, as they acted like brethren but looked nothing alike. He threw Barry and his father into a cage. He ripped the front of Barry's mother's clothing to expose her breasts; then he threw her into the cage too. He poked at Barry's sisters' privates to test their purity, and he threw them into the cage straight after. Then he licked his fingers.

The time in the cage was too painful and humiliating to want to remember. In a few short hours, Barry effectively became an orphan.

He had been there all day when a strange man appeared. He hadn't paid any attention first; he was too distressed to care about anything happening outside of the cage–his cage, where he was alone. Then the man came over to him and took him. Barry didn't want to be touched, but he could hardly defend himself, sat bound and helpless in the cage. The man wanted to look at his little typpi, for some reason. Barry wasn't looking, but he was sure the man had licked his lips.

The man had tried to talk to him, but he couldn't understand what he said. He wished he could understand him so he could ask him whether he might be able to do a piss and a shit, please? Barry's bladder and bowels were painfully full. He had been shut bound in the cage almost since sunrise, and he had been too ashamed to relieve himself in the crowded prison cell the previous night. He was fit to burst. But Barry couldn't tell anyone anything because his family was gone, and these people couldn't talk properly and wouldn't understand him. So, he stood and sobbed and hoped against hope that it would all be over soon.

But it only got worse again. The strange man bought him from the little fat man and before Barry could take stock of what had been going on, he was being dragged along by a rope, like an animal being led to market. Or to slaughter. Even worse, being forced to trot along at some pace behind the brisk-walking man, he realised to his horror that he wouldn't be able to hold it in any longer. He clenched his bottom as hard as he could, but the man kept tugging at him for being slow. As his body was jerked forward again by the rope pulling at his collar, his bowels let go once and for all. He was shitting himself. He was shitting himself and the pushing on his insides released his heavy bladder too. He was letting everything go and he realised, with abject terror and humiliation as he looked into the man's eyes, that the man knew it, too.

Barry had shat and drenched himself.

From somewhere, his body found yet more tears, and he sobbed uncontrollably in the middle of the crowded market, his excrement and urine clinging to his legs and his clothing.

To his surprise, the man came to him, even though he was stood in his own filth. Even though Barry could smell himself over the stink of the market. He heard the man say some gentle words, but he didn't understand what they meant. The man was stroking the back of his head tenderly. Barry turned and pressed his face into the man's kaftan and bawled his eyes out, still feeling the large but comforting hand stroking his filthy hair.

Barry imagined as hard as he could that it was his mother's hand; that he was still with her with his face pressed to her body. That he was only dreaming. He missed her smell more than anything.

***

It turned out R6 couldn't fix the buckle on Pan's seat. The droid gave it a good go, but the mechanism was permanently broken. It was something else to add to the shopping list for the market. Aksel could tell that Pan was having a very uncomfortable ride, being held on Tal's lap. Not only was he unhappy to have lost his seat, he had – to his credit – disappeared into the toilet cubicle to get dressed that morning and emerged fully clothed but with his filthy underpants balled in one hand. If the sensation of going commando wasn't strange enough for him, he was having to get used to it whilst sat on an older boy's lap. Aksel watched Pan fidget and scratch and pull at his thighs and his crotch, all through their interstellar hop.

A couple of hours later, they were landing on Tungares. From orbit, the planet was wreathed in cloud, a spectrum of grey, with only the occasional patch of emerald green or deep blue revealing the surface of the world below. The single major spaceport – the site of the market Maldock had talked about – was somewhere in the northern tropics of the planet, under a clutch of forested mountains. As they descended through the heavy cloud, the vista of a city under a white-peaked mountain emerged. For the second time in as many days, the ship was battered by high-velocity water, this time in the tin rattle of a torrential downpour. Aksel reactivated the shields – he had turned them off to save fuel – just to deflect enough water to see where the ship was going.

The spaceport was a wide, flat, paved expanse, made to look more open and expansive by the city huddled so tightly beside it. As they drew closer, Aksel and the boys could make out a maze of glass-roofed walkways between the buildings, reflecting back the pewter sky in a wet, distorted mirror image. Ramshackle houses, unprotected by the glass roofing, clustered in clumps around the far edges of the shimmering market town, chimneys smouldering. The ship touched down with a gentle bounce. Aksel lowered the shields again and unlocked the doors.

Raindrops ricocheted off the concrete like plasma fire as Aksel stood in the open hatchway of the ship. A uniformed attendant soon approached, electronic ledger in hand. The boys had congregated behind Aksel, peering out from behind him so as to avoid being splashed by the deluge. R6 remained in place.

"Good morning, sir," the attendant said, in sharply accented Galactic Basic. "How can we help you today?"

"Good morning!" said Aksel. "We're looking to stay on-world until at least tomorrow. The ship needs to be refuelled and resupplied. Could you get all that arranged for us?"

"Of course, sir. Would you prefer the economy, standard, or deluxe onboard supply package?"

"Oh, deluxe, please," said Aksel. "Only the best for us, isn't that right, boys?"

Tal smirked to himself. Pan seemed about to raise an objection. Kris just looked confused.

"No problem, sir. Let me just punch that in for you and calculate the cost…" The attendant jabbed at the device in his hand.

"There's no need for that," said Aksel, shaking his head and waving his hand in the air between the attendant's face and his ledger. "Our fees have already been paid in advance."

The attendant looked up. His expression was glassy for a second, then his head seemed to snap back into position, and he regained his previous easy posture. "It seems your fees have already been paid in advance," he said. Then he smiled broadly. "Enjoy your visit to Tungares!"

A wheeled droid with a large umbrella mounted on a long arm rushed over towards the ship. Tal looked at his master and smiled proudly, with catlike satisfaction. Kris was wide-eyed, a broad grin eventually cracking his face. Pan scowled.

"That was really mean!" he said. "That guy will probably get in big trouble when they find out!"

"Are you going to pay for us?" asked Aksel. Pan flushed puce, and Aksel momentarily felt guilty. He pushed the feeling away. It was another learning experience for the youngster.

The umbrella droid was waiting for them. "R6, engage shields and lock doors as soon as the ship has been serviced. Nobody gets near the ship until we return. Understood?"

R6 whistled and spun its head, its body still tucked into its flight slot.

Umbrella droid had soon walked the group to a covered walkway, which led between parking slots for ships for hundreds of metres until reaching the crystalline edge of the city. Rain hammered on the glass above their heads as they walked, twisting and churning down gutter pipes to goodness-knows-where. The damp air was chilly, and Kris and Tal wrapped their arms around themselves as they trudged onward. Aksel went to put his arm around Pan's shoulders, but the boy shrugged him off and darted away to the side. He marched on in silence, slightly away from the rest of the group.

As a glass door slid open for them to enter the first enclosed street, a tall, dark-skinned man, dressed entirely in a black kaftan, was waiting on the other side. He saw and recognised Aksel, nodding his head and flashing a long, thin smile.

"Aksel! Long time, no see! Good to see you're looking older!"

He grabbed Aksel by the shoulder convivially as they gripped hands. Something made Aksel grip a little harder than usual. The boys spread behind him and watched, intently but quietly.

"Good to see you, Maldock!" said Aksel. "You're looking well."

"How long has it been since Joralla?"

"Ten years, at least."

"It didn't work out too well for me that time," said Maldock, his tone and expression unreadable.

"Can't win them all, Mal," said Aksel, with the hint of a smile.

"It must have been a while," said Maldock, peering around Aksel to stare at the boys. "What's with all the kids? You been busy, or you just making more money as a nanny these days?"

"These are my apprentices," said Aksel, a hint of pride in his voice and the curl of his mouth as he spoke.

"Apprentices?" said Maldock. "I thought you guys were only supposed to have one of 'em?"

"Sometimes rules are made to be bent out of shape," replied Aksel matter-of-factly.

Maldock laughed out loud. "Bent out of shape? These kids couldn't bend a noodle! The only training they look good for is how to suck dick!"

Tal furrowed his brow and narrowed his eyes at Maldock. Kris began to blush. Pan looked scandalised, folded his arms and growled under his breath.

"Maldock…" warned Aksel, but the man was in full flow, clearly enjoying his own wit.

"I mean, shit, dude. This one's barely out of diapers!" Maldock pointed at Pan.

"Hey! Am not!" barked Pan, throwing up his arms and stamping his foot as if he was about to have a tantrum. Aksel held out a hand behind him for the boy to keep quiet.

"… and this little sissy is soft as lizard shit!" Maldock waved an arm in the direction of Kris, now, who blushed even deeper. "This one…"

Maldock regarded Tal, who raised his eyebrows in a challenge at the large man leering down at him.

"This one, I like. I don't know about your Force shit, but I can tell this kid's got some spunk. What's your name, kid?"

"Talep Angorian," said Tal, strongly and clearly.

Maldock chuckled tonelessly, like MIDI canned laughter, and clapped his hands. "That's cute. Cos there's no way you two are actually related?" He pointed with one finger back and forth between Aksel and Tal. "I mean, no offense Aksel, but that's some genetic leap from your brown ass and red hair to that pasty blond freckle right there! So, how'd you make him your boy?"

"Maldock!" Aksel snapped, louder and harder than he had anticipated.

"Don't tell me you're still falling for all that monastic bullshit they brought you up on? Those dudes are gone, Aksel. You should be celebrating, like the rest of us are." Maldock looked dreamily pleased with himself. Pan, still red-cheeked and scowling, spotted something behind the large frame of the black-clad man, and stared at it, looking increasingly puzzled.

"Maldock," said Aksel, level-voiced and plain, "if you touch a hair on the head of any of these boys, I will cut your balls clean off before you even know what's happening. You want your little plan to work, you're gonna need them, and so you're gonna need to respect them. Do you understand the situation?"

"Woah, there, Jedi," said Maldock, holding up his bearlike hands, grin slipping down his face like bird shit on a greased window, "You know my game. S'all just banter; playing my role. No need to be making any threats now."

"Good," said Aksel. "Seems like you've got your hands full right now anyway."

Aksel tugged on a thin leather line attached to Maldock's belt. From the ample hiding space behind Maldock's imposing legs, a little boy in raggedy clothes was dragged tottering out, almost tripping over his own feet as he came.

"I guess in all the excitement I forgot to show you," smirked Maldock, his lips curling in renewed satisfaction. "Picked me up a new pleasure slave yesterday. Local produce. Only just started breaking the little shit in."

The boys looked on wide-eyed as the olive-skinned boy stared at his bare feet, shiny black hair hanging down just long enough to occlude his dark, almond-shaped eyes as he bowed his head. The leather leash – evidently it was a leash – was looped into a wide collar of similar material around his neck. A little metal box was embedded in the front.

"Hi," said Aksel. "What's your name?"

The metal box made a series of sounds.

"What's it matter?" said Maldock.

"Because I asked the question," replied Aksel curtly.

"Barrakad," said the boy, in a hoarse whimper.

"Barry," said the metal box in a synthesised child's voice.

"Fucking ass-backward natives here don't even know Galactic Basic," growled Maldock. "Had to shell out on a translating vocoder. Cost me almost as much as the damn kid."

"Well, what a fucking shame," said Aksel. "Look, we've been standing around here for a while and haven't even begun to talk business yet. Why don't you show us where you're staying so I can see if they have room for the four of us, too. Then, once we're settled, we can meet up again and talk more seriously."

"Fine," said Maldock. "Gives me a window for a little bit more slave training. Come on, boy!"

Maldock turned on his heels and yanked at Barry's leash, causing the boy to stumble again as he was suddenly dragged by his neck to the man's side. The boys stared at Aksel as he gestured for them to follow Maldock and the leashed little boy. Pan's eyes began to fill up, and Tal had to stop and take him by the hand to make sure he didn't get lost as the group pushed into the crowded town streets.

The glass-roofed streets were tightly weaved between stout, claustrophobic buildings of white stone, their upper stories blocky mushrooms protruding beyond the glass barriers. People – humans, droids, and assorted others – thronged the narrow passageways, jostling this way and that to avoid stragglers window shopping at the various shopfront stalls. The noise of hundred-language chatter was amplified by the misty glass ceilings, testament to the oppressive humidity inside. It was warm and clammy, like being caught on a treadmill inside a greenhouse. The boys could barely take most of it in for the pressure of the crowds and the pace of the adults ahead. Poor Barry was trotting along on his tiptoes, trying desperately to stay in the lee of his master so as not to get squashed in the throng.

"So, this is as good as it gets on Tungares," called Maldock over the din. "The planet was taken over a while back by a trade syndicate as a hub where a couple of hyperlanes meet. The natives were primitives; peasants. Hardly a scrap of technology. Humans though. Don't ask me how; I don't know the story. They must have crash landed or regressed or something. Or maybe they're just retarded. Who fucking cares? It's much better now anyway."

Maldock took a sudden right turn up a street of shallow, broad steps, snapping the unsuspecting Barry to his side. Aksel followed. He leaned back to Kris, noticing Tal was bringing up the rear, piggybacking Pan. "What do you think?"

"I don't like him," grumbled Kris. "He's a jerk."

"I think so too," said Aksel. "But he might just be useful."

"I still don't like him," said Kris.

"Master," said Tal, "do you think we can trust him?"

"Of course not," said Aksel. "Do you think he can trust us?"

Tal didn't get the chance to answer. At that moment, they emerged into a wide, bright square. Water from the gutter pipes spilled into a great central feature, gushing through the air into a huge cistern below. People still milled around, but there was far more space. The air tasted fresher and felt cooler on Aksel's face as he followed Maldock past the market stalls dotted around the square. Maldock stopped in front of a wide, three-storey building, in pink stone as opposed to the ubiquitous white.

"The best inn on Tungares," he said, allowing himself another thin smile. "I'mma go put the boy away; free my hands up a little. I'll give you boys some time to check yourselves in and get your shit together."

He sauntered through the front door and into the building, the bedraggled Barry hot on his heels. Aksel gave him a few seconds to clear the lobby before turning to follow him in. Tal had let Pan back down, and Aksel found his smallest companion clinging to his side in front of the inn doors.

"You okay, little buddy?"

Pan shook his head and pushed his cheek against Aksel's arm.

"What's the matter, Pan-Pan?"

"Master," he croaked, "what that man is doing to the little boy – to Barry…" Pan gulped back a wad of snot from his sinuses. "Is that… Is that what's happening to Mom and Dad right now?"

Aksel took a long blink and a deep breath. "No, Pan, buddy," he began, making his voice as gentle as possible, "of course it isn't. They're fine. Really. Search your feelings. You know they're fine."

Pan's head was still resting against Aksel's arms. He closed his eyes tightly. Aksel could tell the boy was trying not to cry.

Aksel wrapped his arm around Pan's head; pulled it into his body. He ruffled the boy's dark hair roughly with his fingers. "Why don't you boys go and explore the market while I get us a room," he said.

"Master," said Tal, pointing, "could I go and look in that electronics store over in the corner? I still wanna get some stuff to change the grip on my lightsabre."

"No problem," said Aksel. "Have fun. Kris, you stick with Pan and look around the square. I'll be back out here as soon as I'm done."

***

Kris and Pan wandered around aimlessly for a while. "Wanna see the fountain thing?" suggested Kris. Pan shrugged and looked at a spot on the floor a couple of metres ahead of him. Kris sighed and walked over towards the water feature until he felt the spray on his face. Pan shuffled along behind him.

"I guess the weather is always shitty on this planet," said Kris. "Or at least this part of it. That must be why everything is covered with glass."

Pan shrugged his shoulders again. "You shouldn't swear," he said.

"Why not?" said Kris. "You gonna do something about it, squirt?"

"Shut up!"

Kris grinned and bent over slightly, presenting Pan with his rear. "You gonna spank me squirt?"

"Shut up!" Pan was a bit less forceful this time. The very beginnings of a smile had just begun to tighten in the corners of his mouth.

"Come on Pan," laughed Kris, wiggling his bum and giving himself a couple of light smacks. "I've been a bad boy. Teach me a lesson!"

"Shut up," giggled Pan, smiling a tight-lipped smile and giving Kris a gentle whack to his behind.

"You showed me," smiled Kris, stretching up and gently rubbing his hand over the back of the smaller boy's head. "Wanna go look at some stalls now?"

Pan nodded and punched Kris gently on the arm. They wandered around the square a little more, dodging the adults bustling around like static on a monitor screen. They looked over a stall selling huge cuts of unfamiliar meat, but soon found the smell reason enough to move on. A more inviting stall nearby was stacked full of exotic caged animals, some flitting around their cages madly on wing, others sleeping. Others sat still, looking distant. Once they'd given them all a good look, the two boys moved on again.

"Let's head over to the corner where Tal went looking for sabre parts," suggested Kris. "That way, we can easily go bug him instead if we get bored."

They slowly trotted in the direction of the shop full of electronic parts. As they approached that corner of the square, they spotted a fruit stall. The sweet smells wafted through the air effortlessly above the hubbub of people crossing back and forth between spokes of streets radiating from the square. Kris and Pan couldn't resist.

"Wow; look at this!" squeaked Pan, holding up a large, heart-shaped red fruit in both hands. It had a green stalk poking from its crown, surrounded by short green leaves giving the fruit the appearance of a bowl haircut. Small white seeds were splotched all over the fleshy red surface.

"Don't you touch that!" shouted an angry man with a potbelly, who must have been the stallholder. "Damn filthy urchins! Don't think I don't know you can't pay for that!"

"Leave him alone!" said Kris, as the market trader plodded at Pan. Pan, for his part, was trying to explain, but couldn't get his words out. He was just making noises, holding the fruit dumbly in front of him.

"Shut your mouth, brat!" replied the trader, grabbing Pan roughly around his upper arm. "Man, you rats stink! Did you escape from the slave market? Is that where you came from?"

In the fraction of a fraction of a second it took for Pan's nerve endings to send the pain signal from his right bicep to his brain – barely enough time for the little blond hairs on his forearms to stand up on end – Pan must have panicked. All the fear, and anger, and sadness – all the top and bottom of the empty, achy feeling he felt in his heart – must have come rushing to the surface of his skin. All the pent-up frustration of the past eight days burst out of him. It must have done. That was the only explanation for how the stallholder ended up being thrown back onto the seat of his pants, and his stall thrown over to its side, fruit painting the floor like a party in a blender.

Pan had also fallen to the floor. He lay panting on his side on the flagstone of the square, eyes glazed over. Kris was thrown backward too, but he had his wits about him and rode the sensation. He landed backward on both feet, bending at his knees and reaching the fingertips of his right arm to the floor to steady himself. The crowd of people around them was frozen; silent but for the foaming of the water feature and the unrelenting, arrhythmic percussion of rain on the glass above their heads. A person of some indefinite species, with a head that looked like a white onion rotated so that the tentacled stalk was the mouthpart, hooted twice. A wide circle of spectators formed instantaneously around the fruit stall. The first law of rubbernecking is that it can conjure living matter from thin air.

The stallholder sat on his fat backside, shaking his jowly face back and forth. He rubbed his eyes with pink, calloused fists, found what remained of his poise somewhere within the soupy mantle of his rotund trunk, and sprang awkwardly to his feet. Fatty wax bubbling upwards from the heated sole of their glass lamp enclosure.

"What the fuck, you little shit!" he raged, stomping towards Pan. The boy was still out for the count, prone and panting on the floor.

"I told you to leave him alone!" spat Kris, raising his lightsabre out before him in the one o'clock position, just as his master had drilled him time and time again in training.

A collective gasp and shocked murmur pulsed around the crowd, dulling momentarily the unrelenting vibration of water ricocheting off the pitched ceiling. Silence, but for the scrape of the stallholder's feet on the stone, fell again. Chastened, the man shuffled backward and slowly raised his hands in the air.

Pan blinked and managed to push himself up onto all fours, his senses seeking out his wobbly extremities. He saw the other adult creeping up behind Kris, but somehow still couldn't find his voice to warn his friend of the danger. His head swam and for all he knew, it could have been two or four men creeping up behind his older companion. Or were there two boys stood there?

It was at this moment that Tal emerged from the shop. Aksel spotted him immediately across the crowd as he exited the inn at the same time. He saw Tal smiling and looking at something he had in his hand. Then he saw the boy look up and clock the furore outside, shove the thing in his pocket and start running for the door, reaching to his belt. Unfortunately, in his rush to protect Kris, one of Tal's long, powerful thighs caught the outside edge of a shelf on the wall right next to the front door and window of the shop. Tal reared up in pain, grabbing his thigh and, somehow, at the same time, getting the trailing electrical connectors of a second-hand light fixture that had been on the shelf caught around his ankle. He twisted from hopping in pain to trying to free himself from his new, probably quite heavy, ankle adornment. He pirouetted and kicked his way out of the door, a final thunderous flex of his right thigh, sending the light fixture on a zooming parabola through the thick air of the enclosed square. It landed, with a sickening smash, square on the back of the sneaking man's head, just as he drew behind Kris and the 12-year-old realised – too late – the danger. The man hit the deck like a tuxedo falling from a wire hanger.

Aksel stood in the doorway of the inn, mouth agape, as Tal charged through the crowd to stand back-to-back with Kris. Tal drew his amethyst lightsabre. Pan had also re-found his treacherous feet and meandered alongside the two older boys, drawing his sabre – the same pale blue as Kris' – to form a triangle of armed boys. Aksel rebooted his senses and realised he should be doing something. He sprinted into the circle formed by the watching crowd – ever-growing as more people pushed into the square – and drew his own lightsabre. He held it before him in his stronger left hand, gripping it like a purple epée by the curved and moulded metal hilt.

"Who harmed these boys?" he demanded, circling around his padawans with his back to them. "Who harmed these boys?"

Trembling bowlegged, the fruit stallholder eventually stepped forward. "Beg your pardon, sir; sorry, sir. It were… it were me, sir. But I swear I didn't know! I didn't know! I didn't mean anything by it, sir! Really!"

Aksel was satisfied that the man had sunk to his knees and begun to sob. The lesson here was complete. At least until the next time.

"Get on your feet," said Aksel, voice full of disdain. "Nobody touches these boys. Is that clear?"

There was a low murmur around the crowd. Even the rain seemed to have slowed, just fractionally, in answer to Aksel's question.

"Good! Then we all understand each other!" he looked down at the man sprawled out on the flagstone paving, lying in a confetti of glass fragments and splinters of sheet metal, blood dribbling down the back of his head. "And someone get this guy to a medic. Being unconscious is really bad for you."

Aksel sheathed his sabre. The boys followed his lead. As if someone had reactivated the current, the crowd of people immediately returned to its hivelike buzz. The volume of chatter was back at levels to compete with the thudding of the rain on the glass of the roof, and the multitudes danced about their business again. Even the stallholder was back on his feet, head in one hand as he stared uncomprehendingly at the smoothie pond that was once his produce. Without comment, a man, a woman, and the onion-headed creature lifted the unconscious man who had copped Tal's flying light fixture from the floor.

"I left you for half an hour!" bristled Maldock, charging over to Aksel and the boys, seemingly from nowhere. "Half an hour!"

"You'll forget your anger and buy us all lunch," droned Aksel, with a tone of voice and a dismissive arm movement that almost made it seem that he was trying to get found out.

"Who wants lunch?" said Maldock. "Let me take you somewhere nice; apologise for not extending you guys a proper welcome earlier."

The boys looked at each other and burst into fits of laughter. Maldock narrowed his eyes and shook his head, like he was trying to dislodge an insect caught in his hair, but inside his head.

"What's so funny?" he said. "Sure as hell ain't me!"

***

The meal was satisfying after a week of ship food. Aksel and the boys sat around a restaurant table with Maldock, making satisfied noises as they attacked their plates.

"So, what's the story with you guys?" asked Maldock. The boys didn't look up from their food.

"I'll try to explain everything later," said Aksel. "We can meet in private for a drink later on; talk business then."

Maldock seemed satisfied to be put off a little longer. He went back to eating his own food, after gulping down what remained of the fuchsia liquid in his tankard. He held it up for a waiter to pour more. One by one, Aksel and the boys sat back contentedly, having finished their plates. Maldock made idle small talk about the planet, drinking more pink liquid as he awaited the arrival of the bill.

"The trading syndicate – the Fuldari Company – has been here a few decades now. This was the first place they built. There might have been some primitive town here before, but I doubt it. Most of the population has come in from the company's other systems. The natives aren't exactly all up-to-speed with the wider galaxy – you know what I'm saying? And–" Maldock was made aware of the bill he was expected to pay. "Holy shit! Why the fuck did I offer to buy lunch for you bunch of fat fucks? Can't you do some of your Jedi funny business and get us out of here for free?"

Aksel sat impassive, grinning behind his eyes. "That would be a severe violation of ethics, Maldock. Surely you can't expect me to do that?"

Tal chimed in, smile breaking across his face like a loose end of yarn from a ball. "Our master always teaches us to be respectful when using the Force."

"Fuck!" spat Maldock. "Okay. I'll settle up. When are we going for that drink on you?"

"I think we all need to relax and take a bath before doing anything else," said Aksel.

"You gotta try the bathhouse at the inn," said Maldock, his account a few credits lighter having dealt with the waiter. "Underground hot springs. Water pumped in fresh from the sky. Classy sauna."

"Sounds perfect," said Aksel. "We can get our clothes laundered while we use the baths. What do you say, boys?"

Tal nodded his head enthusiastically.

"Bet I can stay in the sauna longer than anyone else!" said Kris.

Pan screwed up his face. "Do we have to be naked the whole time in the baths?"

"Don't worry," said Tal. "They'll give us towels. Right, Master Aksel?"

"Definitely," said Aksel. "You don't have to worry about being embarrassed, Pan. You won't have to do anything you don't want to."

"The fuck have you been teaching these kids?" Maldock cut in. "You wanna beat that bashfulness out of them right away. Damn!"

***

Maldock was stood waiting, stark naked with a white towel slung over his shoulder, just inside the entrance to the bath house. Scars and tattoos alternately painted his wardrobe chest and ample arms. Barry stood beside him, naked but for his collar, hiding slightly behind the trunk of a leg.

Aksel and the boys were given their towels, undressed in a side room, and handed over their clothes for cleaning. The boys had been instructed by Aksel in no uncertain terms to leave their weapons locked in their room. Room in the inn was limited, but he'd been able to get the boys a shared double, with a bunk that folded out of the wall if Pan – as he suspected – might prefer to sleep on his own than share a bed with Tal and Kris. Aksel had an adjacent double room to himself.

With the group down to their towels, Maldock led them down a steamy tunnel tiled entirely in blue ceramics. He walked ahead chatting with Aksel, momentarily forgetting about Barry. Tal was closest behind him, walking along watching the two men ahead. Kris and Pan were next, both staring at Barry's naked back, but in quite different ways. Kris craned his neck to try and catch sight of Barry's little boy parts, hidden in front of the boy from their perspective. Pan watched on in embarrassed curiosity, cheeks a little flushed as if he was mortified on Barry's behalf at the enforced nudity. The collared little boy slipped further back from his master, under the watchful gaze of the younger boys, until he felt the clammy touch of a gentle arm around his shoulders.

"Hey, my name's Talep. What did you say yours was?"

"Barrakad," he whispered. The translator box didn't seem to respond, though it had translated Tal's words for Barry fine just a second before.

"Nice to meet you," smiled Tal, giving Barry's shoulder a last squeeze before letting go, as Kris and Pan pushed in between them.

"Hi Barrakad," chirped Kris, reaching over to squeeze the boy's shoulder for himself.

The vocoder sprang into life again as Barry mumbled something. "What are your names?"

"I'm Akristolan Boni," said Kris, with dramatic emphasis.

"And I'm Pangan Odore!" giggled Pan.

"Jedi warriors!" the pair exclaimed in union, laughing. Tal sniggered and shook his head.

Barry didn't know quite what to make of it all, but he smiled a little and let his shoulders relax as Tal put his long arm back around Barry's shoulders.

"Don't worry," he whispered to Barry. "We're gonna help you. I just know it."

"Boy!" shouted Maldock, realising his slave wasn't by his side as he entered a stickily hot circular chamber at the end of the tunnel. Barry broke from Tal's loose hold and stumbled over himself to get back beside his master as quickly as possible. "What do you think you're doing, bitch? Did I give my permission to socialise? No! I did not. Get here!" He gripped Barry roughly by the neck and marched him on tiptoes over to a wide, octagonal stone platform in the middle of the chamber. Maldock sat down on the hot rock and spread his rock-hewn legs. "On your knees!"

Barry dutifully threw himself into a kneel before the large man. Maldock was quickly erect, his dark member statuesque and throbbing, like an obelisk imbued with mystic energy. It was as long and wide as Barry's forearm. Still dragging the boy by his neck, Maldock forced Barry's head down onto his erection, the bulbous head stretching out Barry's lips and bringing tears to his eyes. Pan stifled a yelp. Kris swore under his breath. Tal and Aksel were both stood with their hands on their hips, brows furrowed as they watched Maldock's show of dominance. With every new thrust of downward pressure on the back of Barry's head, the boy was forced to bend over face-first onto the cock all the more, gagging, retching, and spluttering with squishy, squelchy sounds. The more he bent over, the more flashes of his angrily inflamed anus and crack were shot at the watching group, swollen purple and red down to his tiny ballbag hanging below.

"Come on," whispered Aksel to the boys. "We'll head for a steam bath in one of those side rooms."

"Good," was all Tal could cough from his throat. Kris and Pan were wide-eyed and silent.

"Maldock, we're hitting the sauna. See you later."

"Whatever," said the man, between grunts and a groan of pleasure. "Ooooh, fuck! Get that deep inside you, bitch!"

Built into the corners of the chamber were side steam rooms, decked out in the same blue ceramic tiling and complete with their own hot tub. Instructions on the wall indicated that there was a large, cold plunge pool of running water from the gutter pipes, just in the next chamber along.

"That Maldock guy is a real dick!" said Kris, as soon as the door had closed behind them. "Why aren't we kicking his ass?"

"Yeah!" agreed Pan, scrunching up his face. "The things he does to Barry make me want to puke!"

"First of all, you two have never kicked an ass before in your lives, so don't get ahead of yourselves," said Aksel. "Secondly, I don't like Maldock too much either, but I think he might be very useful to us right now. Sometimes we have to make difficult choices and do things we don't like, because it's for the best. Right?"

"I guess so," Kris said quietly.

"Everybody just sit, calm down and enjoy the steam," said Tal. "Let Master Aksel worry about Maldock."

Tal and Kris immediately abandoned their towels as they sat on the wooden benches in the feverishly humid room. They leant back with evident satisfaction and spread their thighs wide, relaxing into the slippery warmth all around them.

"You said we didn't have to get naked!" complained Pan, parking his towel-clad behind on the bench next to Tal, who was sat opposite Kris.

"Not if you don't want to," said Aksel, sitting down opposite Pan. "But it's only us here. We don't mind if Tal and Kris want to sit in the nude, do we?"

"Guess not…" said Pan.

"Besides," cut in Kris, "You'll have to get naked if you want to go in the tub. Can't take your towel in there!"

Pan sat with his arms crossed against his shiny bare chest and stared at the towel stretched across his thighs.

"Tell you what, Pan," said Aksel, "I'll take mine off if you take yours off. That a deal?"

Pan sighed deeply and thought for a little while longer. "Okay," he said, softly. "Deal."

"Hooray, Pan!" laughed Tal, clapping the smaller boy on the back. "You made it so Aksel has to get naked!"

Pan looked shocked as he processed Tal's reaction, but smirked to himself just as Tal was removing his hand from his back.

"Ready boys?" said Aksel. Kris, next to him, was leant right over, ready to stare at his master's crotch. "Three. Two. One…"

Aksel lifted his rear and threw his towel to one side. The room was filled with gasps and nervous giggles. The temperature rose further.

"That's huuuuuge!" said Pan, eyes bugged.

"Maybe," said Aksel, shrugging, reaching over to push away Kris' head as he leaned far enough over to threaten to fall headfirst into Aksel's lap. "Your turn now."

Pan sucked in his breath, clamped his eyes shut, and quickly threw his towel to one side, sitting on his hands to fight the urge to cover his privates. A pale little worm lay lazily atop his drawn grapes, twizzle of foreskin dangling sheepishly from the end.

"Not so bad?" said Aksel, hoping that Pan wasn't going to sit there rigid with his eyes scrunched shut until he got his towel back.

"You've got a nice one," offered Tal, which at least encouraged Pan to release his breath.

"Yeah," added Kris, enthusiastically. "It's almost the same as mine!"

Pan opened his eyes and realised he was blushing in the steamy heat of the sauna. He slowly let his spine curve and his shoulders relax, lifting off his hands to place them awkwardly at mid-thigh.

"Thanks, guys…" he whispered. He fidgeted on the bench a little. "Don't get staring, though. Only perverts do that."

"Once we're in the hot tub, nobody will even notice," said Aksel, standing up, which drew the boys' attention back away from Pan and onto his elegant adult package. "Me first!"

Chapter 3
Stories

The boys had been left to their own devices in their room. Aksel had ordered food from the inn to be delivered to them for dinner, just before he left to go with Maldock to a bar. The plates and bowls lay in a zigzag pile on the room's only sizeable table, a metal worksurface protruding from the white plaster of the wall. Pan stretched out in the middle of the double bed, pointing his bare feet towards the door and wiggling his toes. He let out a loud, rumbling belch from his sauce-stained mouth, exploding into fitful giggles as soon as he was done. Kris also started laughing, as much in surprise that such a noise had emanated from Pan's diminutive body as anything else. He flopped down onto the bed next to Pan, bouncing bottom first, and leaned his head back onto the younger boy's chest.

"That was a big one," sniggered Kris. "I'm glad it's coming out of that end tonight rather than the other!"

"I don't smell bad!" said Pan, in a playful half-whine, gently pushing Kris' face away.

"Yeah you do!" Kris teased. "All I could smell at night in the bunks on the ship was your ass!"

"You're swearing again!" pouted Pan. "I'm gonna tell Aksel when he gets back."

"So you're not even denying it, then?"

"No!"

"No, meaning you're not denying it? I bet you only wanted to keep your undies on so we wouldn't see the brown patches through the back of your robe pants!"

Pan pushed harder at Kris' head. "Shut it, Kris! I do not poo my pants! Besides, I don't know how you could smell anything at night on the ship when you had your nose on Tal's sniller!"

That was the moment Tal emerged from the bathroom linking their bedroom to Aksel's room, sabre sheath in hand.

"What's this about my sand snake?" he asked, jovially. "You want to see it again, Pan?"

Tal put his hand on the waistband of his freshly cleaned robe bottoms, as if threatening to expose himself to the room. Pan rolled from underneath Kris' head and lay on his front, head against the mattress. "You guys are both perverts," he said, momentarily lifting his head to speak before letting it drop back to the bed with a gentle boing.

"What's up, Pan?" asked Tal. "Kris, have you been teasing him again?"

"I didn't say anything!" protested Kris. "It's not my fault Master's little Pan-Pan is such a cry baby!"

"Don't call me that!" barked Pan.

"Maybe if you weren't a jerk to him so much of the time, he wouldn't react like that," said Tal, frowning at Kris. "Are you okay, Pan?"

"Man, neither of you guys can ever take a joke," muttered Kris, hoisting himself back to his feet. He pushed his way past Tal. "I'm gonna take a shit. It'll be more fun than staying with you guys."

"Who's the cry baby now?" shrugged Tal at the closed bathroom door.

Pan rolled over. "Tal, when will Aksel be back?"

"I dunno," said Tal, sitting down beside Pan. "Probably a few hours. I think that Maldock guy will wanna talk for a long time, and probably drink for even longer."

"I hate him," said Pan. "Why've we gotta do stuff for him? Why can't Master Aksel just kick his ass and send Barry back to his family?"

"I guess… I guess it doesn't work that way," said Tal, leaning back to lie alongside Pan. "Maybe the universe isn't so simple. I trust Master Aksel to get it right. You should too."

"I guess you're right…" mumbled Pan. "Tal? Er… could I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"Will you give me a hug?"

"Of course, buddy!"

"Thanks. That feels good."

"I'm always here to look out for you. Kris too, even if he is a dick sometimes."

"I know."

Pan lay against Tal, snuggled into the teen's taut chest and beneath a gangly arm. Tal still had his sabre in his hand.

"Hey," said Pan. "The changes you made to your lightsabre handle look cool!"

"Thanks, Pan!" smiled Tal. "I'm really happy with how it went."

"Will you and Kris help me change mine if I find some cool parts?"

"You should get Aksel to help. He knows much more about it than any of us."

"I don't want him to think I'm a baby."

Tal laughed. "He doesn't think you're a baby, Pan! Trust me."

There was the sound of a toilet flushing. Soon after, Kris emerged from behind the bathroom door, looking fleecily sheepish. "Okay, Pan; I was wrong," he bleated. "I definitely stink a lot worse than you do. It's all the great food we've had today!"

Pan smirked tightly. Tal screwed up his eyes and nose.

"You forgot you have to share a room with me," said Pan. "I can find lotsa ways to get you back!"

"That's more like it!" grinned Kris.

"Kris, will you close that door?" said Tal, rearing his neck and holding his face like an affronted Ewok. "It smells like a sewer in there!"

"Okay, okay," said Kris, closing the bathroom door. "I opened the door to Aksel's room anyway. Serves him right for hanging with that jerk Maldock."

"I wonder what Barry's doing tonight?" mused Pan.

"Yeah," said Kris. "Poor kid."

"Well…" said Tal, "it'll be a good few hours until Aksel and Maldock come back. What's stopping us bringing him back here?"

"We don't know where Maldock's room is," said Kris. "And even if we did, we couldn't get in."

"We could find a way," said Tal. "We're trained Jedi. Sort of, at least. That's still more than most other people. Think of it like our secret mission."

"I'm in!" gushed Pan. "C'mon Kris. Don't be such a cry baby!"

"You guys are so stupid sometimes," said Kris. "Master Aksel will go crazy when he finds out. I already made his room stink like my crap."

"When has Master Aksel ever gone crazy?" said Pan. "C'mon Kris. We can't go without you. We're a team."

"It'll be fine, Kris," said Tal. "If we're smart, he won't ever suspect a thing."

"Why do I get the feeling I'll be the one to get into trouble?" sighed Kris, shrugging and pushing the release for the bedroom door. "C'mon. Let's go."

***

Maldock left the boy nicely occupied, locked up, and headed to meet Aksel in the lobby. The Jedi was a certified asshole, but Maldock took comfort in the idea that he'd only have to put up with him for another twenty-four hours. He allowed himself a thin, curling smirk as he waited just to the side of the main door. Aksel emerged from a corridor, gave Maldock a salute with two fingers to his temple, and strode to the front desk to make some request. Probably something for his precious boys. Wishy-washy Jedi nonsense. Maldock didn't remotely believe that any of them stood a chance in a real fight, not even the eldest one. Aksel was blatantly only 'training' them to appease his own faltering sense of self-worth. Who'd be a Jedi? Fucking arcane, mystic heap of kaadu dung.

Maldock smiled at Aksel as the Jedi joined him in the doorway. He was as on his guard as he could be; it was obvious Aksel had pulled some sort of funny business on him to convince him to pay for lunch, just as he was about to rip into those thick-headed, ill-disciplined little brats for turning the square into their fantasy warrior playground. Nobody was pulling anything on Maldock again.

"Sorry to keep you waiting," said Aksel. "Had to order some food for the boys."

"No problem. I guessed."

"You like my new outfit?"

Maldock looked Aksel up and down. He'd substituted out his Jedi robes for an equally plain kaftan, giving him more the look of a Tungaran merchant.

"Very good. Going native already. That your stealth training?"

Aksel laughed. "Thought I should make an effort, since by now half the planet must know there are four Jedi running around Tungares," he said. "With the boys safely in their room and me dressed like this, there definitely shouldn't be any trouble tonight."

"Hope you're right."

Maldock took Aksel to a bar two backstreets behind the inn. It was dark, it was quiet, and the one thing its endlessly diverse crowd of patrons had in common was that they very much preferred to be left alone. It was perfect for talking business. They also served excellent finger food if one knew what to ask for at the bar. Tungaran smoked viboe sausage was criminally underrated. If Maldock ever went straight, he'd be exporting it across the galaxy in a heartbeat, and probably rich beyond his teenage wet dreams.

"So, Aksel. Ever seen how tikiar fuck?"

Aksel had bought them both drinks. He was taking a swig of his, sat in the booth facing Maldock, silhouetted against the underlighting of the bar behind him. He choked a little on processing Maldock's question.

"I've seen a tikiar get fucked," said Aksel. "I saw you fucking that young female right before I turned around and left you behind. How did that feel for you?"

"Heh. I never even got to come. Half the males in the fucking savage's tribe had dragged me off before I ever got close."

"She was screaming, Maldock," said Aksel, shaking his head. "You're lucky I didn't decapitate you there and then."

"Fuck you. You know what age those birds start fucking their young? As soon as they show a hint of sexual maturity. Ten. Eight. She was probably a pro already."

"And that makes it okay?" Maldock couldn't see Aksel's eyebrows rising in the low light, but he could hear it in his voice.

"Who the fuck are you to decide what's okay? Because you're Jedi? We were a team! We were on Joralla for the same reason!"

"I was on Joralla to recover the Night Owl and its crew. You were the one after loot and whatever the fuck else. My part was done. You chose to get in too deep." Again, Maldock couldn't see it, but he could hear and feel Aksel's voice that he was shaking his head, probably grimacing with judgemental incomprehension.

"You know how many male tikiarri took their turn fucking me before the Sector Rangers turned up? Five! The girl's father went twice, and the chief was on his third time when I was arrested. Nude and getting fucked up the ass by savages. And you think that's the worst part; the most humiliating part? Oh, no! You know anything about Imperial prison camps, Aksel? Two years I had to wait until the Alliance liberated that sector. Two years! Fucking lucky I had the brains and the skills to get away in all the chaos. And you left me to that shit, Aksel. You left me behind."

Maldock wanted – expected – stunned silence, but he didn't get it. Instead he got the same smarmy, neutral Jedi tone. "Do you expect me to say I'm sorry for what happened, Maldock? Do you expect me to say that I wish that I'd stayed behind and watched you rape that tikiar girl, then killed half her tribe for you? Because I'm not going to say that. You knew where the limits were whenever you signed up to go places with me. You chose to push them. Not me. So you paid the price."

"Fuck yourself."

"Why'd you even bother calling me if you're still so cut up, Maldock? How did you even know where to call?"

"I'll tell you why. But first, I wanna know why you answered. In fact, no. First, I need to know where you got all those kiddies from, and what you've been teaching them to do. Then – and only then – we start talking business. You catch up with me; I catch up with you."

"Where do you want me to start?"

"From the beginning."

***

Pan stood sobbing like a varactyl in front of the thin blue lady occupying the front desk. "But plee-ease miss! I can't sleep without it! But I don't remember which room number Mr. Maldock was in! He wouldn't want me to go without it. I'd cry all night long!"

Tal had to admit it was very impressive. He'd been reluctant to let Kris knee Pan in the balls (twice) beforehand, hidden around the corner from the lobby area in their corridor, but the little lad had put in an award-winning performance to keep the tears flowing and look every molecule the poor, forlorn little boy who had left his soft toy behind in his friend's room.

"Little boy," said the blue woman, using her long neck to draw her head back from Pan, as if unsure whether being a crying child was contagious, "if you left your toy there, why can't you find the room again by yourself?"

"This place is so big and so confusing!" wailed Pan. "I'm scared I'll get lost on my own. I'm only ten!"

"I'm sorry, I really can't give out the details of other guests' rooms."

"That's so unfair!" said Pan. Without warning, he screeched and flopped backward onto the lobby floor, kicking his legs into the air like a rosy-faced dying insect. "Not fair! Not fair! Not fair!"

An insectoid couple passed through the lobby, noticing Pan and negotiating a wide course around him, before giving the receptionist an annoyed compound-eyed stare.

"Okay, okay!" sighed the receptionist. "I'll give you Mr. Maldock's room number. Just get up off the floor and stop crying, please, kid. You're disturbing the other guests."

"I don't care about the other guests!" snapped Pan, banging his fists on the floor as he wiggled his behind and kicked his legs in the air. "I want my ranphyx toy!"

"Alright, you little brat!" said blue. "The Maldock room is A-206. I hope for your sake he's in after all this. Because if I see you again…"

Pan sprang to his feet in a single motion. "Thanks, miss," he sniffled. "Is the room this way?"

"A-block, second storey," she said. "Now get lost."

Pan skipped into the A-corridor and waited around the corner. Tal and Kris gave it a minute before crossing the lobby to join him, emerging from their hiding place midway through a false conversation, Tal smiling sweetly at the receptionist as she eyed them with suspicion. Pan grinned broadly at the older boys as they came into view.

"Great work, Pan!" whispered Kris. "You nailed it!"

"Thanks," blushed Pan. "But why did you have to knee me a second time. That really hurt!"

"You were expecting it the first time," shrugged Kris. "The second time caught you by surprise and made you cry for real."

"Let's worry about picking over our technique later," said Tal. "We need to find Maldock's room before anyone suspects anything. Pan, what did she say the room was?"

"A-206. Second storey."

"Okay," said Tal. "I guess we need to find some way to get up a level."

The A-block did not match the layout of their B-block at all. Sure, the furnishings were the same, but the A-corridor took more twists and turns, while the B-block was a single, linear floor. They soon realised that Pan's played-up fears about getting lost might have been a more convincing answer than they originally thought.

"Guys," said Kris, "what happens if the elevator door is the same as all the room doors?"

All the bedroom doors were solid metal sliders that only responded to the correct key card or fob. They hadn't planned ahead about how they'd deal with Maldock's door, let alone contemplated how to manage a similarly locked passenger lift.

"We'll work it out when we get there," said Tal, turning his head this way and that in search of clues on the hallway walls. "Just keep looking for the right door."

"Found it!" squeaked Pan, breaking into a run towards what was clearly a lift door at the end of the current leg of the A-block corridor. He pressed the call button, and seconds later, the doors slid open. He turned and grinned with excited satisfaction at his older companions.

As soon as the boys had piled into the lift, Tal noticed a problem. "The doors haven't closed," he said. "It's waiting for us to do something."

"I didn't press the button yet," said Pan.

"There are no buttons," said Kris. "Maybe it's voice-operated?"

"Second storey, please," Tal called out. Nothing happened.

"Maybe you gotta say exactly the right words," said Pan. He shouted: "Second floor!"

"Is this one of those places were downstairs is first floor and upstairs is second floor, or one of the other places, where downstairs is ground floor and upstairs is first floor?" asked Kris.

"The blue lady just said second storey," said Pan. "If only R6 were here, he'd break us in in no time!"

"Crap!" grunted Kris. "What do we do now?"

"It must be another key," said Tal, fingering another sensor panel on the inside wall of the lift. "I guess the guests here must really like their privacy. Probably you scan and it takes you only to your own floor."

"Shit!" said Kris, marching from the lift and turning around to stare, hands on hips, back through the open doorway. "What now?"

"There has to be some other way," said Pan. "Cos what if this breaks down?"

"Pan's right," said Tal, leading the boy out of the unmoving lift with him. "Let's see if we can find some other way. There has to be one."

Kris theatrically slumped his chin to his chest and span to look along the next stretch of corridor, stretching away to the left of the entrance to the lift. The rest of the hallways had been surrounded by rooms on both sides. Here, towards the back of the building, Kris had his first sight of the gathering darkness outside. A latticework of metal railings separated the space outside the window from the street beyond. They stretched out of sight above the window.

"Hey!" said Kris. "How about that?"

"It's just a fence," said Pan, frowning. "How does that help us?"

Tal looked up. "Wait a second!" He sprinted to peer through the window. "Kris, you're a genius! It goes all the way up to the glass roof above the street!"

There was a button that slid the pane of the window halfway up, for ventilation purposes. The boys could easily slip their skinny bodies through. Kris guided Pan onto his feet, gently steadying his hips as he slipped through the open window, while Tal craned his head backward to examine the glass ceiling above.

"See that?" said Tal, pointing out a circular hatchway in the roof, slightly further along from the window. "It must be an emergency escape. I bet if I can get it open a ladder even drops down for us!"

"How are you gonna open it?" asked Pan.

"This!" said Tal, drawing his lightsabre. "I can use it one-handed more easily now, see? I just need to climb on the fence and reach across. Then I can easily force the hatch open."

"Woah! You put a handle on it!" said Kris.

"Yeah!" said Tal, swelling with pride. He deactivated the blade and held the new hilt out for the other boys to see. It had a chunky grip all around and a knuckle guard looped around one side. "I attached an old blaster handle to the sabre hilt. Now I can hold it one-handed without worrying about dropping it." He spun the hilt around his index finger until it nearly flew off. "Okay, maybe I still have to work on that part!"

"How're you gonna reach up there, even with one hand?" said Pan. "It's still crazy high up. As high as the upstairs window ledges."

"You guys have to help me," said Tal. "I'll climb up the fence until I can lean across to reach the roof hatch. Kris, you're taller, so you'll have to support my hips to stop me from falling forwards. Pan, you grip my ankles, so I don't lose my grip on the fence."

"Go team," said Kris, sardonically, following Tal into position next to the metal fence. The grid was hard and firm, forming solid diamond shapes easily large enough to accommodate Tal's feet. He began to climb forwards up the fence, facing in the opposite direction from the sky hatch.

"This is the first tricky part," said Tal. "Hold my hips, Kris."

Kris reached up to place his hands limply on Tal's hips, his head almost brushing against Tal's bum.

"Get out of my crack, man! You have to stand back and stretch out or I won't be able to move! Pan, get ready to guide my feet if I miss the gaps!"

Kris sighed and took two big steps back, his arms at full stretch, fingers gripping Tal's hips more meaningfully. Tal let go of his right-hand grip on the topmost part of the fence and stretched his right arm over his left, taking a reverse grip on the other side and opening out his body into a twist. He followed with his right leg, which Pan made sure found its mark below Tal's right hand, on the same row of upturned squares it had come from. Tal used the grip on the right side of his body to quickly lift and swivel his left foot into the same orientation as his right, and finally leaned his pelvis into Kris' hands to adjust the grip on his left hand.

"Whew," he said. "So far, so good. Okay, grip my ankles and hips tight, guys. I'm going to start reaching out, now."

Tal's head was just below the level of the glass roof. He let go of the fence with his right hand and pulled out his sabre. He leaned forward a little and activated it, reaching out in front of him with his right arm. Kris felt more weight shift onto his palms.

"I can't quite reach it!" said Tal. "Kris, I'm gonna have to lean forward more. Whatever you do, don't let go! You too, Pan!"

Tal stretched forward, his robes flowing down either side of Kris beneath him. The fingertips of his left hand clung to the metal of the fence, the blunt edge digging into the thin flesh around his finger bones. He felt Pan's small digits gripping his ankles ever more tightly, fighting to keep his feet from slipping their moorings. The tip of the sabre brushed the glass of the hatchway, raining splinters down on its first pass, then a viscous hail of charred and melted blobs on its second kiss. The gash it created in the glass was ugly; it caused the area around to shatter into a crystalline pattern but didn't do near enough damage to penetrate the chunky material.

"Just a little more!" grunted Tal, stretching every sinew down the right of his body and across his shoulders, his left hand holding on to the metal railings by the barest crests of his fingertips; almost the nails themselves. His right foot popped from its nook, almost kicking Pan in the chest before he could reverse the momentum and force it back into place. Tal felt Kris wobble beneath him as he committed more of his weight to the boy's grip. He felt his crotch press squishily into Kris' face; Kris' breath through the material of his robe bottoms as the lad panted with exertion.

Tal jabbed his sabre at the hatch again, finally toppling the three of them to the ground. Pan skidded on his bottom across the stone floor. Kris landed with a thud on his back, saving his head by sticking out his elbows as shock absorbers. Tal remembered the first safety rule and chucked his sabre at the wall as he careened forward, saving any nasty accidents with Kris down below. It gave him barely any time to think. As the forward hems of his robes touched the ground, Tal finally found his focus, catching himself with a minute upward jerk, then drifting snowflake-light into landing over Kris' sprawled body. He straddled him groin-to-groin.

"Hey," said Tal, smiling crookedly into Kris' eyes.

Kris burst into a fit of giggles beneath him. "Get off me, you great big lummocks! You're like a Wookiee!"

There was a loud click as the roof hatch popped open above them on its sprung hinges, its lock eventually having given up the ghost with a sabre-sized hole burnt clean through the centre of the mechanism. A rusty ladder thudded to the floor like a hollow gong. Rainwater howled in tsunami waves through the gap in the glass.

"Tal! You did it!" squeaked Pan, sat back on his hands.

"I did!" said Tal, rolling off Kris and collecting his lightsabre from the floor. "Shame Aksel will never know."

***

"So fill me in," said Maldock. "Where you been the last ten years? When'd you start babysitting little boys?"

In their shadowy corner of the bar, Aksel took a long, slow sip of his drink, eyeballing Maldock sentry-like across the small, metal table. A creature something like a tall, bipedal seal, in a blue jumpsuit, dragged on a long brass pipe attached to a multi-chambered glass bong, which squatted in bulbous profile between its table and theirs. A mist of chromium smoke wafted overhead.

"Around nine years ago, I infiltrated a slaver base on the planet Iadryn, in the Abulon Junction system," said Aksel. "They were trafficking for the Empire, so I was running sabotage on their operation."

"How noble," smirked Maldock. "Nothing in it for you?"

"After Joralla, there was the Battle of Endor. I made myself known properly to the Rebel Alliance. They needed people who knew their way around all the sand holes and ice balls out here off the beaten track. Their focus was always the core of the Republic, but you know as well as I do you can't have one without the other. It was my first serious mission."

"Great," said Maldock. "But why do I still feel like you're telling me shit about those cute little apprentices you got?"

***

The thing Aksel knew most of all about slavers and pirates was that they always did things on the cheap. Only the most successful gangs and cabals ever get to actually run planets of their own; the rest control outposts rather than worlds or systems. You can't even approach an organised planet without them knowing you're there; set course for a Republic or Empire system and they'll detect the serial number of your thrusters from half a sector away. Pirate outposts are far simpler. They don't have the manpower, the resources, or the technology to see you coming from their blind side. Land far enough away and they can't see you; you just need to cover the distance to their setup by some slower means they won't detect. In Aksel's case, on foot. On Iadryn, a dust ball of craggy, arid steppe.

Getting to the base was the easy part, barring the couple of days of walking. Getting back on the ship after unleashing hell at the base would be the much trickier part. Aksel wasn't too concerned about having to abandon his ship; it was a battered Alliance U-Wing model that had been decommissioned from active service, which they'd disguised as a refitted smuggler for this mission. What would be annoying was losing his brand new R6-series astromech droid with it. At least he could trust it to come and pick him up if he gave the order.

He reached the hills above the base under cover of darkness, as planned. He'd camp for the night and find a way to sneak in at daybreak. And there was always a way. Aksel took off his rucksack and unfurled his sleeping gear under the low cover of the bracken. It was essentially a camouflaged sack, made of some light polymer that made it easy to carry but strong enough to keep out the elements. Once he was concealed inside, it would take some effort – or unbelievable twist of chance – on the part of the slavers to find him. He checked his plan of the compound on a little holographic projector. Tried to memorise some of the key features of the layout in case he lost it the next day or didn't have time to check it in a tight spot. The rest of his gear for the mission would be stuffed back into the bag and abandoned to the bracken forever, as soon as the sun rose and the infiltration began.

The base squatted on an area of flat grassland as if it didn't really want to be there. Its matte grey prefab material clashed moodily with the yellow of the plains. A hump on its middle housed a landing pad for their one reasonably large ship and a few smaller ones. It was supposedly only escort class, in reality, but size is relative when attacking practically defenceless planets. The rest of the base stretched out in a dull blob, low on all sides compared to the high-walled bay in the middle. It wasn't all that large, but inside it would be buzzing with slavers and trapped civilians. Like diving into an insect hive.

Getting in was in fact remarkably simple. Aksel approached the rear gate under the cover of a long, powdery crag, presumably a first line of defence from anything big trying to attack them from behind. The guards didn't see him until too late. A Force push on a bulging, transparent lens shattered the sensor device set into the wall, rendering Aksel invisible to any security watching from inside – if anyone was – before he pulled the stun blaster he was carrying alongside his sabre. The two guards were out cold on the floor almost before they'd begun to turn to face him. He dragged one of their hands to the key panel and thanked them for scanning him inside as the heavy door slid open with a baritone grumble.

Approaching from the rear meant no company inside the doorway. No checkpoint, no reception party, just a dimly lit grey corridor. Aksel took a moment to refocus. The mission was straightforward: disrupt as much as you can; sabotage if possible. Anything was a bonus, but he hadn't come all this way just to smash some crockery and decapitate a few service droids. He went back over the plan he'd formulated and reformulated a hundred times on his walk from the ship. Work out how the prisoners are kept. Find a way to release the doors. Sabotage their take-off systems while they're tied down with a mass prisoner revolt. Call in R6 to escape in a blaze of destructive glory. Just a matter of not worrying about the hundreds of things that could go wrong.

He thought again of the holographic plan of the base layout. The area for keeping prisoners seemed to be on the west side of the complex, which would now be over somewhere to Aksel's right. This would be the first stop. Sneak around and try to see how the locks work. Hope that there's a way to break them all at once. He reached the end of the dull corridor and turned right.

Aksel immediately bounced into two gangly, chest-height service droids, which skittled into the walls either side of him. They panicked; began making loud noises and trying to open comms. Aksel pulled his lightsabre and knocked the triangular head of the nearest droid a hundred metres down the corridor with his first swipe. He held out a hand to keep the other Force pinned, writhing against the far wall, unable to function enough to raise the alarm. Seconds later it had a smoking round hole through the middle of the processing units in its chest. It flopped to the floor with a hollow clank.

He made his way to the western side of the base much more carefully after that. Aksel had timed things to make sure there were as few people around as possible. This early in the morning, most slavers were probably sleeping off the latest heavy night somewhere in the living quarters of the base, only droids and guards posted to key positions left to watch the warren of rooms and corridors. There was no natural light within the base, but Aksel knew he hadn't been there long. It was still early and quiet all around.

The first challenge in scouting out the slavers' prison was getting past the three guards stood at what must have been the main entrance to the wing. They wore the rough 'uniform' of this particular piratical gang; brown hide leathers and loose combat clothes, blasters slung lazily over each of their shoulders. They chatted casually amongst themselves as Aksel stole peering glances around the corner of the corridor junction.

They laughed in unison. Their conversation carried down the corridor. They were talking sex; whores. Aksel, for his part, was far from convinced the people they were talking about were getting paid, nor willingly offering a service. Eventually, after a couple of minutes and a couple more rounds of cackling, the conversation began to ebb. One guard asked the others if they wanted a drink. Was this Aksel's chance? In his excitement, he felt as if something tugged at the front of his mind and tickled his heartstrings. He smiled, barely stifling a giggle.

Aksel watched in the yellow light of the grimy corridor, as the guard made his way towards him, past Aksel's hiding place, onwards through an automatic sliding door to a side room. Aksel checked the coast was clear and skidded after the guard, who barely even reacted on hearing the door slide open again behind him.

"No need to follow, Boz. I know the machine can be a bit iffy, but I've got this covered. You know what the chief'll say if they see only one of us at the post."

Aksel crept up behind him, treading carefully on the balls of his feet, leaning ever closer in a widening arc, until he was almost in the guard's ear. He was taller than the guard, especially with him bending slightly to operate the vending machine, so Aksel leaned in tentatively, craning over as if he wanted to examine the guard only from a safe distance, but found him too tantalising not to see closer. He raised his eyebrows, widened his eyes, and opened his mouth, breathing down the neck of the guard's heavy leather jacket.

"I am Boz," he whispered.

"You are Boz," repeated the guard, slowly, enunciating the sounds.

"You will remind me how to access prisoner storage."

"Slaves are kept in the holding pens behind the blast doors," the guard said robotically, as if the information was being drawn from him using his voice as a vidiprinter. "We set the controls to open and close the electromagnetic locks."

"How can…" Aksel felt his head begin to swim a little as he struggled to keep his focus. Either this guard was a tough nut, or he was getting horribly out of practice at this. The guard twitched but didn't turn; Aksel felt a pressure building in his temples but managed to pin his focus back on the side of the guard's head. "How might we open and close all the doors at once?"

"Emergency c-c-command c-console," stuttered the guard, rocking his shoulders a little as if he was about to turn around. "Only the seniors know the lo- LOCATION! A-and oper-ATING s-status!"

"Shit the bed," said Aksel, only belatedly realising he'd spoken it out loud. And closed his eyes.

"Wha?" said the guard. Liquid was flowing freely over his outstretched hand at the vending machine, the vessel he was holding long since overflowed. He tottered once, twice, then span around. "Wait a sec– oh!"

Aksel's vision was spotty, like he'd fallen headfirst from a skyscraper. He really hadn't expected this to be so hard. Either he was losing it, or something was very wrong here. He didn't even realise that he'd automatically drawn his lightsabre until a minute later, when his vision finally cleared, and his body began to regain sensation. Then he felt the weight and resistance on his arm, like poking wire through butter. He'd drawn his weapon and run the guard straight through as he turned around. Now the man slumped limply on the plasma blade, the sour smell of his flesh searing, blackening, and crumbling in an ever-wider circle filling the small room.

Shit. Thought Aksel, hilting his blade. That's gonna be a real mess when they come looking for him. He grabbed the overfull cup of drink and downed it in one. He felt at least a little refreshed as he crept back out into the corridor, still too tired to even consider a Force dash out of there.

Aksel wandered around without any sense of direction. Fuck! Why couldn't he think straight? He had to find the emergency command console and make it do at least something. What that something was seemed to escape the tips of his fingers and tongue no matter how many corners of his mind he chased it around. He clattered into two more droids, security models, and sliced one in two, barely aware of what his arms and legs were doing. The other exploded by itself, its initial shot having rebounded from Aksel's downstroke straight back into its chest. This was ridiculous. He was going to get himself killed. He had no idea where he was going anymore, but his feet dictated their own pattern, weaving this way and that, feet sometimes turning inwards on themselves, hips swinging. Walking like a fucking toddler.

He rounded another corner and was immediately spotted by two more guards. He had his stun gun at the ready, fisting it sideways to fire off the first blast. The guard hit the metal deck, twitching like giant millipede legs. Aksel had Force pulled the other guard towards him. He smashed the guy's head into the metallic grey wall. Once. Twice. Something about his parents flashed across the front of his mind, a wave of wordless fury. But it couldn't have been. Aksel couldn't even remember his parents. He flowed momentarily through the recesses of his mind, half-headed. Master Yoda. His clan. The Gathering. Master So-Hata-Miri. Aksel's head and shoulders felt lighter and more mobile. He realised he was holding a guard by the scalp, the man's grey, leathery face disfigured, the wall stained crimson. Aksel gasped and hopped backward, dropping the dead Delphidian to the floor.

Aksel took deep breaths, feeling that he could taste the air more strongly; feeling that the light seemed clearer and brighter. What were these two men guarding? Another set of blast doors. Aksel Force lifted the Delphidian, just to prove he could, and – with no small satisfaction – held the man's hand to the scanner as his corpse floated in mid-air. Aksel felt something pull at him again, almost as if it wanted to draw him through the solid doors. This time, Aksel was ready. He resisted the pull. The blast doors slid apart. He stepped through.

Another identical corridor. Rooms coming off either side, with automatic doors. There was something different about this place, though. The rooms had windows that looked out onto the corridor (or, rather, did the corridor have windows that looked in on the rooms?); all seemed oddly still. And there was that feeling again, like something was trying to pull at his insides; all of his most sensitive places under assault. But it didn't have the strength anymore.

Aksel crept along the corridor. The rooms were empty save for consoles and computer banks; Aksel made sure to check every window before daring to push further. Some way further along the passageway, there were suddenly gaps in the walls on either side. Aksel thought from a distance that it was simply a corridor junction, but as he drew closer, he realised that the way on either side was barred; the passage only continued ahead. The sensation of being pulled at from the inside out – of being kneaded, like a kitten on its mother – only grew stronger as he tiptoed, body alert, inching forwards. To the left, nothing; just an empty barred room. He shifted his balance to his left, moving away from the right side of the corridor to bring the opposite room more into view. There was light coming from the room – the barred cell on the right. There was definitely something there.

Aksel almost laughed out loud when he saw what was inside. At the back corner of the cell, walls the same matte grey as across the whole compound, was a clapped-out mattress covered in rags. In the middle of the room, sat with his knees drawn into his chest and his eyes closed, was a little human boy, probably no more than five or six years old at the most. He sat naked on the cold metal floor. Aksel didn't blame him; his bed looked so soiled that Dagobah algae wouldn't want to touch it.

"I heard you coming," said the boy, opening his eyes and peering over his knees at Aksel.

"I didn't make any noise. You didn't hear a thing," said Aksel, waving his hand at the boy's face. "You'll go back to sleep."

"You did too!" protested the boy, narrowing his eyes at Aksel. He wondered how the boy could see like that; his blue eyes were already thin and his cheekbones high. With his eyes pursed closed, it was like looking at two lashed slits. "You made so much noise. Splash, splash, splash! Splash!" He emphasised the last one by flicking all his fingers out at once.

Aksel felt it again, the pulling and clinging. His mind raced as he began to make sense of what the boy was telling him. "You heard me splashing? Where did you hear that?"

"You know!" the boy whined. "You like to move your hands and play tricks. You don't know it makes so much noise. Stupid!"

Aksel squatted as close to the bars as he could get. "What's your name?" he asked.

"Talep," the boy said. He cocked his head at Aksel and eyed him curiously. He placed his hands either side of his bottom and unfurled his legs, evidently feeling a little more comfortable. "What's yours?"

"My name's Akselos," said Aksel. "How old are you, Talep?"

"Four," he said. His tone had changed; he sounded brighter. He flashed Aksel a quick nervous smile, then quickly looked away.

"Wow!" Aksel said. "Four? But you're such a big boy for four!"

"Thanks!" said Talep, flashing a cheeky grin. But it was true. Aksel thought the boy had been a little older, and his arms and legs, especially stretched out as they were, seemed far too long for his ragdoll body.

"Where did you hear me splashing, Talep? I mean, which part of your body did you hear it with? Because you don't mean your ears, do you?"

"I think…" started Talep, pulling at his bottom lip with an index finger as he tried to work out how best to express himself. "I think it was, maybe, in my tummy." He rubbed it so as to make himself clear. "Tingles in my tum, like something fun or bad was gonna happen. Or like I was gonna burp!"

"I get it," said Aksel. "I feel things like that too."

"I know," said Talep. "So does she. The lady. That's why I had to make you quiet."

"Make me quiet? How?"

"I sat and I imagined who was making all the splishy-splashes," said Talep. He opened his arms and sighed. "I got nothing else to do in here."

Aksel's heart started pumping on quantum time, a beat per chronon, as he felt the full realisation come to him. The boy's power was obvious. He could feel it. Easily as strong as he had been as a youngling, if not more. And this four-year-old – four-year-old – was explaining to him in his own childish way that he had Force melded with him without any mechanical aids or training. It was almost beyond understanding.

"You imagined that I'd come here and find you, didn't you, Talep?"

"I'm sorry. I made us do bad things, didn't I? But it was too scary!" He got on all fours and crawled to the cell bars to whisper up to Aksel: "I had to hide all your splashes, so the lady didn't hear them too!"

Aksel reached out to cradle the boy's head through the bars of the cell, touching him for the first time. His hair was blond, but filthy. It made Aksel's hand slippery with grease. "Who's the lady, Talep?" he asked. "Which lady will hear us?"

Talep stood up and reached to cling to Aksel's arm through the bars, just too narrow for him to slip his head and body through. "She's a bad lady," he whispered.

"Did she hurt you?" asked Aksel. He wasn't sure why, but he felt warm, fiery prickles of rage wave through his torso again as he asked.

Talep nodded and pushed his cheek against Aksel's hand. "She hurt us all," he said. "I hate her."

"I know it's scary," whispered Aksel, stroking the boy's face with his thumb. "But we have to push those bad feelings away now. We have to get you out of here. The lady is like us, right? She hears the splashes too? She heard you?"

"Yeah," whimpered Talep. "But she don't splash as much as you. You're strong, aren't you, Assless?"

"Call me Aksel," he chuckled. "Now let me find the way to let you out."

"Hurry, Assel! She's gonna come!"

Aksel felt it too. He tried to contain his panic. Someone must have seen the unholy mess he'd made and raised the alarm. Possibly that prick Boz. Whoever this 'lady' was, he could feel her fury; he could sense her, and the posse of slavers, coming their way. She was also clearly a Force-sensitive of decent pedigree. Working with slavers for the empire. And she'd been clever enough to find this poor boy, and bad enough that he was clearly terrified of her. That all pointed to one place, and it was somewhere very bad indeed. They had to get out.

The thing about the emergency command console came crashing back into Aksel's head as he searched for some release mechanism for Talep's door. It must have been in one of those control rooms he passed before. The room next to Talep's cell produced nothing; just databanks and security screens, including a broken, buzzing display of his handiwork from the back entrance. The opposite room was the jackpot. There, amongst an array of consoles locked down and requiring authentication, was the emergency command. The trouble was, it was also locked down.

Without a droid, or any time to think, Aksel did what was the one thing any sane person surely would do. He took out his big purple sword and used it to burn a huge hole through the centre of the computer until the electronics buzzed and cracked, filling the room with foul, acrid smoke. Nothing happened. Aksel pounded at the machine with his lightsabre again. Still nothing. That was it. He'd failed. Crackling with white-hot frustration, he Force slammed the entire array, tiny fragments of polymer and silicon shrapnel exploding in all directions and fizzing through the air.

That was when the klaxon began to sound. It took Aksel a few milliseconds to realise it wasn't in his head. Critical system damage. Emergency override active. Doors disengaged. Hangar systems disengaged. Shields disengaged. Critical system damage. Emergency override active. Aksel laughed out loud to himself in the smoke-ridden room. It was only the sound of blaster fire and shouting through the now wide-open blast doors, and the off-key clank of boots on metal, that reminded him that he still had to evacuate a four-year-old from a hostile base.

The bars of Talep's cell had retracted to the ceiling. The naked boy stood uncertainly in the screaming uproar of the corridor, pinching his prepuce with the forefinger and thumb of his right hand. Hangar systems disengaged.

"Assel!"

"Come on buddy!" Aksel squatted before Talep. "Jump right up. Hold on to me and don't let go. If you feel yourself begin to slip, just close your eyes and imagine being strong enough to hold on. Trust me?"

Talep nodded and jumped onto Aksel's back, holding him tight around his collarbones. There was crashing at the blast doors where this corridor met the last.

"Nobody move!"

Aksel immediately disobeyed. He turned and ran in the opposite direction down the passageway, not knowing where he was going, but thumb pumping at the alert button that communicated to R6 to come fetch him on the pre-programmed escape route. Blaster fire followed, but his legs taunted it as they carried him safely away. With the human shield of their most valuable captive on his back, there was no way the slavers would dare aim any higher.

"He has the boy; they're headed that way!"

"After him!" a female voice shouted. "But make sure you bring me the boy alive!"

"Captain Tarvus, Ma'am! Reports of mutiny in the holding pens. All the stock is loose!"

"Reinforce the prisons. There are enough of us here to deal with one intruder. He has nowhere to run!"

The pursuers were gaining ground on Aksel, laden as he was even with Talep's relatively light weight. He found it more prudent to adopt a defensive pose, walking backward with his lightsabre held out before him in his left hand, stun blaster in his right. Shields disengaged. Critical system damage. Aksel deflected a blaster shot into the wall and tried to return fire with his stun gun. It jammed. Another blaster shot zipped just wide of his right knee. He threw the stun blaster at his nearest assailant instead. They dodged straight into the path of friendly blaster fire from behind, plummeting knee-first to the floor like the victim of a stab to the back. One down, how many to go?

Talep had his head buried in Aksel's neck. Two more blaster shots came their way. One deflected off Aksel's lightsabre into the floor, the other pinged straight back at its source. Another slaver hit the floor.

"She's coming!" Talep desperately whispered at the back of Aksel's head. Aksel already knew. He could feel it too, after all.

"Don't worry," he whispered, parrying more blaster fire, this time upwards at the ceiling. "We make bigger splashes, remember?"

The woman – Captain Tarvus – emerged through the smoke and the throng of slaver guards at the far end of the passageway. Aksel got his first good look at her as she stepped through her men's lines, emerging cockily into the milky light, pulling a red weapon. A short lightsabre. She was tall and thin; wore a red jumpsuit. Her buzz-cut hair was dark, black as the void, contrasting sharply against her ghostly pale skin. Her narrow face broke into a sneer as she saw Aksel stood, purple sabre cocked defensively, Talep clinging to his back.

"Well," she said, "this is a surprise."

Talep whimpered. Aksel felt the grip on his shoulders loosen. He quickly hauled the boy back in place by his wrists. Don't fall, Talep. Don't you dare fall. Just keep imagining you're strong.

Tarvus took a step forward. "A Jedi Knight? Now, that is a rare and illustrious presence." She broke eye contact for a second, gazed at the floor, and chuckled to herself. She stared back into Aksel's eyes; victory sneer plastered across her face. "No, that's not right, is it? You can't be old enough to have finished your training when the Jedi fell. You're still… nothing. Isn't that right, padawan."

She's trying to distract me. Aksel might only have been a teenager when his training was cut short, but that was surely more training than she'd ever had. That's why she's talking. She knows she can't take me. She wants to provoke me into a mistake.

"So what happened?" said Tarvus. "Did you run and hide while all your brothers and sisters died fighting? Were you so useless that your master sent you away?"

Aksel breathed calmly, in and out; held his stance and her gaze. Talep was sobbing into his neck. He could feel the trickle of tears, and the stickiness of the boy's nose on his skin from the snot. The fire from the slavers had ceased. They were awaiting her orders.

"Speak!" she bellowed.

Out of the corner of his eye, Aksel noticed the spot where he had parried blaster fire at the ceiling. A large, cuboidal ventilation pipe was hanging precariously by a now heavily damaged bracket. He opened his mouth as if to respond to Tarvus. She raised her eyebrows. Her ash-grey eyes betrayed her excitement. Aksel raised his hand. He exhaled. Then he closed his mouth in a little smile and nod, and brought the metal piping crashing down between them. The blaster fire started up again as he turned and ran with Talep into the next chamber, but their aim was haphazard, and they stood no chance of reaching him through the chaos. There was a call for them to stand down.

"He's mine!"

Aksel realised he'd run into a dead end. He desperately searched for some inspiration, some clue as to how they might yet escape. Still the klaxon blared, and the robotic voice repeated. Emergency override active. Doors disengaged. Hangar systems disengaged. Shields disengaged. He was looking for the source of the sound somewhere on the walls and ceiling, when he spotted something else. A hatch! If he could get it open, they could escape to the rooftop where R6 would be waiting for them! Hangar systems disengaged. Shields disengaged. They'd never be able to get the escort ship in the air fast enough without their usual ground support. Without the shields, there was nothing between them and R6 if they could get onto the roof. And if they got the little ships in the air, well, they'd just have to hope their own shields held out until they could sprint away.

As he was thinking, Aksel was aware of the clanking of heavy boots landing on mesh metal deck somewhere behind him. Tarvus had hurdled the huge obstacle of the downed pipe as if it wasn't there. She was coming for them.

There was no manual opening mechanism on the ceiling hatch, but there was a lock device clearly engaged on one side. If Aksel could just do enough damage to it, the hatch should swing open. But it wasn't easy to reach, at full stretch, with one hand having to hold onto Talep as the boy constantly slipped down his back with no strength to cling on any longer.

The tip of the sabre brushed the metallic surface of the hatchway, raining sparks down on its first pass, then a viscous hail of charred and melted blobs on its second kiss. It wasn't enough. There was no way he'd get it to budge like this.

"Give the boy to me, Jedi!"

Aksel felt a pull at Talep's little frame on his back. Tarvus was trying to Force pull the little boy to her. However, just as Aksel had suspected, she was lacking in training and practice. He was easily stronger. He kept Talep in place.

"There's no escape. You may as well hand him over now. Save us having to damage him."

Aksel reached for the hatch again, but still could only cause sparks. He tried to resist Tarvus' pull on Talep. The little boy gasped and whined from the forces acting on his body. As Aksel tried to reach up again, he was just momentarily distracted enough to lose his grip on Talep, Tarvus roaring with victory as she felt her grip on the boy tighten and Talep slingshot towards her. But then yet another strange thing happened. Screaming, Talep must have tried to resist the pull too. His leg caught around Aksel's neck, and when he finally pinged loose, he was rotating at high speed through the air towards the unguarded Tarvus. He landed on her shoulders, chest to face, and immediately clung to her head, beating it with little balled fists in a full-blown tantrum.

Tarvus shrieked and dropped her weapon. Aksel immediately grabbed for it, drawing it into his free hand.

"Bad lady!" shouted Talep, still landing blows. "Bad, mean lady!"

Aksel leapt upwards, holding both lightsabres together. With both blades penetrating the lock mechanism directly, Aksel punched straight through to the brightening morning sky outside. Tarvus' short, red weapon sparked and extinguished, the hilt dropping to the floor, smoking and steaming.

"Here we go, buddy!" shouted Aksel, Force pulling Talep back to him. He didn't get a second look at Tarvus' face before jumping himself and the boy clean through the centre of the hole, which, he reflected, was a shame, but not necessary. He was running free with an unexpected prize across the rooftops of the slavers' base, while all around him their operation was in disarray. He didn't need to imagine his counterpart's humiliation.

"Assel, we got free!" squeaked Talep, bouncing with excitement in Aksel's arms, pressed against his chest.

"We did!" said Aksel. He pointed to the far end of the base, just ahead of them. "Look, buddy! That's my ship, see?"

"Wow-ee!" whistled Talep. "I'm gonna go in there?"

"Yeah!" said Aksel. "Wait a second. How come you're all wet?"

"I went wee-wee on the bad lady," said Talep. "She was a naughty lady."

"Good boy," Aksel laughed. "You did so well in there. So, so well."

***

"I found Tal at the slavers' base on Iadryn," said Aksel. "They were holding him by himself."

"What the hell did they want with a tiny kid to separate him from the other slaves?" said Maldock.

The bar was getting busier. A group of youngsters was stood at the bar doing smoked viboe sausage and shots of clear alcohol, making plenty of noise. Aksel leaned forward in his seat.

"I went looking for their computer override systems to sabotage their base; hopefully start a mutiny," Aksel said. "They were keeping him in a secret cell there behind extra security. They could tell he was special."

"How?"

"There was a woman there, a Force-sensitive," said Aksel. "She was working for the Empire. I think she fancied herself as Sith. She was going to break him and turn him into a weapon."

Maldock smiled. "So you thought you'd get in there and do it instead?"

Aksel didn't react. "Better a weapon than a plaything," he said, shrugging his shoulders.

Maldock chuckled coldly. "You're right. Maybe I shouldn't judge."

"Anyway, I don't think he remembers much of what happened. Just that he was taken from his home and I rescued him."

***

The driving rain had quickly soaked the boys' freshly laundered clothing through as they made their way across the slippery glass roof. The upstairs emergency escape that led to their hatchway was only a few metres from where they emerged from the ladder, but it took an inordinate amount of time to reach it, struggling for grip on the slick surface underfoot.

Tal Force pushed the door open, hoping it wouldn't set some alarm off. It didn't. It was just an old-fashioned door, evidently not connected to the electronics so as to still work in an emergency, when they could be down. The boys stepped inside, dripping lakes onto the floor.

"Pan, go down the hallway and find the room," said Tal. "Remember how many doors down it is and which side it's on. Then come back."

"Okay!" chirped Pan, happy to be given a task. He jogged off down the hallway.

"Why are we waiting here?" said Kris.

"Do you have any idea how to get one of these doors open?" said Tal.

"No."

"That's why we're going through the window."

Pan came sprinting back, leaving a trail of water everywhere he went. 206 was on the nearside, three rooms down. The boys returned through the emergency exit and counted along the windows until they were sure they had the right one.

"These windows aren't very secure," said Kris.

"Who would they be expecting to be up here?" said Tal. "Anyway, that's a good thing for us."

Tal tried to push the window open with his hands, but it wouldn't budge. It may not have been fancy, but it was still locked.

"It's not moving," said Pan. Tal politely ignored him. He tried to concentrate, and Force push the window open.

"How do we know it's the right room?" said Kris. "The curtain's closed."

"The light's on inside!" said Pan. "That must mean Barry is in there!"

"Shh!" grunted Tal, still unable to budge the window. "Neither of you are helping!"

"Sorry, Tal," said Pan.

"Kris, can you try and move the bolt of the lock while I push the window open? You're better with smaller things."

"Say it!" teased Kris.

"Stop fooling around! This is serious!"

"I want you to say it," laughed Kris.

"Alright, alright," conceded Tal. "I'm too clumsy. We need someone more… nimble to open the lock."

"Any time, brother," said Kris.

"You're getting it tonight for that," whispered Tal under his breath.

For thirty seconds nothing happened. Kris was staring at the little circular lock on the window with his brow furrowed, rotating his outstretched wrist. Then there was a click. The window slid open a little under Tal's telekinetic encouragement. Pan squeaked and dove for the gap, forcing it open with the pressure of his body and nearly taking the curtains down as he tumbled through. Kris and Tal followed, much more carefully.

They were definitely in the right room. That much was made clear by Pan's whimpering gasp as soon as he got clear of the curtain. Tal was in right behind, ready to protect Pan from whatever it was that had frightened him. What he saw gave him the creeps too.

Barry was on all fours in a corner of the bedroom. He was completely naked but for his collar; his wrists and ankles bound to the floor. So far, so slave. But the rest of the setup was like something from a torture scene in a bad holo-movie. Barry was tied down in front of a machine. The machine was essentially just a single piston, sliding back and forth. Sometimes faster, sometimes slower; sometimes longer, sometimes shorter. The piston was driving itself in and out of the little boy's rear end. The flexing of his fingers and toes – the only parts of his body he could move – indicated his profound discomfort. Something forced into his mouth prevented him from expressing it vocally, had there been anyone to hear him.

"Fuck!" gasped Kris, stood open mouthed at Tal's shoulder. Pan shook and bounced on the spot.

"His sniller!" he cried. "Look what Maldock did. Get it out of him, Tal!"

Pan was right. Maldock had done something to Barry's little worm. There was a clear tube running from inside the end of his dick to the thing that had been forced in his mouth. It looked like there was yellow liquid inside it. Tal's stomach leaped and groaned.

"Kris, turn the machine off!" ordered Tal, scooting down on his knees to get beside Barry. "It's okay, Barrakad. We've come to get you out of here."

"I can't look anymore!" said Pan. He bundled past Kris and bent over the bed. There was the sound of heaving and retching, then the thud-thud-thud of something landing on the bed. Kris had the machine turned off.

"I did it!" he looked around. "Shit, Pan! You just puked right in the middle of Maldock's bed!"

Pan groaned and let another dribble of vomit release from his stomach. He spat, twice. Kris was rubbing his back.

"You okay, Pan?" he said. "That's so fucking nasty! Maldock is gonna hit the roof! Nice work!"

Tal had the tube thing released from Barry's sniller. It had been accompanied with more twisting and clawing of his fingers and toes, but, Tal thought, it had to be done sooner or later. He released the thing from the boy's mouth, too. He found it was shaped a bit like a penis, with a hole through the middle that the tube fed into. Someone had put sick, disgusting levels of planning into this.

"It's okay Barry," said Tal, stroking the boy's head as he panted and sniffled. "You don't mind us calling you Barry?"

Barry shook his head. Tal smiled and ruffled his hair. He looked around to see Kris still rubbing Pan's back as he bent over the bed.

"Kris, come help me release Barry!"

It was a very simple job. It turned out the bonds released with a simple push of a button. But of course, the person bound up couldn't do it themselves while they were locked inside. Barry crawled up into Tal's arms and began to sob.

"You're okay now, we've got you," said Tal, cuddling the younger boy. He wondered how much of Barry's reaction was humiliation from having been found like that, as much as pain and relief. He knew he would be mortified if he had been discovered on some sort of sex machine, even if he'd been put there by Force.

"Eww, this fake dick is covered in feathers," said Kris, poking gingerly at the rear piston with the end of his sabre hilt. "Fucking sick, guys."

Pan had regained control of his stomach and leapt to his feet. He growled at the top of his voice, activated his lightsabre and brought it crashing down on the piston, shearing it clean off. Kris had to grab him by the arms to stop him bringing it down again and again on the body of the machine.

6"Pan, you psycho!" he hissed. "You're gonna get us in so much trouble when Maldock sees this!"

"I don't care!" shouted Pan, beginning to sob as Tal scrambled to take him in his arms, pulling his weapon away from him. "I hate him! I hate Maldock and I hate slavers! I want them all to die!"

"Shh, munchkin, just take a deep breath," said Tal, easing Pan against his chest and stroking his back down to the tops of his bum cheeks. "Let the bad feelings go."

"Don't call me that!" sniffled Pan. "I'm not a baby!"

Tal laughed. "You'll always be munchkin to me, even when were both a hundred! You're my little bro!"

Pan leaned back, looking into Tal's eyes through his red, tear-streaked face. "I'm sorry, Tal. It's just…"

"I know, Pan. We just have to fight it. Trust that it all works out."

Pan nodded and leaned his head back into Tal's chest.

"We're all here with you," said Tal, holding Pan to him with his fingertips planted in the back of the boy's brown hair.

Kris had decided to give Barry a cuddle, since he was still upset too. "You okay? How's your sniller?" he said, reaching down to stroke Barry's sore and swollen-looking appendage.

Barry smiled at Kris' touch, but the term didn't translate properly. He looked confused for a second. "Typpi?" he offered. That didn't translate either.

"I'll call it typpi if you call it sniller," joked Kris, giving it a little rub with his thumb and forefinger again.

Barry evidently got it. "Sniller!" he said.

"Typpi!" responded Kris, grinning.

"Okay, everybody ready?" said Tal. "Barry, do you have some clothes to put on? We can't take you away naked."

"Why not?" said Kris. Tal gave him a look that told him in no uncertain terms to shut up. Pan gave him a death stare.

"Because it's hardly fair on Barry," said Tal. "Pan, help Barry get dressed."

"Okay," said Pan, letting go of Tal, before grabbing him in a quick side hug again. "You're the best leader, Talep."

"Thanks, munchkin," smiled Tal. "Go help Barry."

Kris made his way over to where Tal was standing. They leaned into each other and rested their heads together.

"I don't get it," whispered Kris. "Why would you buy someone just to torture them?"

"Maldock is obviously a sick bastard," said Tal. "I hope Master Aksel knows what he's doing."

"Do you trust him?"

"Master Aksel, yeah. Always. Maldock…"

"Barry doesn't have any shoes or socks!" called Pan, breaking the older boys' powwow.

"I'll carry him," said Tal. "We should go across the rooftop anyway. No way can we go past the front desk again with a slave. 'Specially not after the job you did on the receptionist, Pan."

The boys arranged themselves and climbed back through the window. It was dark, and still raining.

"We got you free, buddy," whispered Tal to Barry, as he held the smaller boy to his chest.

***

"So what about the other two?" said Maldock.

"Similar story for the middle one, Kris," said Aksel.

The smoker next to them had been replaced by two Delphidians, deep in conversation. Aksel was reminded again of his first encounter with Tal, and how little of it he'd ever given away to anyone, not even the boy himself.

"You bust him out of jail as well?"

"Nah," Askel said, waving an arm dismissively and nearly knocking his drink over. "I was on this moon, with Tal. He was around seven or eight. There was a slave market."

"Again?"

"I promise my life doesn't entirely revolve around slaves," said Aksel.

"Out here," replied Maldock, pointing upwards, "everyone's lives revolve around slaves."

"Anyhow, Kris had been separated from his family, and this… thing, was trying to sell him."

"Respectful."

"He was an insect of some sort," said Aksel. "Anyway, he didn't fall for the old you will give me the boy trick, once Tal and I had both sensed he was Force-sensitive. I had to bust him out. They'd already chipped him, but luckily since he didn't have an owner yet, it wasn't active."

"Those stupid fucking chips. Waste of time and money. I've never had a slave escape me, and that's with old-fashioned control and discipline, not these fucking exploding chips."

"Yeah, so Kris was about six when I got him," said Aksel. "Just the right age to start training. I wish he was more confident in himself. I guess it was hard starting alongside Tal being older and more capable."

"I don't give a shit," said Maldock. "Tell me about the little one. The cute guy who always goes around with a face like a slapped backside."

"When Tal and Kris were ten and nine, we went to Kriboziah for them to gather crystals to build their first real lightsabres. They have small amounts there, deep in caves beneath their highest mountains."

"Sounds beautiful," said Maldock. "What happened?"

"The boys successfully gathered their kyber crystals. We stayed in one of the main towns. There isn't a huge population on Kriboziah; there isn't a lot there. There was this family, the Odores. They were merchants in this town, ran a big import and export store. When they heard there was a Jedi in town, they insisted on hosting."

"So far, so bullshit backwater planet," said Maldock. "What actually happened?"

"They had this son. Seven years old. He was great fun. We could tell right away that he must be a sensitive too. I told the parents and offered to train him. They said we could stay and live with them as long as we earned our keep; the boys worked in the shop front occasionally, and I trafficked freight in my ship from time to time. They knew this mechanic who fixed it up. She was incredibly talented–"

Maldock cut Aksel off. "So this is why you wanted to go after the slavers. You've got people to rescue. Same old Jedi."

"I assumed you knew," said Aksel. "Why else would you have asked me out of the blue?"

Maldock sniffed. "Coincidence. I knew jack shit about what you've been getting up to."

"Shut your mouth," said Aksel. "Drink?"

"Same again," said Maldock, and drained his glass.

***

The four boys sat together on the double bed in their room. More food had arrived shortly after they returned. Master Aksel must have known they'd be hungry again before bed. He thought of everything. They'd stripped down to their underwear to eat, their clothes drying on one side of the room. Kris started a burping competition. And won. He put his arm around Barry, sat next to him stuffing his face like a starving boy.

"I used to be a slave once, too."

"No you didn't!" said Tal. "I was there. You were never sold."

"Yeah, but I was gonna be a slave," said Kris. "I mean, if you and Aksel had never got there."

"How old were you?" asked Barry. Kris thought Barry had a sweet voice, even if he couldn't understand anything he said with it. It was a shame it was hidden behind the vocoder.

"I was six," said Kris. "I only just about remember it. Tal was there too. He was eight at the time, though only just. He isn't a whole two years older than me."

"I thought you were cute," said Tal. "I made Master Aksel go over and look at you. I wanted to buy you as a little brother. That's when we realised you were Force-sensitive."

"Yeah," said Kris. "Because I'm, like, a Jedi and shit, they had to bust me loose."

"Why've you gotta swear all the time, Kris," whined Pan. "It makes you sound stupid."

Kris ignored him. Tal held Pan's hand.

"Master Aksel went up and tried a trick on the slave seller, to try to get Kris for free," said Tal. "He was some insect or something, though, so it didn't work on his species."

"That's when Master Aksel went crazy!" said Kris, throwing his hands in the air for emphasis as the wide-eyed and grinning Barry looked on.

"He didn't go crazy," laughed Tal. "He was just like, oh, okay then, and pulled his lightsabre and started smashing what he needed to so we could release Kris. I was only little so I couldn't help very much."

"What happened?" said Barry, sounding less excited through the vocoder than he did in his own words.

"There was this brawl in the marketplace. Aksel was smashing up my bonds and throwing people left, right, and centre. I think even Tal helped, even though he was a little kid."

"I just pushed back anyone who got too close to me," said Tal, bashfully. "I was scared."

"Eventually he got me, and we all rushed off to his ship," said Kris. "I don't think we've ever been back to that place since!"

"Wow!" said Barry, resting back against Kris' arm on the head of the bed. "Do you think he'll help release me?"

"We won't let him let you go away with Maldock," said Kris. "That's a promise, right guys?"

"Yeah!" said Pan.

"Definitely!" said Tal. "We'll make sure Maldock doesn't take you away with him when he goes away again."

"Barry?" said Pan. "How old are you?"

"Nine," said Barry.

"Oh, that's cool," said Pan. "I always wanted a little brother."

"I had sisters," said Barry. "But they're all gone now."

"Did Maldock take them?" asked Pan.

"No, dung-brains," said Kris. "He means they were separated by the slavers, right, Barry?"

"Yeah," sighed Barry.

"Well I don't know!" protested Pan.

"They attacked our village and took everyone who survived," said Barry. "Except the old people. They killed all of them. Even my grandpa. He was clever and used to tell stories about…"

Barry stopped himself and blinked. There were tears in his eyes. Kris' heart felt heavy. He drew the younger boy in closer to him.

"Don't worry right now about what happened. You'll have lots of time to think about that. We've got you now."

"Thanks," whispered Barry, burying his face into Kris' armpit and evidently trying hard not to cry.

"It's okay to cry," said Pan. "That's what Master Aksel said. Thinking about my family makes me cry, too."

"Do you wanna tell him what happened, Pan?" said Tal. "You don't have to."

"Slavers took my family too," said Pan. "And all our friends. My parents had this shop. They bought and sold things from other planets. Aksel came with Tal and Kris and started training me too. We all lived together."

Pan had to stop for breath. Tal stroked his shoulders. Barry was watching intently from under Kris' armpit. Kris could feel the boy's breathing against the side of his chest, and the thudding of his heartbeat as the two leaned into each other.

"The slavers came and started attacking the town. Aksel had parked up his ship away from the town, in a hidden place that we could take a tunnel to. It's like he knew that someone would come looking for us… I watched them break into our house. The others had made for the tunnel. I was screaming, I wanted to get to Mom and Dad, the men were dragging them away…" Pan stopped to release a sob. A tear ran down either cheek. "I was going to get myself caught. I heard Aksel calling to me, then I felt arms around me dragging me away. I kicked and I punched. I thought it was one of the bad men, but it was just Tal. He was pulling me away to save me. That was last week. I just hope…"

Pan was sobbing. He rolled into Tal and let the older boy hold him. Barry rolled free and tried to lie beside Pan, but in the cramped bed ended up lying more on top of him.

"I know how it feels," he whispered to Pan, pressing his face to his. "They attacked us too. They killed so many people, and took everyone else. They put me in a bag, then in a prison with my family where we couldn't even move or do our business, you know? Then we were in a cage all day, and they sold all my family. Only I was left. Then Maldock came and he examined me and said he wanted me, but I didn't understand what was happening. And I needed to pee and poo so badly…"

Pan and Barry were holding each other close, sobbing into each other. Tal and Kris had both reached over to try whatever they could to comfort the younger boys. The next part of Barry's story came out in a whisper.

"I pooed myself, when he started dragging me away. I wet myself too. And I thought he was nice. He came to me and his voice sounded soft, but I couldn't understand anything he was saying. Then he marched me away somewhere else, to get this thing fitted to my neck so we can talk to each other. Only after that did he take me back to his room and get my messy clothes off. Then he laughed and he hit me, and he sprayed water up inside me again and again and I couldn't control what was coming out…"

Barry coughed broken sobs into Pan again. Pan was crying silently. Kris was fighting back tears too. He thought Tal was probably doing the same, as they both reached over to comfort and cradle the younger lads.

"Please take me away," begged Barry, through sobs. "I hate him. I hate all of it. He hurts me all the time, always in the worst places… Please take me with you. I promise I'll be good!"

Barry started sobbing into Pan again. Tal had taken both of them under a long arm and held them into his body. Kris scooted in behind Tal and wrapped his arm around all of them as best he could. Then he heard a bleep at the door. It slid open.

"Surprise, surprise," spat Maldock, stood with Aksel in the doorway.

Chapter 4
Plans

Barry whimpered in surprise at his master's voice; scrambled up on the bed, pulling free of the other boys' grip. He leapt down to slide into a kneel at Maldock's feet, wrenching his wrist away from Kris' grabbing fist, almost pulling the bigger boy off the bed with him.

"That's right, bitch!" bellowed Maldock. "You get down there. Get those fucking underpants off, too! Who the fuck told you it was okay to get dressed and leave the room?"

Barry cried silently, standing up, quickly shucking the last of his clothing, and plummeting back to his knees on the floor, hands behind his head.

"Who do you fucking little shits think you are?" Maldock shouted. "I should beat your asses first before I deal with this snivelling little whore. And you'd be lucky if that's all I do to your asses!"

Aksel appeared at the door behind Maldock. He placed a hand on his shoulder. It was quickly shrugged off. In fact, Maldock made as if he was about to spit at Aksel, only at the last moment turning his head around to unleash a gobful of saliva all over Barry's terrified, upturned face. The boy stayed frozen in place, the fluid mingling with his sweeping tears as it settled and pooled in every crevice of his face.

"Okay, Maldock, you made your point," Aksel said, curtly.

"Oh, I've not even begun yet," Maldock replied, slamming a fist against the doorframe.

"You know full well you can't touch these boys," said Aksel. "I will deal with them. And I'm sure they know just how disappointed I am that they chose to mistrust and disobey my instructions. Isn't that right?"

"No, Master Aksel," started Tal, "we really didn't do it out of not trusting–"

"Yes we did!" Kris interjected, shouting and leaping to his feet behind Barry.

"Kris!" grimaced Tal, but there was no stopping the boy.

"You're a fucking sick bastard, Maldock, and we're gonna–"

"Akristolan Boni!" hissed Aksel, eyes alive with fury. "You will go to the bathroom this instant and start washing your mouth out, and you will not stop until I come to get you! Is that clear?"

"I don't know what the fuck kind of operation you're running with these boys," grunted Maldock, panting and bristling on the spot, "but they need some serious fucking discipline."

"Kris!"

Kris stood with his head down, eyes glistening, red faced from fury and humiliation, as Aksel waited for his response. "Yes Master Aksel," he eventually managed to mumble, shuffling into the bathroom without taking his eyes off the floor. There was the sound of running water.

"I'm guessing it was this pathetic faggot at my feet who puked in my bed," said Maldock. "But which one of you mindless little pricks took your little play swords to my property?"

Pan shot a scared look at Aksel, meeting his eye with icily wide sclera, before quickly breaking his gaze and staring at his lap, playing with his thumbs. Tal put his arm around Pan and stroked his collarbone back and forth.

"Pan?" said Aksel, quietly. "Do you know something about this?"

Pan shook his head quickly and began to cry, taking deep, chomping breaths as he did. Tal cradled him closer.

"Don't lie to me you little bitch!" exploded Maldock again, making to stride towards Pan on the bed.

Aksel snapped around on his heels, pushing the much larger form of Maldock against the wall with effortless strength, holding him loosely around the neck, but pinning with a force that had the man-mountain squirming and flailing helplessly.

"You do not, ever, speak to one of my boys like that again. Got it? You need to calm the fuck down!" Then Aksel turned his head to address Barry. "Get up, Barry. Put your pants back on and go ask Kris to help you wash your face."

Barry blinked dumbly at Askel.

"Go!"

Barry slowly stood up, not daring to take his hands from behind his head. He blinked at Aksel a couple more times, then stooped lightning quick to grab his underpants before sprinting into the bathroom. There was the sound, over the heaves of Pan's hyperventilation, of Kris spitting water as Barry's vocoder asked him for help. Maldock writhed in quiet fury against the wall, eyes flashing and eyebrows twitching.

"Tal," said Aksel, taking a deep breath. "Tell me what really happened."

"We just wanted to play with Barry for a while, so he wasn't alone," Tal said quietly. "We didn't mean to cause a mess. It's only because Barry was tied up in such a horrible way that Pan got sick. I felt sick too. I don't think Pan meant to throw up on the bed… it just happened. Then… well, Pan got kind of upset, and angry, he couldn't really help himself…"

"Tal!" squeaked Pan, hoarsely.

"I had to tell him, munchkin," whispered Tal, kissing the younger boy on his wet cheek. "It's so he can help you."

"Is all that the truth, Talep? Honestly?"

"I promise, master."

Aksel let Maldock slide down the wall. He got to his feet and ruffled himself like a preening bird. His face was glowing. He evidently was not used to being buffaloed easily.

"Don't think about opening your big mouth," said Aksel, addressing Maldock. "You touch that boy tonight, we go without you tomorrow. I'm sure my boys will be happy to check yours over in the morning to make doubly sure nothing has happened overnight."

"Fuck you and your precious boys," whispered Maldock, quivering with circuits of trapped rage. "You'll pay for my broken machine!"

"I'm not buying or repairing a sex machine for you, Maldock," said Aksel, voice flat. "In fact, after tomorrow, I never want to see or hear from you again, you sadistic shit-cunt."

"No need to worry about that," rasped Maldock.

"Barry, go back to your room!" called Aksel. "Kris, back in this bedroom. Now!"

***

Tal had his arms around Pan, who lolled his head glumly against the teenager's chest. Kris had bounced onto the bed in rosy-faced silence, water still dribbling down his chin, and sat with his arms folded, staring down at his legs. Aksel also had his arms folded, stood at the foot of the bed watching his three apprentices, waiting to see if any of them would speak first. Nobody did.

Pan let out a huge yawn on Tal's chest. He looked exhausted as well as miserable.

"What do you expect me to say, boys?"

Ear-buzzing silence. Kris sniffed and shuffled his legs.

"I'm not going to tell you off for wanting to look out for Barry. You know I think what's happening to him is disgusting too."

Tal nodded. Pan fingered a mole on Tal's belly, seemingly paying no attention at all to what was being said. Kris remained silent.

"I'm also not going to tell you off for hating Maldock. You also know that I neither trust him nor like him; I hope that much was clear from what I said to him just now."

"Yes, master," mumbled Tal. Pan nodded a little but continued to play with Tal's mole rather than attempting to speak or look up. Kris stayed meditatively still, not engaging.

"What I am extremely disappointed in is your lack of trust in me, and your flagrant disregard for my lead and my instructions. We have to be able to trust each other."

"Sorry, master," mumbled Tal.

"Sorry, master," whispered Pan, still focused completely on Tal's belly.

Kris grunted something inaudible. Aksel sighed deeply and turned to him.

"Do you have something you want to say, Kris?"

"I said…" sighed Kris, barely raising his voice above a murmur, "I said… how d'you expect us to trust in working with someone like Maldock?"

"Because I'm asking you to."

"He's a dirty, cruel bully, who likes torturing little boys," grunted Kris. "I don't want us to follow him. It doesn't feel right."

"I find your lack of faith extremely disappointing, young man," said Aksel. "We're doing this to get our friends back. Our family back. Following Maldock is our best chance. We could be walking into anything. It could be a trap, even. But right now, it's the only lead we have."

Kris sighed and flopped back onto the bed, screwing up his face. Aksel reached for Kris' hand to give it a little squeeze, then reached up to stroke the boy's face. Kris didn't try to stop him. Aksel felt the soft, smooth coolness of the boy's cheeks, where the water had chilled his mouth, and felt sweaty heat across his forehead, where he still burned with frustration.

"Kris," Aksel said, voice as gentle as his touch. "I'm proud of you for wanting to stand up for Barry, and wanting to stand up for yourself, but we can't let our emotions get the better of us when we're trying to stick to plans. You need to have faith in what we're doing, and faith in yourself and the Force that everything will work out for the best."

Kris, still with his eyes jammed shut, nodded his head quickly and gulped back the beginnings of a sob.

"It's okay, buddy. This is tough for all of us. The point of training, and growing up, is learning these important lessons and trying our best to get things right in the future. That goes for all three of you."

"We're sorry, master," said Tal. "We really promise."

"Really promise," added Pan, who was cuddled against Tal on the bed as they both watched Aksel dealing with Kris.

"The worst thing was that you all could've been hurt, or got yourselves in big trouble," said Aksel, making big, serious eyes at Pan and Tal. "What were you thinking, climbing up and running around on rooftops, breaking into rooms? Even if you're all capable of stopping yourselves getting hurt, Barry could still have been hurt. Someone else might have tried to hurt you all if they saw what you were doing. You could have put us all in danger by running off to perform a small kindness to a boy we barely know. It's commendable, but it's more than a little stupid. How many boys like Barry do you think are out there in the galaxy? We can't get attached to every Barry and save them all. Especially not if it stops us from then saving thousands of Kribozians. Do you get what I'm saying?"

The three boys nodded. Kris had recovered somewhat and scooted up alongside Pan, resting his head on the younger lad's shoulder.

"I'm really sorry, Aksel," said Kris, voice sounding strained and gravelly.

Aksel squeezed Kris' foot and tickled the sole a little with his thumb.

"Who wants to hear the plan for tomorrow?"

Nobody said anything. Pan yawned vocally, raising his hand as he did so.

"Glad someone's paying attention," said Aksel. "First off, we get back to the ship. Maldock will give us the coordinates and we follow his lead. We're heading to a planet in the system Undas Minor, where Maldock has intelligence that pirates who recently conducted a slave raid on Kriboziah have a facility for processing slaves before moving them on elsewhere. Maldock believes we can successfully infiltrate the base and free the captives. He has been given codes and credentials that should allow us to land right in the base undetected, pretending to be smugglers."

Aksel looked over the boys. All were paying close attention, watching him and nodding along. Even Pan, who was trying to maintain eye contact through heavy lids.

"You all need to understand that this could be very dangerous. We don't know what we're walking into. You all need to be on your best behaviour and completely focused and on your guard. You need to be prepared to fight if we have to. Maybe even to kill people. And, most importantly of all, I need you to remember this: if I tell you to run back to the ship, or something happens to me that puts you in danger, you run back to that ship. You don't try to help me. Tal, you fly the three of you right out of there, and don't even think about coming back. Is that all absolutely understood?"

"Yes, Aksel," said Tal. The other boys just nodded, saucer-eyed at even the suggestion that their master might get hurt.

"Pan, Kris, you don't try to help me or come back for me. You get it?"

"Yes, Aksel," whispered Kris, nodding.

"Master," was all Pan could add, bobbing his head up and down like he was trying to shake the thought loose.

"Right," said Aksel. "It's been another very long day, and it'll be another tomorrow. You boys need to get some rest – no playing silly games. Get yourselves ready for bed."

Tal hopped off the bed and made for the bathroom. Pan went to follow.

"Pangan, after you've got yourself ready, you're to come to my room. There's something we need to have a little chat about."

Pan avoided Aksel's gaze, but nodded, his throat dancing in a big gulp as he trotted quickly away to the bathroom.

***

When Pan entered Aksel's bedroom, emerging nervously from the bathroom dressed in just his clean-again underpants, he found his mentor already in bed.

"Hop in," Aksel said, patting the side of the bed. Without making eye contact, Pan slid carefully under the bedcovers, coming to a halt beside Aksel without touching him, and turning over on his side to curl into a half-ball with his back presented to the man.

Pan failed to break the silence for a few long moments. "Do you want to tell me what's wrong?" said Aksel, stroking Pan's shoulder. Pan shook his head strongly against the pillow. Aksel sighed. "Come on, Pan. I want to help you, but I can't do that if you don't talk to me."

"You'll think I'm bad," Pan mumbled into his pillow.

"I'd never think that," replied Aksel. He squeezed Pan's shoulder again. "Please tell me what's bothering you. I'm asking because I care."

Pan lay still, medium breaths inflating and reducing his chest under the covers. Aksel could feel the boy's warmth radiating throughout the bed, like being lain next to a little electric heater.

"Did you get upset and do something silly?" asked Aksel, gently.

"I chopped the big, ugly fake sniller off Maldock's machine," mumbled Pan, defeatedly, clutching his knees beneath the sheets. "Tal had to stop me smashing the whole thing."

Aksel put his hand on the hump of Pan's hip on top of the covers. He looked down over his apprentice's face as the low light played across it, emphasising Pan's tiredness in the shadows. "What were you feeling when you did that?" he asked.

"Angry," said Pan. "Angry, and sad, and feeling sick. It was so disgusting, it was big and thick and long, and had all these fake feathers on it, and–"

"Feathers?"

"Yeah, feathers, and they were all sticky and horrible. Maldock had set it up to push in and out of – you know – Barry's bottom," – Pan whispered that part in an awed and embarrassed rasp – "and it was disgusting; and I was just so angry with Maldock, and slavers, and all of it…"

Pan caught his breath. Aksel could see the boy's eyes sparkling where the light caught them, so he reached beneath the covers to pull the Pan's skinny body against him as the tears came.

"Come here, Pan-Pan," said Aksel soothingly. "It's okay. I've got you. I'm not annoyed with you for being upset or angry about what you saw. It's a horrible thing to see. Some of the things Maldock does are horrible. But you know we have to control the bad feelings, don't you? Or else we make bad decisions."

Pan sniffled. "Yeah. I know. I'm sorry Aksel; I didn't mean to do a bad thing."

"You didn't do a bad thing. Not really. So Maldock's stupid machine got broken. No big deal. Okay, it makes him angry with us, but I think what all three of you did tonight in stealing Barry from him already did that. Nothing terrible happened, and you're going to learn from it, aren't you?"

Pan nodded his head and sniffed snot back into his throat. He snuggled back against Aksel, who was nuzzling his rainwater-scented brown hair, nose to cranium.

"Do you want me to tell you a story?" asked Aksel, feeling Pan heat up the bed around him.

"Yes please."

"There was once a little boy who was extremely sensitive to the Force. Unfortunately for him, he grew up outside of the Republic, on a little desert world where he was born a slave. He and his mother belonged to a shopkeeper, who worked the boy during the daytime as an assistant. When he was just nine, two Jedi – a master and apprentice – on a mission from Coruscant, landed on his planet. It was very lucky for him that they came across him and realised just how talented he was and how powerful he might become."

Aksel paused. Pan had leaned back into him and was breathing softly. He stroked the boy's chest with his fingertips beneath the bedcovers, occasionally feeling the squeezing rhythm of his heartbeat. He was still mainly talking into the back of Pan's head, his nose rested against the base of Pan's skull where his hair tapered into his neck.

"What happened to the boy next?" asked Pan.

"The Jedi managed to win a bet to free him from his master and take him back to Coruscant for training, like all the other strongly Force-sensitive boys and girls in the Republic. But he had to leave his mother behind. He loved her dearly as the only family he'd ever known and didn't want to lose her. But the rules were that children joining the Jedi temple must leave their families behind. At nine, he was already considered too old to begin training as it was, let alone worrying about having his mother with him."

Pan had wrapped his arms around Aksel's hand on his chest, clamping the palm to his ribcage. He absentmindedly played with Aksel's forearm hair.

"What happened next?"

"He was trained by a great master, Obi-Wan Kenobi, whom he idolised while he was still young. As he grew into a young man, however, he started to trust his master less, finding it difficult to always accept Master Kenobi's focus and discipline. The boy still missed his mother. He was a clever and kind boy, who was liked and respected by almost everyone, but he found it more and more of a struggle to contain those feelings when it came to making choices. And that made him vulnerable. Slowly, dark forces were able to use his empathy and his fear of loss and hardship against him, to coax him into making the wrong choices. His mother died, and in his anger, he killed the people he held responsible. He also got himself a secret girlfriend, against the rules of the Jedi order, and she became pregnant."

"What happened to him?" breathed Pan. "Did he do something bad?"

"He was turned against the Jedi, out of his fear of pain and loss. He would have done literally anything to protect the people he loved, at any cost, no matter how bad. And so he caused pain and loss to others. He undermined his friends; he fought his master and was defeated; he even killed children in cold blood. He turned to the dark side of the Force. The dark forces repaired his injuries from his defeat by his master, and he served them as they rose and ruled the galaxy by force. He kept making the wrong choices, all because he never learned to control his feelings adequately."

"Where is he now?" Pan whispered.

"He's gone now," said Aksel, reassuringly rubbing his thumb against Pan's chest as the boy clung to his hand with both arms. "He and his dark master, who turned him towards the bad path, were both defeated forever."

"That's good," said Pan. He breathed out and rolled onto his back, loosening his embrace of Aksel's hand. Aksel stroked Pan's belly a couple of times before withdrawing and rolling onto his back too.

"What are you thinking?" he asked the boy.

"Not sure," said Pan.

"I know you're thinking something," said Aksel, turning his head to look at Pan. He saw his apprentice's head in profile, staring up at the ceiling. "Please tell me."

"I was wondering…" he whispered. Aksel waited. "I was wondering… wondering if that's gonna happen to me, too."

"Of course not, Pan," said Aksel, drawing the boy back into his arms. "It will never happen to you, because you're a good boy who learns all the time from his successes and mistakes. And you have lots of friends you can talk to whenever you're lonely or confused. The boy in the story never had any of that."

"Thanks, Aksel," said Pan, pressing his face into his master's chest; allowing himself to be embraced more snugly. "You're the best master a boy could wish for."

"Don't be silly, now," chuckled Aksel. "I just hope you're feeling better."

"I am," nodded Pan into Aksel's chest. "I'm sorry I got upset and let it take me over earlier."

"That's okay. As long as you learn from it."

"I will; I promise. Will you thank Tal for helping me, too?"

"Thank him yourself!" laughed Aksel.

"It's kinda embarrassing," said Pan, hiding his face fully in the slight crevice of Aksel's chest.

"No it isn't," said Aksel, ruffling the back of Pan's head. "Tal loves you. So does Kris. You can talk to them about anything."

"Really? You think so?"

"Really. You should try it."

"Okay."

"Alright. You need to get your head down, young man."

"Aksel, can I stay in here with you?"

Aksel thought he knew why Pan was asking. "Are you worried that Tal and Kris will be messing around in the other room? Because if they are, I can tell them to stop."

"Nope, it's not that," said Pan. "I just want to sleep next to you tonight. You… I dunno."

"I what?"

Pan sighed. "You… I think… You sorta make me feel more comfortable. Like someone's protecting me."

Aksel smiled, his chest fluttering like blossom on a sudden breeze. He hooked a hand around Pan's bottom and pulled his littlest apprentice into a full-body cuddle with him. He turned out the lights.

"Of course you can stay here with me," he said. "Night-night, Pan-Pan. Sleep well, buddy."

"Night, Aksel."

Pan wriggled his bum a little and shifted his weight until he was evidently comfortable with his position curled up against Aksel. Aksel heard and felt the warm rush of a final yawn, then within seconds Pan's breathing had settled into a soft, whistling snore. Aksel couldn't be sure whether the warmth spreading throughout his torso was borrowed from Pan's body or soul.

***

"Which side of the bed do you want?" asked Tal. He'd cleaned his hands, face, and teeth, and readied himself for bed, just as Master Aksel had ordered. Now he was clambering onto the bed on all fours in only his white briefs, the only light in the bedroom from the open door to Kris in the bathroom.

"Don't care!" called Kris, through a mouthful of something. Tal burrowed himself into place on the left side of the bed, right-hand side as he lay in it, closest to the bathroom door. He felt its soft, warm embrace as he waited for Kris to finish his bedtime rituals, relishing a comfort he'd missed sorely over the past few days since fleeing Kriboziah. He didn't ever mind sharing with Kris, but it was much better to do it in a nice, proper bed, with plenty of room, as opposed to the cramped bunks of the ship.

"Shit, it's dark!" Kris said, in a blustering stage whisper, as he shut off the bathroom light and fumbled his way across the bedroom, feeling his way up the bed by means of a hand on Tal all the way up to the pillows. He wrestled with the covers until he could slip his feet in, quickly wriggling and shimmying his whole body into place beneath the downy sheets.

"You done?" joked Tal.

"Yeh," breathed Kris, still speaking in a loud whisper.

"I don't think we have to whisper," said Tal. "Nobody can hear us."

"Sorry," said Kris. "Got used to the ship I guess."

"I'm glad to sleep in a proper bed tonight," Tal said, quickly adding: "With you, of course."

"Aww, you'd miss me too much to have a bed to yourself?" teased Kris.

"Duh, obviously I want a bed to myself," said Tal. "But I meant I don't mind sharing a proper bed with you rather than being cramped in the bunk on the ship."

"How d'you think I feel? You're friggin' massive compared to me!"

"Yeah," laughed Tal. "And don't you forget it!"

Kris blew heavily through his nostrils. "How could I?"

Tal furrowed his brow in the darkness. He sensed Kris stiffen in the bed beside him. He rolled over and rested a hand on Kris's shoulder, flooding his shoulder blade with long fingers.

"Don't," said Kris, frozen still.

"What's the matter?" said Tal. "I didn't realise I'd done anything to piss you off."

"Yeah, well," sighed Kris.

"Well what?"

"Nothing," mumbled Kris. "Let's just go to sleep. Aksel will screw at me again if we're tired in the morning."

"Oh," said Tal. "I get it."

"Get what?" said Kris. "There's nothing to get."

"Sure."

"Piss off, Tal. You don't have to play big sister with me like you do to Pan."

"Clearly there's no point with you anyway," said Tal. "You be pissed with yourself. See if I care."

"You'd never understand anyway," Kris shot back. "You've always been Aksel's number one. You don't even have to try."

Tal rolled away onto his back. "Why do you have to be such a dick, Kris?" He meant to sound annoyed; aggressive even. Instead it was more of a weary sigh.

"Oh, you don't think that's fair?"

"It isn't fair," said Tal. "You know it isn't."

"You don't even get what fair is," growled Kris. "I get that I'll never be as good as you. That's fine. You're awesome. But now Aksel even pays more attention to Pan than me. Why even bother?"

"Kris, Pan's ten. He just lost his home and everyone he ever knew except us. Maybe cut him a bit of slack?"

"So, he can go psycho in Maldock's room and that's fine? I told you I'd be the only one to get in trouble."

"From where I was sitting, your big mouth got you into trouble, not Pan," said Tal, his forehead thrumming with prickles of irritation. "And you think Pan's just gone next door to get a cuddle now? Why are you so stupid, Kris? Pan's in there to get a lesson in self-control. Though maybe you do need that more than him."

"Fuck you," Kris hissed. "You know what? I never saw you taking the blame for your idea to go free Barry."

Tal stung. Maybe Kris had him there.

"I'll take the blame in the morning," he sighed. "I promise."

"Good. Prick."

"Why are you being like this?"

"Just am."

"You think if you act like a big enough idiot, you'll make us all hate you so you can say you were right all along?"

"Fuck off."

"There goes Kris the big man again."

Kris rolled onto his side facing away from Tal, as far to the edge of the bed as he could get, stretching the cover out between them like a tarpaulin. For all his annoyance, all he thought Kris was being a complete tool, Tal couldn't help but feel sorry for him. The yawning gap in the bedsheets was letting in cold air between them, and, even in the dark, the shadowy ball of Kris' body seemed so far away and alone, even if he could reach out and touch him.

"Aksel already hates me," muttered Kris, defeat in his faraway voice.

"Kris…" Tal took the leap and shuffled up alongside Kris, spooning him closely from behind. "Kris, none of us hate you. 'Specially not Aksel."

Tal squeezed Kris to him with an arm snaked around the other boy's chest. He felt Kris' body relax into him, a huge held breath being released from his chest.

"It's hard, y'know?" mumbled Kris. "You're so good at everything you do, and Pan is the baby and has been having a tough time. But so have we. We lost our home, too. Nobody pays attention to me unless they're screwing at me."

"I pay attention to you," said Tal. "And I know Pan really enjoyed hanging with you in the market earlier and was really thankful that you stuck up for him."

"Really?" said Kris. "He never said that."

"He wouldn't tell you that himself because he's worried you'd think he was a dweeb."

"He is a dweeb," said Kris. "But that's one of the things I like about him."

"So, it's not so bad then?"

"Well, okay, maybe you guys are cool," said Kris, "but Master Aksel still likes you both better than me."

"Why do you keep saying that?"

"Because it's true!"

"How is it?"

"He always tells me off the most," sighed Kris. "He thinks I don't pay attention or take things seriously enough."

"But you don't always pay attention or take things serious. You're a bit of a dope, Kris."

"Thanks," Kris replied drily. "Okay, maybe I do mess about a lot, but it wouldn't hurt Aksel to be nice to me sometimes."

"Come on, Kris," sighed Tal. "He loves joking with you. And he cares about what you think. He's always asking your opinion on things."

"He thinks I'll never be as good a Jedi as you, and that Pan will be better than me soon enough, too."

"When did he say that? Does Aksel think that, or do you think that?"

Kris blew from his cheeks, emptying a gust from his mouth until he was just blowing little raspberries with the pucker of his lips. "Both," he eventually whispered.

"Right, well maybe I am older than you, and better at some things, and taller, and better looking…"

"Hey!"

"I mean, maybe I'm better at some things than you," said Tal. "And maybe Pan has things that he's good at, including being a little dweeb and hogging people's attention. But there's all sorts of things that you're good at too. That we rely on you for."

"Name one."

"We'd never have got through Maldock's window tonight without you," said Tal, shrugging his shoulders and causing the far corner of the bedcovers to flop off them.

"True," said Kris. "But that's just one thing."

"Nobody else would've stood up to Maldock like that when he came back here, especially in front of Master Aksel."

"Yeah, and he punished me for it!"

"Only because you swore and were disrespecting what Aksel had said," said Tal. "Afterwards, Aksel really put Maldock in his place and protected Barry from him. I don't think he would've done that if you hadn't tried first."

"You sure?"

"Stop being a girl, Kris," laughed Tal. "You've got a skilful hand and you hate bullies. Take the compliment!"

"I'm not a girl," said Kris. "And even if I was, why would that be a bad thing?"

"Because, if you were a girl," Tal whispered roughly into Kris' ear, feeling his warm, wet breath reflecting back at him, "I wouldn't be able to cheer you up like this!"

Tal wrapped his arms around Kris and threw him into the middle of the bed, flinging the rest of the bedcovers off the pair of them. Kris squealed and laughed. Tal was immediately on the smaller boy, kissing him wetly on the tip of the nose, both hands ready at the waistband of his underpants. He began to kiss his way down Kris' smooth, skinny torso, yanking Kris' briefs down to below his knees as he went. Kris obediently wiggled his ankles and kicked them off, just as Tal began tonguing his bellybutton.

"Stop teasing," grunted Kris. "Lick me somewhere good."

Tal could feel Kris' erection poking at his chest. He sucked at Kris' navel, pulling off with a wet smack. He made his tongue broad and licked a wide, meandering zigzag down Kris' belly, diving between his hips across his pale, taut pubis, smooth as varnished wood. Kris began to pant and push at Tal's head as it neared the top of Kris' genitals, but Tal ducked left and went down the inside of Kris' thigh instead, grazing the stiffy only with his right cheek, eliciting a puppylike frustrated whine from his partner.

"Please, Tal! Stop playing around with me! I need it!"

Tal switched sides and licked up Kris' other thigh, diving across to begin bathing his wrinkly ball sac, two grapes just about planted at its bottom, as soon as he felt his nose touch the soft flesh and pick up the light scent of Kris' crotch sweat. Kris had reached down to poke his boner at Tal's lips, bending it at what must have been an uncomfortable angle in an attempt to force it into Tal's mouth. Tal relented and dived on the stiff prick, skinning it back with his lips in an instant and picking up all of Kris' familiar flavours, fresh and strong again following their long bath earlier in the day. It didn't take much sucking, slurping, and bobbing, nor much dancing and probing of his tongue, before Tal felt Kris push down heavily on his head, thrusting his hips as much as he could at Tal's mouth. Kris' entire body stiffened, lifting him up off the bed like an ironing board – perhaps even momentarily floating off the bed altogether – and Tal felt a spasming between his lips, thwacking between his tongue and the roof of his mouth, and the tell-tale faintest dribble of something sweet; a drop on the very end of his taste buds. Kris released completely, flopped in a star shape dead centre of the bed, head between two pillows, melting completely into the mattress. He whistled.

"Like that?" asked Tal, drawing back alongside Kris, hand on Kris' stomach and one leg hooked over his.

"Thanks, buddy," said Kris, resting his head against Tal's. "You're the best."

"My turn now?"

"If you want. But shouldn't we be careful? Won't Pan be back any minute?"

"I get the feeling Pan isn't coming back in here tonight," said Tal, absentmindedly brushing his fingers over Kris' now soft and slippery sniller.

"You don't think?"

"Nah," said Tal. "He'll probably have got all upset about what happened tonight and ask to sleep with Aksel."

"Yeah," said Kris. "That's probably right. He might be a dweeb, but he's a predictable dweeb!"

"So," said Tal, pulling Kris' much smaller hand to his crotch. "Want to get these things off me and get down to business?"

"Sure," said Kris. Then there was a pregnant pause. Tal let go of Kris' hand – which stayed in place on his package through the fabric of his undies – and tugged at the end of the other boy's dick instead.

"What's up?"

"Actually, Tal," said Kris. "I was kinda wondering… you think, maybe… maybe you want to try something else tonight?"

"What d'you mean?"

"Well, Aksel was saying this mission we're doing tomorrow could be really dangerous, right? Like, deadly dangerous."

"Yeah. So what?"

"So, we could die."

"Don't say that!"

"But we could!"

"So? What does that have to do with helping each other out?"

"I was thinking…" Kris sort of sniggered to himself under his breath. Tal could feel Kris' heart fluttering through the vibrations in the mattress, his dick growing harder in his friend's hand with every passing beat of anticipation. "I was thinking," Kris repeated, swallowing and catching a breath, "if I'm gonna die, I don't wanna die a virgin."

It was Tal's turn to catch a big breath. His eyes bugged against the darkness, and his dick burped something sticky into the crotch of his briefs.

"What do you mean?" he whispered.

"I mean, like…" Kris began. He switched to a whisper. "Like, do you want to put it in me?"

Tal gasped. "You sure? I mean, it's a fair bit bigger than yours, and I don't…" Tal gulped and leaned into the side of Kris' face. He whispered directly into Kris' ear. "I don't know what to do."

"Nor do I," said Kris. "But how hard can it be? I guess we make it a bit wet and you just shove it in. Like poking a finger in to scratch an itch."

"But it's bigger than a finger," said Tal, feeling his dick twitch again and dribble more fluid into the front of his pants. He was worried he was going to ejaculate without even touching himself and make a big mess. How would he explain that to Aksel?

"So what?"

"So, it'll probably hurt. I mean, I can't imagine something that size going in me without it hurting."

Tal felt Kris shrug against him. "Barry seemed to be doing okay earlier, and that one was way, way bigger than yours. And it was covered in feathers."

"Alright," said Tal, sucking in a big breath. "I'll do it. Just tell me what you want me to do to you and I'll try."

"First of all, we have to get these off," said Kris, tugging Tal's briefs most of the way down his long legs. Tal kicked himself free. Kris' hands rubbed all over Tal's aching cock and balls, smushing sticky fluid everywhere. "Woah, did you jizz already?"

"I think a little," said Tal. "I didn't come, though."

"Your swimmers just can't wait to give themselves up to a sexy boy like me," giggled Kris. "Now I make it wet."

Kris' mouth engulfed Tal's cock with practised skill, hitting all his favourite spots straight away. He felt another dribble escape him and whined urgently at Kris.

"Kris, don't make me come! You're meant to be just getting me slippery!"

Kris backed off. He took to just licking and dribbling gobs of spit all over Tal's member, giving Tal the gooey, tickling sensation of Kris's spit running off through all the grooves of his ballbag. After about thirty seconds, Kris swung himself around, so he was straddling Tal facing the wrong way.

"Get my hole wet!"

"How?" said Tal. Surely Kris wasn't expecting him to lick his bum right on the hole?

"Spit on your hand and rub it on or something," said Kris, between licks. He spat another big gob onto the exposed head of Tal's dick. "Try and get some inside with your finger."

Tal did as he was told, feeling Kris shiver the first time his wet hand ran over the sensitive groove of his cleft. He hoisted himself up on his elbows, trying to spit directly onto Kris' hole, his nose close enough to pick up the weird scents of excited boy anus, but mainly ended up accidentally wetting Kris' balls. He stuck to applying spit with this hand, trying to poke some inside with his index finger. Kris' ass didn't even want to open up for that; it made him wriggle and gasp a few times before Tal could even get inside beyond the nail. He had no idea how a good twelve centimetres [5 inches] or more of dick was going to get inside, let alone fit up there.

"I think we're ready," whispered Kris. "I'll get in place."

He crawled alongside Tal and set himself down on all fours, his head resting on a pillow and his chest down against the mattress. Tal got up onto his knees and shuffled in behind.

"Okay," said Kris, reaching back to spread his cheeks wide. "Feel around for the hole with your finger. Then line your sniller up with it."

Tal fumbled around at Kris' rear iris. He had the fleshy pad of his right index finger up against the slimy hole and shuffled forward to try to match his dick up to it.

"I'm so glad we're not doing this with the lights on," breathed Kris. "You'd be looking right up my bum!"

Tal said nothing. His heart was beating so fast it was making his head spin. He simply kept breathing and focused on the sensation of his foreskin rubbing up against the wrinkles of Kris' bum crack. He pushed forward. The head of his dick stayed in place, right against the hole.

"That's it, I can feel it in the hole now," whispered Kris. "Push!"

Tal jabbed hard, but nothing seemed to be happening. Suddenly, he felt the head of his dick begin to move and his heart fluttered in his chest again, until his hips smacked with an audible slap against Kris' hands where he was spreading himself, and he realised his dick was riding up against Kris' balls and poking through to the boy's smaller boner beneath.

"It came out," said Kris. "Feel for the hole again, and this time hold it in place."

Tal shuffled back and felt around Kris' back passage with his fingers again. He lined his knob up to the hole once more, and, to his embarrassment, felt another dribble work its way out of his pee hole again. What would Kris say if he came before ever managing to get it in? He'd never live it down. He felt his cock head, now slimier and more exposed, fixing against its mark. He withdrew his hand and instinctively brought his fingers up for a sniff. They were only halfway to his face when he realised they now reeked of Kris' bum smell.

"Hold it in place, dummy," said Kris. "Push!"

Tal lowered his hand back to his cock and began jerking his hips gently, bracing against Kris' hip with his left hand. He felt his lower head kissing Kris' tight rear wrinkle, his upper head swimming with nerves, anticipation, and sensation.

"Tickles," said Kris. "It's staying in. Keep doing that."

"Are we doing it?" asked Tal, breathlessly.

"Dunno," said Kris, "but it feels nice. Keep going."

Tal kept up his slight thrusting motion, feeling yet another dollop of stickiness escape his knob. What was it doing? His entire body felt like jelly. He'd never felt so excited and so sick and naughty all at once. Tal was lost in the sensation, the heat of Kris' anus spurring him on, along with the way the boy was still spreading himself for Tal and grunting yeah! under his breath every couple of seconds. He barely realised when his cock dribbled more stuff out as he jabbed harder a few times in a row. Suddenly there was a tight feeling all around the head of his erection, and Kris bucked beneath him.

"Yeowww!" Kris yelped, pressing further forward into the bed, but not letting go of his bum cheeks or changing his position. "Owowow! Argh! It's stretching me wide open! Take it out, Tal!"

"What happened?" said Tal. "It feels – oh!"

Tal had let go of his dick and was about to push back off Kris' hip when the boy bucked involuntarily again, and Tal lost his balance altogether. His chest slapped against Kris' back before he was able to catch himself. But the thing Tal noticed most of all was the warm, tight, gulping feeling strangling the entire length of his rock-hard sniller, top to bottom.

"Aaaiirrrrgh!" Kris screamed, shaking his hips wildly, still clinging onto his bottom, but now prising his cheeks as wide as possible for relief from the burning in his bum hole. "Oh, fuck-fuck-fuck!"

Tal barely heard him. He was halfway through the biggest, longest, most intense orgasm of his short life. He had pins and needles in his head. He didn't even realise such a thing was possible. The last shadow of thought that slipped through his foggy brain was that he wished he had his dick out and the lights on to see just how much he was squirting, because it felt like a bigger load than his date-sized balls were capable of producing. When he finally regained his senses, he realised he was right above Kris' head, arms planted either side of him, and his dick had wilted down to a smaller size than usual, more foreskin than he was used to dangling against Kris' very slimy, burning and throbbing bum hole. He threw himself onto his back, panting loudly and registering the sweat running down his face from his soaked hair, and the swimming pools of his armpits.

"What happened?" panted Tal. "Did we do it?"

Kris had rolled onto his side to face Tal's ashy silhouette. "I think so. Properly, too." He was pawing gingerly at his back passage; all deep, sucking breaths and shivers.

"You got hurt," Tal wheezed. "I'm really sorry."

"It's okay. You warned me it would."

"But you didn't enjoy it?"

"I just had your whole dick inside me!" Kris whispered excitedly. "That's the coolest thing ever!"

"I guess so," chuckled Tal.

"We just have to find out how to do it properly," said Kris. "Then it won't hurt me next time."

"Next time?" said Tal. "You want to do it again?"

"Duh," laughed Kris. "It was feeling really cool until you suddenly went inside me."

"At least we won't die virgins tomorrow," smiled Tal.

"We won't die tomorrow," said Kris, matter-of-factly. "We're a team, and none of you, me, Pan or Aksel would let that happen."

Tal grabbed Kris by the waist, bundling him into his body and kissing him roughly and sloppily right in the middle of his forehead. Kris squeezed Tal back with all his might until the strength drained from his arms. They fell asleep a bundle of arms and legs; a pool of shared sweat and stray semen and saliva.

***

When Aksel woke the next morning, Pan was in a heaped ball beside him, hair fluffed up on his bedhead and eyes crusty with sleep, body twisted, and arms crossed over each other. He gently woke the boy up, steering him to the bathroom where Pan automatically went about the business of peeing before being fully aware of where he was. Aksel pushed straight through into the boys' room. He wasn't enormously surprised to see Tal and Kris tangled in each other's arms, roughly in the middle of the bed, and spy a stray pair of underpants that had dropped onto the floor. What did surprise him was the boys' bashful reaction when he woke them.

"Uh… Aksel! What time is it?" said Tal, groggily, as Kris simply buried his head under a pillow. "You should leave us here. We, um… don't want you to see us naked! We'll get up right after you leave. Promise!"

"Okay, Tal, take it easy," said Aksel, picking up a funky smell from the boys as he leaned over the bed. He wasn't totally sure what they'd been up to and had no intention of finding out. "I'll go and check if Pan's managed to open his eyes yet. I'm hoping yes, so the bathroom floor isn't a puddle of his pee."

Pan had indeed opened his eyes, and was standing sleepily in the shower cubicle, obscured by a layer of steam on the clear surface.

"Go away, Aksel! I'm naked!"

That was a response he expected. Tal and Kris' behaviour was more bizarre.

***

"Alright boys, you remember what I told you?" said Aksel, catching the eye of each apprentice in turn around the breakfast table.

"Yes, master," said Tal, as Kris and Pan nodded.

"The most important thing is that you stay safe, okay?" Aksel said. "Keep calm, don't rush into danger, and leave me and get back to the ship if it even seems like I'm in trouble."

"We've got it, Master Aksel," said Kris. "You can count on us. Promise."

Maldock marched into the dining room, fully dressed in black combat-style clothing and gear, evidently ready and raring to go. He had Barry in toe, bringing up the rear at the extent of his leash, back in his same raggedy clothes.

"Did he hurt you?" Pan mouthed silently at Barry. Barry just looked confused. He couldn't lip read what Pan was saying, and his vocoder could only translate sound.

"He said, did he hurt you?" said Kris, loud and clear, defiance in his voice.

Barry shook his head emphatically.

"Maldock's no fool," said Aksel.

"You pussies ready to roll?" was all Maldock had to say. Aksel made him wait until the boys had taken and eaten a pastry each, even though Kris and Pan were both full and hadn't finished their proper breakfast plates. They shared theirs with Barry instead.

"Ready, boys?" asked Aksel, after making double and triple sure that nobody was still eating anything.

"Actually, I think I need to pee," said Tal, grinning until he swallowed his ears as he pushed himself up from the chair. Maldock shook with quiet irritation. Pan smiled broadly and got in on the game.

"Aksel, could I go and get some more juice, please?"

Aksel nodded at Pan, who sauntered idly towards the juice bar, seemingly focused on every detail of the walls and ceiling except for in the direction he was walking. Kris caught Barry's eye and they both giggled. Maldock jerked at Barry's leash so that he stumbled and fell to his knees.

"Get up, stupid bitch," he hissed. "You ain't gonna be laughing tonight."

With Tal eventually back from the toilet, and Pan having finished his glass of juice, finally the group was ready to return to the spaceport. The rain had reduced to a fine drizzle, swirling around in the air outside and rendering the covered walkways all useless as a means of keeping dry. The boys gritted their teeth and leaned forward against it as they walked ahead to the ship. Aksel walked behind in tetchy silence with Maldock, Barry trotting along at arms' length beside, trying not to shiver as his bare feet were soaked with rainwater.

"What are we stepping into here, Maldock?" asked Aksel. "Are my boys gonna be safe?"

"I don't make promises," replied Maldock, curtly.

"Barely a week ago they were living totally ordinary lives," said Aksel. "Now they could be heading into battle. This isn't what I wanted for them."

Maldock stared at Aksel long and hard through narrowed eyes as they walked in step.

"You're a fucking idiot, Akselos," he said, a minute or so later. "You're raising kids as Jedi and expecting them to be safe and have a normal life? What the fuck is wrong with you?"

Aksel blinked in return but couldn't respond. Maldock had a point, and that stung him to the core. Was all of this really his fault? I couldn't have left Tal or Kris alone to their fates, but did I really have to expose Pan to this…?

His train of thought was distracted by the fact that they'd reached their ship. R6 whistled a greeting and lowered the shields and unlocked the doors, allowing the boys to enter. The hold immediately smelt much fresher, purged of seven days of accumulated boy sweat and farts and goodness-knows-what-else.

"You seriously riding around in this piece of shit?" asked Maldock, craning his neck to assess the old converted U-Wing.

"Works for me," said Aksel. "Over time I've converted the hold into a sort of quarters for longer trips, switched to a slower but more efficient hyperdrive, and had it constantly maintained by Dea on Kriboziah, she's the mechanic I–"

"Whatever," said Maldock. "Let me show you a real ship."

He pulled Aksel to one side by his elbow and pointed to a ship parked across the way. It was a relatively large ship, in dark green, with three spherical chambers of increasing size running from front to back, and a set of legs supporting each one, making it look like a huge, green insect.

"Woah," said Aksel. "Pretty retro. Where did you get that thing?"

"It's a lifeboat from an old-time exotic gas mining station," declared Maldock, proudly. "Real old school, but I got it fixed up. New engines, hyperdrive, high-impact blasters… I call her the Space Bug."

"It's a nice ship, Maldock," said Aksel. It was true. Even Barry was stood on tiptoes to peer excitedly at the ship he was about to call home. It was the first time Aksel had seen the boy look anything but thoroughly miserable or afraid around Maldock.

"Once I'm aboard, we'll establish a comms link. I'll send through the coordinates. You follow me."

"No problem," said Aksel.

"My contacts have given me the security credentials to land right inside the facility. I'll send them to you when we arrive. I'll beam them first to give you more time to escape if it goes balls-up. I'm pretty sure the Bug is faster."

"Right," said Aksel. "See you on the other side."

Maldock spun on his heels and made for his ship, jerking Barry roughly by his lead to get him to follow at the correct pace. Aksel returned to his ship.

"They fixed my seat!" squeaked Pan, leaning to peer down the stairs to the cockpit as Aksel entered the ship.

"Great!" said Aksel, making his way to his seat. "No more lap-sitting for you then."

"No, thankfully!" Pan gushed excitedly.

"Aww, Pan-Pan, I thought you liked me," said Tal, leaning around in his seat and sticking out his bottom lip in mock disappointment.

"You're just not comfortable enough for me," joked Pan.

"Well you have a bony bum, so there!" said Tal, winking and sticking out his tongue at Pan. Pan laughed and slouched back in his seat contentedly.

"It means I get to sit next to Kris again, too," said Pan. "I know how much he loves to talk to me."

"Did someone say something?" said Kris.

"Okay, boys," said Aksel. "Ready for take-off. R6, how have we been?"

R6 whistled and bleeped in non-committal assent. Same old, same old.

"Wait!" said Pan. "I need a wee!"

"Pan…" groaned Aksel.

"It's cos I had that extra juice," he said trotting off down the stairs. "I'm only little, remember!"

***

The boys may have been up for joking when they first got back aboard the ship, but the more they followed Maldock's Space Bug towards the Undas Minor system, the more a nervous energy descended on the cockpit, like high pressure static before a summer storm. The air in the ship felt thick as they dropped out of hyperspace with the Space Bug, finding themselves close to their target planet.

"Boys," said Aksel, subconsciously keeping his voice low under the pressure of the nerves rumbling around him, "if Maldock tries to do something you don't quite think is right, or you don't trust his motivations for, go right ahead and try to make him do otherwise. He'll be on his guard for mind tricks around me, but probably won't expect it from you guys. If you work together, you should be able to crack him. He seems strong and scary, but he's not really."

The boys all took deep breaths and nodded. Tal eventually managed to squeak out his verbal assent, just as Maldock cut in over the comms.

"Beaming your droid the landing credentials. About to attempt descent now."

"Copy," said Aksel. "R6, receive credentials and set landing pattern to follow Space Bug."

R6 beeped its compliance. There was a burst of static, then Maldock's voice came again.

"I'm in. Follow down."

Aksel followed. Descent was bumpy; following through atmosphere disturbed by Maldock probably hadn't been the best plan, but it was better than losing him. Eventually, a large, grey-white slaver facility emerged before them, dominating the scrubland below. Maldock's voice burst over the comms again.

"Two smuggler ships carrying ammonia for trade, requesting permission to land," he said.

"Copy," said another voice. "Proceed to Cargo Area C, flight plan sent."

R6 indicated that the flight plan had been received and set about activating it. They descended after the Space Bug, slowing enough to pick out the details of the facility through their viewports as they crawled towards Cargo Area C.

"Whatever happens, boys," said Aksel, "just remember what we said. Remember the rules."

Space Bug was allowed through the shields acting in lieu of a rooftop for the large cargo area beneath. Aksel waited for it to land. It dominated the space available for landing, pointing front-on to the middle of the room. Aksel was forced to land his ship squeezed in next to it, facing the side of the Space Bug. With a bit of tight manoeuvring, they were in. Aksel shut down the ship and asked R6 to lock up and leave shields on. He exited into the cargo bay with the boys just as the side stairs emerged from Maldock's ship, and he began to walk down to join them, Barry in tow.

"You sure you want to bring him?" said Aksel. "Won't he be a hindrance if we get in a fight or something?"

"Seems I can't trust him on his own no more," said Maldock, darkly. "He comes."

Kris frowned. Tal followed his instincts and decided to put what Aksel had said into practice straight away. He held up two fingers and shook his head.

"Barry will only get in the way. You best leave him on the ship."

"He's coming!" spat Maldock. "That's final."

Kris jumped in, frowning and furrowing hard. He repeatedly pushed both his hands to the side of his body, held flat and palms down in a negative gesture, while shaking his head. "This is no place for untrained little boys. It would be too dangerous to all of us for Barry to come off the ship. He could screw up the whole thing."

Maldock started in surprise. "You know what, this stupid maggot should stay on the ship. Can't trust him not to fuck the whole shebang up." He pushed Barry roughly up the steps. "Get!"

Aksel was impressed by Kris' performance, though it came as no surprise to him that it would be Kris who would show an adeptness for mind games. His defiance was an asset when he channelled it properly.

"Ready to go?" said Aksel. "What's first? Do we follow one of these passages in particular?"

"Straight ahead," said Maldock, watching the entry steps of his ship disappear back into the bodywork, and checking through the front viewport for Barry sitting dejectedly in the cockpit. "Head for the far exit from this bay."

There was seemingly nobody around. The bay was quiet, boxes and crates stacked in random patterns around the room, the two ships now filling one corner. Something felt very wrong to Aksel, but he had the faith to keep moving forward, pacing towards the middle of the large bay. He looked up at the planet's sky, distorted by the shielding of the top of the cargo bay. It was orange with streaks of grey and purple cloud.

"Passageway straight ahead should take us where we need to go," said Maldock, following behind Aksel and the boys. Nobody had drawn their weapons. They were walking quite casually towards the middle of the room.

Aksel had now reached dead centre of the cargo bay, where there was a large space not imposed upon by patterns of crates and boxes. Bits of burnt-out droid were scattered around the edges, and two wheeled vehicles for moving heavy cargo were parked up. Aksel realised Maldock had stopped walking. He turned to face him.

"Not coming?" said Aksel.

"Not today," said Maldock.

"Master!" Tal whispered urgently.

"That's a shame," said Aksel. "A real shame."

"When you're ready, boys!" Maldock called out. Immediately there was the sound of boots on concrete. A number of slavers, blasters at the ready, popped out from amongst the clutter of the cargo bay. Three more columns emerged, one from each of the side doors leading to the centre of the bay.

"Aksel!" squealed Pan. Aksel pulled the boys to him, drawing his lightsabre. The boys followed suit, standing together in a tight circle with their master as the last of the ambushing forces formed up a wide, three-deep circle around them.

"I've been waiting for this," sneered Maldock. "All yours, fellahs. Where do I need to go to pick up my cut?"

"Oh, Maldock," Aksel called out defiantly. "Why'd you do it, eh? All that crap about spurned loyalty and honour you were talking about last night. Is this really what you stand for?"

"Shut your hole," said Maldock. "And another thing, Jedi – I'm going to beat that boy black and blue tonight, then fuck him until he feels like he's grown a second cunt! You think you can tell me what to do with my slaves? You arrogant piece of shit!"

Aksel ignored Maldock's taunts. He could feel the boys – even Talep – shaking as they pressed against his back. He spun around the circle slowly, feeling the boys snap magnetically to him like ducklings trailing their mother downriver.

"You know, slavers, pirates, whatever you want to call yourselves," said Aksel, scraping the end of his sabre on the concrete floor to send up great sparks and crumbs of powdery stone. "A lot of you are going to die here right now. I hope you realise that."

"Just come quietly, Jedi," one responded, a muscular Delphidian woman, evidently the leader. "You're hopelessly outnumbered. Don't fight us and we'll spare the boys."

"Oh, no, no, no!" laughed Aksel. "I've got a good idea of what you want them for. And you're not getting them." He turned back to face Maldock, the boys rotating in sequence with him. "So, you sell them off to the Empire, or whatever twisted group is your highest bidder for Force-sensitive kids. But what's his cut? Which one is he taking as a plaything? The youngest, I bet. That's how he likes them, after all."

"You got a big mouth, Aksel," smirked Maldock. "That ginger kid, the middle one, is just like you. Maybe I'll take him to remember you by, show him what a big mouth is really useful for."

Aksel sheathed his weapon. He'd calculated that the slavers were in no rush to attack; they were waiting for him to make the first move so they could pick off the boys one-by-one. He surveyed the bay for options, turning back to Maldock and spreading his arms wide, spying the Space Bug from the corner of his eye.

"Well, Maldock; I have to hand it to you. You've really outdone yourself this time."

"I'm so going to enjoy watching that mouth of yours get silenced forever."

"No, really, Maldock. Great work. Congratulations." Aksel began to clap sarcastically. "It really was perfect. Well, almost."

"Why the fuck aren't you guys taking this prick down?"

"I mean it, Maldock. Great job. You only made one mistake."

"What was that?" sniffed Maldock. "Cos, from where I'm standing, you look pretty fucked."

"You left a nine-year-old at the controls of your ship."

The satisfaction drained from Maldock's face like he was having liposuction for pride.

"What did you say?"

Aksel looked over Maldock's shoulder, back towards where the Space Bug was parked across the bay. He reached up onto his tiptoes to wave at Barry through the front viewport, whom he could just about make out, smiling and holding onto the front yoke with two fists, his thumbs at the ready over two triggers.

"You left a nine-year-old at the controls of your ship," said Aksel. "High-impact blasters. Very impressive."

"What the fu–" hissed Maldock, eyes wide, spinning around on his heels.

The circle of slavers began to loosen their tight formation. Barry laughed and threw his head backward.

Chapter 5
Minutes

Aksel reacted with bluebottle-quick reflexes to Force throw the three boys in a somersaulting arc over a rabble of slaver soldiers, ducking and rolling just in time to escape the first volley of blaster fire from the Space Bug. For sixty seconds, the cargo bay was a chaotic whirl of smoke and blaster fire. Then the main cannons from the Space Bug must have temporarily overheated and ceased to fire, allowing the slavers to regroup. Several bodies – or parts of them – were strewn on the floor as the smoke began slowly to clear. Aksel clocked Maldock on the move toward him.

Tal, Kris, and Pan landed with a skid on their backsides, banging into a metal crate. With blaster fire and smoke all around them, they were momentarily hidden. Tal hauled himself to his feet and reached out his hands to help pull the smaller boys up.

"Get to the ship!" he yelled above the thumping and pinging of weapons being fired and hits landing.

"Where are you going?" cried Kris in reply, but Tal offered no answer as he launched into his own Force somersault back into the mêlée.

Tal had noticed, through the clearing haze, Aksel pulling his lightsabre and defending blaster fire left and right as Maldock charged towards him armed with a heavy-duty assault blaster. He threw himself back into the firefight, his trailing leg accidentally clipping a slaver about to open fire on Aksel as he flew through the air. The slaver fell to the floor, his weapon skidding across the ground. Tal landed in front of it and drew his sabre. Force grabbing the lost blaster, he aimed a quick shot at Maldock. It struck his boot and had seemingly no impact.

Maldock fired two big blasts at Aksel. They slammed into his sabre blade, vibrating the purple plasma and crackling into enormous, white-hot splashes, flashing brilliant white and gold for a second before booming out and dissipating like supernovae. The felled slaver made a lunge for Tal and he fired the blaster in panic. The slaver was caught in the shoulder and sprawled to the floor again, too injured to fight on. Another volley of cannon fire erupted from the Space Bug, reducing the room to smoky chaos once more, bodies dodging and falling in every direction.

Kris had grabbed Pan by the hand and begun dragging him along the line of crates towards one of the little lifting tractors. Three slavers descended on them, but between the two boys they were able to Force push them backward, the soldiers falling over each other and tripping two more of their comrades as the high-impact blaster fire started up from Space Bug again. Kris lifted Pan into the driving seat.

"Get us back to the ship!" he squealed.

"I don't know what to do!" squeaked Pan in panic.

"Push buttons, pull levers, turn the wheel!" shouted Kris. "You'll work it out!"

Kris leaped onto the front-loading platform of the tractor and Pan soon found that the lever raised Kris up in the air. Kris dropped to one knee and drew his sabre forward.

"Drive!" he shouted.

Pan squealed and pushed both his feet down on a pedal beneath the steering wheel. The tyres of the tractor squeaked into action, spinning for grip on the concrete flooring until the vehicle lurched forward and began to pick up speed, just as three more slavers had descended onto the boys. They were sent skittling back into the smoke and cannon fire, and the boys had no idea what happened to them next. Two more broke into a charge towards the front of the tractor.

"Kris!" shouted Pan. As one man came close enough to make a grab for Kris, he swung his lightsabre to discourage him. As the soldier dodged, Kris' lightsabre grazed his face, burning his cheek open and amputating his outstretched left arm.

"Oh, shit!" cried Kris, wide-eyed. The other slaver fired at the tractor, aiming to slow them down. He missed and instead hit the polymer front screen in front Pan's driving position, shattering it into pieces.

In the centre of the bay, the smoke cleared again as Barry overheated the Space Bug's cannons. More bodies were strewn around; other slavers getting back to their feet or emerging from behind crates and boxes to rejoin the fray. Tal deflected fire from a couple who had lit up on him, rebounding one shot back on the assailant's knee, causing her to crumple to the ground in pain.

Aksel was still defending from Maldock's heavy fire. Tal sprinted towards them, trying with all his might and concentration to Force push Maldock back from Aksel, blaster fire whipping past his head as he was distracted. He was now evidently a combatant, wanted dead or alive.

Aksel saw Maldock suddenly fall sideways into a stack of boxes, like a drunk trying to negotiate the front steps of a nightclub. He spun around and saw Tal charging towards them.

"What are you doing?" he shouted. "Get to the ship!"

"Aksel!" replied Tal. "I meant to tell you! It was my idea to rescue Barry from Maldock's room!"

"What?"

"I made Kris and Pan rescue Barry!"

A waterfall spray of blaster fire pooled in the space between them.

"Never mind!" yelled Aksel. "Just concentrate on what you're doing!"

Maldock was struggling back to his feet. Aksel charged into position, slashing his sabre at the body of Maldock's huge blaster, scything it in two. He held the blade one-handed, in his left hand, pointed at Maldock's chest. "Go!" he shouted to Tal.

Tal turned to sprint away, immediately bumping headfirst into a slaver who had snuck up to make a grab for him. As the man's arm wrapped around his neck, Tal felt his lightsabre pushing directly through the man's stomach, the tension momentarily building and releasing as he bored a hole through the vertebrae of his spine before the blade could descend all the way to the hilt. He watched wide-eyed as the man's eyes bugged and rolled in their sockets, and rivers of crimson spurted between his lips and down his chin. The arm released. Tal leaped back, blew as hard as he could from his nose and mouth at the same time, and turned and ran.

Aksel stood over Maldock staring into his eyes, the end of his purple blade hovering over the man's chest and neck. Maldock returned the stare coldly.

"Fuck you!" he spat, grabbing for a large, serrated vibro-blade from somewhere within his combats. He slashed at Aksel's legs, forcing him to hop backward. Maldock bounded to his feet and launched himself at Aksel, roaring. The Space Bug cannon fire started up again. Aksel dodged backward, bouncing left and right on his toes, holding his sabre before him in his left hand. He parried some other stray blaster fire, keeping his focus as much as he could on Maldock. Then, eventually, the right moment came, amongst the anarchy of the black smoke and the booming cannon fire. Maldock made a lunge forward, and Aksel flicked his left wrist, swinging just the very tip of his blade through Maldock's forearm, severing his hand and the dagger with it. As Maldock fell forward, overbalancing and bellowing with pain and rage, Aksel aimed a broad stamp at Maldock's chest with the sole of his foot. It sent Maldock tumbling backward onto his knees, right into the path of the blaster fire from his ship. He knelt and glared at Aksel, defiance and loathing etched across his face like some fleshy gargoyle. Within seconds, his body parts were strewn in milligram measures across the vast room.

Kris and Pan were motoring towards the ships, Space Bug fire whipping overhead. A line of slavers was trying to find a way past the Space Bug's shields and stop the rain of cannon fire, without much success. They instead turned on Kris and Pan, desperate to head off the boys' escape.

"How are we going to get through if they can't?" yelled Pan.

"Just drive for our ship!" replied Kris.

"I don't even know how to stop!"

The slavers had formed up in a semicircle and didn't look in any mood to move. The tractor was heading for them at full speed.

"Drive, Pan!" squealed Kris. "R6 will let us through!"

Realising the boys were not going to stop, the group of slavers opened fire. Kris threw his sabre back and forth as quickly as he could, deflecting any shots directly crossing his path. Blaster fire pinged everywhere, setting fire to boxes, burning holes in crates, and making some of the slavers dance as shots pinged back towards them. One, then another, fell to the ground having sustained rebounds, writhing in pain.

"Kris! The shields are still up!" screamed Pan. "We're gonna crash!"

Enough shots had hit the bodywork of the tractor that the engine began to spark and hiss beneath them. They were metres from the edge of the U-Wing's shields. Overhead, Barry unleashed another volley of high-impact blaster fire.

"The go-pedal's stopped working!"

"Pan, duck!"

The slavers bravely held their line as the runaway tractor, barely beginning to slow, ploughed straight into them. The two on either flank were buffeted out of the way, bouncing off the tractor wheels and then the ship's shields to land in crumpled heaps on the floor some distance away. The two hit by the corners of Kris' loading platform were dragged along helplessly beneath. The slaver who had been stood in the middle received a direct hit from the tractor in front and the U-Wing shield behind and was instantly crushed to death.

Kris and Pan had ducked and closed their eyes, expecting to feel the crunch of the tractor crashing headlong into the shields. They felt the rumble of the slavers being run over. Then nothing. When the tractor came to a halt, they dared to open their eyes and look up. They were parked in front of the ship.

"What? What happened?" said Pan

"I don't know," said Kris. "R6?"

R6 bleeped and blooped a greeting. For the few seconds they'd needed to approach the ship, it had lowered the shields enough to let them pass through.

"What about the slavers?" said Kris. "Didn't they get through too?"

R6 made a non-committal whistle. Kris and Pan turned around to see the group of slaver soldiers scattered across the floor, and indeed crates, in front of the ship. As soon as the shield intensity had been increased again, they'd been ejected with a velocity proportional to the increase in energy. Some of the landings had not been too pretty.

"Cool, one-way shields!" said Kris. "Thanks, R6!"

"Didn't we hit some people as well?" said Pan.

"I think so," said Kris, hopping down off the loading platform. "Oh…"

"What is it?"

"Come have a look."

Pan hopped from the vehicle cab and went to stand next to Kris. Beneath the platform were two slavers it had dragged along, unconscious and bloodied, their limbs at uncomfortable angles.

"We should go inside," said Kris, dragging Pan away. "Don't look too hard. You'll get nightmares."

Tal zigzagged around the centre of the skirmish, deflecting blaster fire from all angles, and pushing back more potential ambushers when he could. He felt like he was going around in circles. Then the cannon fire from the Space Bug started up again and he was forced to take cover behind a row of crates with a slaver torso. He gulped and poked it away with his foot, finding it surprisingly light. The fire stopped and the smoke began to clear once more. Tal could make out Aksel's purple lightsabre whipping back and forth somewhere out in the mayhem. He wasn't sure if his best chance was to head towards it or try to make a break for the ship. So, for the moment he stayed put, waiting for another round of Space Bug fire to blast the battlefield to smithereens again.

Aksel counted the seconds in his head as he pirouetted amongst the surviving slavers, trying his best to reduce their number without further endangering himself. As his backward count reached five, he skipped a route into the centre of the room again, drawing several slavers with him. He let his count reach zero and Force dashed back towards the margins of the field of battle. Moments later the Space Bug's blasters started up again and the room was flying through a thunderstorm.

Tal saw Aksel's purple light come towards him. Deciding it was now or never, he broke cover to join him, almost bumping into his master as he came in the opposite direction, their lightsabres meeting.

"Tal!" shouted Aksel. "You need to get back to the ship!"

"I can't make it!" responded Tal. "There's too many of them!"

"Stick with me! I'll try to make a way through for you!"

The smoke began to clear. Aksel cut to the right and Tal followed. They were immediately beset by blaster fire.

"When the fire from Barry starts up again," yelled Aksel, between parries, "run with me alongside it. You should be able to get most of the way back."

Aksel was counting down in his head again. Blaster fire pinged all around them. Tal was back-to-back with his master, doing his best to help cover all angles. Slowly, the slavers were advancing. They were getting surrounded.

"Get ready to move," said Aksel. "Any second now."

Aksel's internal countdown had reached zero. The slavers continued their advance. Any moment the cannons of the Space Bug ought to disrupt them again. A blaster shot whizzed just over Aksel's head. Nothing was happening. The slavers edged closer, reforming a heavily depleted version of the circle they'd had before.

"What's Barry doing?" whimpered Tal.

"Must have drained the energy stores for the weapons, sat there holding the trigger down with the shields on full, not letting them cool properly," said Aksel. Tal swung at the last second to prevent a shot landing on his hip. "Don't give up. I'm still here with you. I'll do whatever I can to let you escape."

Kris and Pan were aboard the ship. A wave of cannon fire was bursting from the Space Bug.

"We need to do something to help too!" said Kris, desperately searching amongst the controls in the cockpit.

"Can't we just fire the guns like Barry?" said Pan.

"No," said Kris. "We're facing the wrong way. We'd be firing them at Barry."

"Well, we don't have anything else here!" said Pan.

"There must be something," said Kris. "We can't do nothing. There must be, like, a hundred slavers out there!"

"The only other thing we have in here is the training droid," sighed Pan.

Kris stared at Pan. Then, without warning, he grabbed him by the cheeks. "Pan, you're a genius!"

"Ow!" squeaked Pan. "Get off! Where are you going?"

Kris had dashed down the stairs to the hold, in search of the training droid. "Where is it?"

"How is the training droid useful?" said Pan, chasing after him. "All it can do is give them a little shock, like static or something."

"Yeah," said Kris, finding and activating the droid, "but there must be a way of turning the power up, right, R6?"

R6 bleeped and whistled. They could indeed turn the power up, but not enough to turn it into a lethal weapon.

"What if we – I dunno – overload it or something?" said Kris.

"Yeah," said Pan. "It might be able to knock some of the slavers out!"

R6 whooped and blooped. It could overclock the settings on the training droid, but they should be warned that it might just explode before it could do anything.

"Okay, we have to do it!" said Kris. "Come on, training droid! Hook up with the port on the wall so that R6 can set you up!"

The droid bobbed along towards the computer port, opening its interface arm in preparation.

"Faster!" said Pan, reaching up and giving it a hefty push along. The droid locked with a bump into the interface port. R6 declared overclocking in progress.

"Come on, come on!" mumbled Kris under his breath, seconds passing like minutes as they waited for the training droid to be prepared. Eventually, the droid released itself from the interface port.

"Go, little training droid!" said Pan. "Go fire on the slavers!"

The droid zipped from the hold at a markedly higher speed than its previous dawdling bob. Kris and Pan ran out in front of the ship after it. It flew high above the stacked crates, making a direct line for the centre of the room. The boys realised they were not a second too soon; across the room, they could see two lightsabres raised, a purple one and a more fuchsia one, completely enclosed in a circle of advancing enemies. Kris' eye was caught by Barry in the cockpit of the Space Bug, pounding the yoke of the ship in frustration and slapping his hands on the triggers to no avail.

Surrounded by slavers on all sides, Aksel desperately searched for some inspiration to rescue at least Tal, if not himself too. He could try Force throwing the boy across the room again, but what if the slavers just fired on him and left him too injured to escape back to the ship? He could charge the slavers and attempt to sacrifice himself, but what if there were enough of them to just overpower and grab Tal anyway? Running out of options, he formed a Force barrier around the two of them and waited for the slavers' inevitable approach.

"I love you, Aksel!" whimpered Tal.

"Love you too, Talep," Aksel whispered.

Up above them the training droid zipped into view, snapping into position above the circle with split-second deceleration. Aksel could barely believe his eyes as it lit its warning light as if to fire a training shot at the group below, then exploded violently, sending a shockwave of energy in all directions. Aksel held the Force barrier as long as it could, straining and feeling it fade as it repelled the charge. Eventually he let go, looking at the circle of slavers now lying all around them, collapsed like enormous dominoes.

"What just happened?" said Tal.

"I don't know," said Aksel, "but I have a feeling we're about to find out."

"Aksel!" cried Pan, sprinting towards them, Kris trotting along behind.

"Pan, you should've stayed on the ship," Aksel chided him, as Pan bounced into his master's midriff to meet him with a powerful hug.

"What did you guys do?" said Tal, wide-eyed. "The training droid just went nuclear!"

"We got R6 to overclock it!" said Kris, grinning and wrinkling his freckled nose. "The shock should have knocked them all out cold!"

"That's pretty damn impressive!" said Tal. "How long d'you think we've got?"

"I dunno. Minutes, probably," said Aksel, shuffling around with Pan still clinging to him. "We need to act fast. This base is big. More will come. Where's R6?"

"Still in place on the ship," said Pan, muffled by Aksel's belly.

"Okay we need to move. We don't have long, but it should be enough time for him to steal some information for us. Pan, let go, we've got to run!"

"What happened to Maldock?" panted Kris, as the four sprinted in a line towards the ships in the far corner of the room.

"He messed with the wrong boys," said Aksel. Kris allowed himself another little nose-wrinkling grin of satisfaction.

"R6, get down here!" Aksel called as they arrived at the ship. "We need you!"

R6 moved into position as quickly as it could, which was still rather slowly. Aksel and the boys waited in front of the ship.

"What do we do now?" asked Pan.

"You and Kris go and get Barry," said Aksel. "Take him to our ship and all of you stay there. Don't even think about moving! Tal, you come with me and R6."

"Got it," nodded Tal.

"Barry, let us up to you!" shouted Kris, waving his arms at the Space Bug's cockpit.

"R6, let's move," said Aksel, as the droid reported before them. "We need to get to an interface and find out a bit more about what's going on here."

"I saw panels next to the doors," said Tal.

"Is there one right here?" suggested Aksel, pointing to the door closest to their ships. Tal ran around to see.

"No," shouted Tal. "There was one, but it looks like it got hit with a blaster during the fight. It's useless."

"Shit," said Aksel. "Let's run for the middle door on this near side. Come on!"

R6 hit top speed in the sprint for the computer interface, Tal and Aksel jogging alongside. There was still no sign of any of the slavers stirring as they made it to the panel beside the door, and R6 inserted itself into the port.

"Okay, R6, we're looking for any information on who this place belongs to, and any information held on Kriboziah. If it's not mentioned by name, look for anything on recent raids or slave movements and exports." Aksel turned to Tal. "I'll watch the doorway; you watch my back. Okay?"

"You can count on me!" chirped Tal.

R6 had been working for about thirty seconds. The corridor ahead seemed perfectly tranquil and clear. The droid whistled and bleeped.

"That's excellent R6," said Aksel. "I'll look through the files on the visual display back at the ship. Now see if you can find anything on what happened to the people taken from Kriboziah."

"Uh, Aksel…" said Tal. Aksel whipped around. The corridor in front of them may have been harmless, but from the passage opposite, six or seven new enemies emerged. And they looked pissed off.

"Oh, shit…" said Aksel. "Try to stay behind me."

Aksel charged towards the new assailants, causing them to fan and scatter. Two lunged at him from either flank, armed with electro swords. Aksel took a little Force hop backward, flicking his sabre around from left to right to cleave the electrified blades from their hilts, then, bouncing on his toes as he landed, slashing right to left, backhanded, to sear through the midriff flesh of both attackers. Tal watched in stunned awe. He had seen his master fight in little skirmishes before, but only when he was small, and only mainly with Force moves against people who weren't armed. Seeing him in full flight, armed with his sabre, was something else.

The first two attackers were dead before they dropped to the concrete floor, and the remaining five fanned in front of Aksel, weapons drawn. Again, the outermost two attacked. They were armed with vibro-axes, charging at Aksel, ready to slash. Once more, Aksel hopped backward to give himself more space. Holding his sabre at arm's length, he flicked it around again, left to right in a big arc, high to low to high again. He nicked the medial antebrachial muscles of their forearms, right where they were supporting the long poles of their axes. With the muscles severed, the men involuntarily drooped their axes towards each other. Aksel swung back around to complete the circle, lopping the vibrating blades from the top of the long pikes, sending them crashing back towards the men wielding them. With the attackers distracted, he poked his plasma blade through the abdomen of first one, then the other, sending them crumpling to the ground.

Suddenly Tal understood exactly why it was Aksel put so much time and effort into developing his one-handed technique. Spending most of his life in the outer rim of the galaxy, he must have come up against brutes like these wielding crude mêlée weapons all the time. His skill with one hand gave him so much more space and balance to avoid their blows, and so much more precision and speed to respond to their threat before the assailants could react. Tal watched adoringly.

The remaining three attackers were armed with powerful blasters. Aksel generated a Force barrier to cover himself and moved to isolate the leftmost slaver first. Tal watched the movement and technique closely, oblivious to the growing thuds of someone running behind him. R6 whistled a sharp note of warning. Tal swung around, barely aware that he was still holding his lightsabre. Charging towards him down the passageway was a large, purple Zabrak, face adorned with bright yellow and deep black tattoos. He was armed with an enormous, electrified trident.

Tal backpedalled as quickly as he could, turning to run as the much larger adult Zabrak man cleared the doorway and galloped right for him. He broke towards the ship, running as fast as he could. He wished he could Force dash, but somehow he hadn't yet been able to pick up the skill. The Zabrak was gaining on him. Ahead he could see Kris, Pan, and Barry, stood willing him on from the door of the ship, shouting things he couldn't make out. He realised he would never make it. The Zabrak was catching him too quickly. He turned to face him.

The Zabrak laughed and jabbed his mighty trident at the boy, forcing Tal to duck left and right. He imagined he was Aksel and hopped back onto the balls of his feet, holding his lightsabre out straight ahead with a looseness in his right wrist, letting his newly customised handle worry about the physics of the grip. The Zabrak laughed again. Tal flicked his blade left and right, copying the movements he'd seen Aksel make as closely as he could. The Zabrak man snorted, but Tal had put him on the defensive. His electrified trident may have been almost the same length as the boy, but he'd have to be quick now to land a blow before Tal could slice it in two with his lightsabre. Tal read the doubt in his assailant's eyes. He feinted left. He feinted right. The Zabrak lurched in tandem with him. Tal had crossed his big feet over, tripping himself as he feinted again to the left, taking him under the swinging lunge of the Zabrak's trident. He wrapped his trailing right leg around the Zabrak's ankle, concentrating everything he had on that leg in the hope that the Force would increase his strength. The trident-wielding Zabrak man went sprawling backward, flying up in the air. As he did, Tal reached with his lightsabre to perform a full-stretch slash. The Zabrak landed on the ground in two parts, his legs separated from his body above the pelvis.

Tal rolled back to his feet, catching Pan bouncing and cheering from the corner of his eye. He set himself again as he realised one of Aksel's assailants had peeled off and come after him instead. Aksel had just finished dealing with the slaver on his left, and was now going head-to-head with the middle attacker, seemingly unaware that the other had come after Tal. The boy readied himself to try the same trick again, but instead found himself having to take his blade back in two hands as he was peppered with heavy blaster fire. It crackled against the plasma of his lightsabre and faded, just as Maldock's had against Aksel minutes before. Tal found himself forced further backward, meandering in wider and wider circles. He stumbled once on the corner of a burnt-out box, unable to properly see where he was going, another time over the sprawled severed leg of the Zabrak man, barely keeping his balance both times and deflecting fire from his attacker. The third time, he simply tripped over his own feet as he began to feel slightly dizzy from all the circular backpedalling. Tal lay spread-eagled on the floor, his lightsabre clattering from his hand, even with its more robust new grip.

Aksel had just pushed the middle assailant to the floor. He looked up to see Tal stumbling backward. Without thinking, he zoomed across the room, Force dashing like never before. Just as the man was wrapping his hands around Tal's ankles to drag him away, Aksel arrived on the scene, spearing him side-on through the guts at high speed and severing the belt of his blaster. The man was a fountain of blood as he tumbled sideways, he and his blaster crashing to the floor at the same time.

"You okay?" Aksel said, stooping over Tal. "You need to watch your footwork, clumsy."

"Aksel!" squealed Tal, as the slaver Aksel had left behind jumped back to his feet and aimed a blaster shot at the unsighted Jedi. Aksel wheeled around and met the shot straight out of the centre of his lightsabre. It rebounded near-perfectly, zipping back in the direction from whence it came. The slaver rolled out of the way, just, and turned his attention to something else. R6 was motoring back toward them as fast as was physically possible for the small, three-wheeled droid. The slaver was shouting and giving chase, aiming his blaster again. Aksel looked up at the orange sky. R6 had taken the cargo bay shields down. It must be time to go.

"Tal, get up!" Aksel began to say, but the crack of a high-power blaster drowned him out. The slaver chasing R6 was thrown backward dramatically, as if struck by lightning, his body slamming into the floor with a dull thud. On the ground at Aksel's feet, Tal was holding the big blaster that had a minute earlier been trained on him.

"Good shot," said Aksel. "Now move!"

Aksel could see the circle of incapacitated slaver soldiers in the centre of the bay were beginning to twitch and stir. Time was up. He rushed back to the ship, calling for the boys to get themselves strapped in and ready to leave.

"Where should Barry sit?" asked Kris.

"How should I know?" said Aksel. "Work something out! Your lap if necessary."

"Why don't we just take the Bug?" said Pan.

"Can't," said Aksel. "Weapons have burnt out. Like all things Maldock: looks impressive and powerful; really, soft as shit. It can still be some use, though." He pulled off up the stairs of the Space Bug.

"Where's he going?" said Pan to Tal, arriving at that moment with R6, lightsabre back in hand.

"Dunno," said Tal. "Get in your seat, munchkin. Now!"

There was shouting behind them. A blaster shot splashed against the Space Bug's shields. Tal turned to look back at Maldock's ship as he entered the U-Wing hatch, seeing Aksel jabbing furiously at buttons up in the cockpit. He stepped aside for R6 to pass. Seconds later, Aksel was bounding back down the steps from the Space Bug. More blaster fire began to pepper the defensive shields of their ship and slam dully into the hull of Space Bug.

"Get ready to go!" Aksel called to Tal, sprinting across the distance between the two spacecraft. Tal clanked his way up the stairs to the cockpit as fast as he could. Kris was getting Barry comfortable in his lap, a length of stretchy polymer fibre borrowed from somewhere acting as an improvised second belt around the boy's waist.

"Tal, you killed a guy with a trident!" twittered Pan admiringly, watching Tal take his seat.

"Yeah," said Tal. "Suppose I did."

Aksel had arrived on the scene. "Boys, we have to get going now. But just remember, any of those people you hurt – killed even – was in self-defence. They would have done the same or worse to you, and they've done the same and worse to other people. I'm here if you want to talk about it later, okay?"

"Okay," said Tal. The other boys nodded.

"What we're about to do is also self-defence," said Aksel. "Now let's get busy. R6, ready to go?"

The droid whinnied.

"Go!" shouted Aksel. The U-Wing took off as vertically as possible, skimming the top of the Space Bug as it ascended, its shields now inactive. Aksel directed the craft in a narrow sweep back across the room, twisting into an ascent and rising – just – out of the roof of the cargo bay before clipping the far rim of the roof. The slavers below were scattered in all directions by the force of the ship taking off above them.

The U-Wing was met by heavy fire from defensive towers ahead of them, so Aksel swung it around again, taking them back on another pass over the cargo bay, this time at higher altitude. They were just in time to see a massive explosion rip through the buildings below, sending plumes of dust, fire, and debris into the sky above.

"What was that?" cried Tal.

"What?" said Kris. "I can't see. Barry, what happened?"

"Wow!" gasped Pan.

"Big explosion," Barry's vocoder explained.

"I set the Space Bug to self-destruct," said Aksel, with a little sigh. "It's a shame, because it was a really cool ship. Still, it's not like we could have saved it."

"That's vandalism," said Kris. "You're a lout, Aksel."

"I'm glad it's gone," said Barry. "Now everything about that man has been blown up, right Aksel?"

"Yes, Barry, he's gone," said Aksel. "You're a free man again."

"Hooray!" whooped Pan, giving Barry a hi-five.

"Aksel; company," said Tal, pointing out display readings of ships on their tail.

"Be ready with the front laser cannons," said Aksel. "We have to try to outrun them."

"What's the plan, Master A?" asked Kris.

"R6 tells me these lot are the Larisa Syndicate, which is very interesting," said Aksel.

"What's that mean?" said Pan, as the ship was rocked by the shields taking two heavy hits to the rear.

"Shields 80%," read Tal.

"Our sector isn't their usual territory," said Aksel. "In fact, it's territory pretty jealously guarded by the Sembolo Gang."

"Who're they?" Aksel was pleasantly surprised to hear Barry's vocoder voice chipping in already. Another blast vibrated the ship.

"Holding at eighty," said Tal.

"They're like a pirate mafia, I guess," explained Aksel. "They operate out of a planet called Sembolo 5 and run protection, smuggling, and intimidation rackets in Kriboziah's sector from there. I reckon we head there and pay a visit to share the news."

Another blast. The ship was reaching the edge of the planet's atmosphere.

"Down to 73%," said Tal. "Holding off their fire like this is starting to be a big drain on our energy."

"Well, the other advantage of going to Sembolo is that these goons wouldn't dare follow us there," said Aksel. "R6, prepare to jump to hyperspace. Calculate path and coordinates for Sembolo 5."

R6 whistled in assent. They had penetrated the thermosphere of the planet and were accelerating towards the exosphere and escape into open space. Another blast was deflected off the rear shielding of the ship, but it was a glancing blow.

"Seventy," said Tal. "Doing okay."

"We're pulling clear of the planet now," said Aksel. "Prepare to jump everyone. R6, go as soon as we can."

There was another boom at the tail of the ship, and a much heavier judder.

"59%," said Tal. "How much longer, Aksel?"

"Give three short blasts on the front cannons," said Aksel.

"Why?" said Tal.

"Might confuse them," said Aksel. "Make them think we've seen something up ahead."

Another shot skimmed the side of the ship's shields. Tal did as he was told. One-two-three-pause. One-two-three-pause. The fire from behind momentarily went quiet. The display buzzed with red symbols indicating the number of pirate ships on their tail. Tal went again. One-two-three-pause. Still silence from behind them. They climbed further towards the outermost reaches of the planet's atmosphere.

Two booms hit their rear shields again, rocking the entire ship. Another followed.

"Shields are struggling Aksel!" worried Tal.

"No matter. R6, ready to jump when you are."

R6 bleeped. More fire skimmed above and below the ship.

"Three," said Aksel, "two…"

Right in front of the chasing slaver squadron, the U-Wing disappeared into hyperspace.

Chapter 6
Gambles

Landing on Sembolo 5 was achieved without much fuss. Different boys had fallen asleep at different points during the trip through hyperspace, but Aksel maintained at the helm, unflinching and unblinking – even though he probably could have drifted off and left things to R6 had he needed to. He barely yawned until they pulled into the main spaceport of Anahera Kino, the capital city of Sembolo 5, in the wee hours as observed from that slice of the small rocky world. The city rose up to their south and west, a jungle of concrete and neon. Aksel parked up and roused the boys enough to get them off the ship and into a small automated hover cab, which whisked them to the nearest hostel. Aksel hired out a dorm room for them and guided four almost sleepwalking boys to bed. Static-eared and achy-shinned, he closed his eyes and knew nothing more.

Aksel was woken by a squeaky, desperate voice and his shoulders being shaken.

"Aksel!" whined Pan. "I really need to pee! Where's the bathroom in this place?"

Aksel grunted incoherently and rubbed his eyes, only just preventing himself from automatically rolling onto his side and away from the disturbance.

"Aksel, I'm gonna wet my pants!"

"Pan," sighed Aksel, "you're ten years old. Can't you find the damn toilet by yourself?"

"I don't even know where I am," moaned Pan. Aksel sighed roughly and rolled out of bed and onto his feet. He marched the short way across their tight dorm to the door and swung it open. There, a few metres down the corridor before them, was a little sign sticking out of the wall to indicate the location of the bathroom.

"You didn't even look, did you?"

"I did!" insisted Pan. "I just didn't see it first of all!"

"You'd better get down there quick before it disappears again," said Aksel, nudging Pan through the bedroom door and letting it close. He sighed once more and made his way back to bed. Barry was also awake but sitting quietly on his bed. Tal and Kris seemed to still be asleep, or at least lying down with their eyes closed.

Aksel was woken again as soon as he had let his heavy eyelids fall shut, this time by a hammering at the door. Barry kindly padded across the floor to deal with it.

"You locked me out!" pouted Pan.

"Shut up, brat!" grumbled Kris, headful of pillow. "The rest of us are still trying to sleep!"

"Aksel!"

"You heard him, Pan," said Aksel. "Be good and quiet like Barry. Everyone else still needs to rest."

Pan huffed incredulously and flopped loudly onto his bed.

"This is so unfair," came a hissed whisper across the room.

***

Kris eventually called the shots on when everyone should get up. Three woken boys formed a critical mass at which there could be no further evasion. Aksel took them out for breakfast but had to make a stop on the way.

"Why are we in this place?" whined Pan.

"They change currency," said Aksel. "They don't accept credits on this planet."

"What do they use, then?" asked Kris.

"Wupiupi," said Aksel. "I've just taken enough out to pay for our room and meals, and some new clothes for Barry."

"Thanks, Aksel!" Barry chirped, the enthusiasm in his voice dimmed somewhat via the vocoder.

"No problem, buddy," replied Aksel. "We can't leave you barefoot and scruffy while we're all dressed comfortably."

"Are we going for breakfast now?" asked Tal. "I'm hungry."

"You're always hungry, wookiee," teased Kris.

"Yes, we can go for breakfast now," said Aksel. "But remember where this place is. You'll have to come back here later if you want to be able to go out and have fun while I'm talking to the pirates."

The five had breakfast under the shade of purple-leafed trees, outside a café in the space between several towering buildings. The morning heat was already spreading rapidly, like oil across the surface of water. This world couldn't have been more different from Tungares.

"What are you going to tell the pirates?" asked Tal, forking fruit slices into his mouth.

"I'm going to take R6 and give them all the data we stole," said Aksel. "Hopefully, the incursion into their territory will make them want to take revenge, and we can strike a deal to free all the Kribozians who were taken."

"Why would pirates want to help?" asked Kris, incredulously. Aksel had to accept that it was a very good point.

"Maybe they won't," said Aksel. "But it will do us no harm to tip them off that some other group has been interfering in their territory. Then they'll be on the lookout in future."

"My parents aren't missing in the future," said Pan. "They're missing now."

"And we're going to find them Pan, I promise," said Aksel. "Even if the pirates aren't useful, it's worth trying it out before we go looking for them ourselves."

"This food is really good," said Barry, smiling broadly and looking around the table. Pan pulled a face and sighed, then nodded his head.

"Yeah," he said. "S'pose it is."

"While I'm seeing the pirates, I'm trusting you all with the money to get Barry some new clothes, okay?"

Tal grinned and nodded. "I'll take the money, Aksel."

"Okay, Tal," said Aksel. "But keep it safe. Don't do anything silly with it."

"Me? Silly?" smiled Tal. Kris punched his arm.

"I don't know how long it might take me to even get to see the pirates, let alone finish with them," said Aksel. "You boys can go and use your credit chips to take out some Wupiupi – but be careful. Credits are worth much more than Wupiupi, so don't get spending ridiculous amounts of money."

"No problem, Master A," said Kris. "We're broke anyway. It's not like you or Pan's parents pay us hundreds of credits in pocket money."

"It's not you I'm worried about," said Aksel. "Pan, you will have access to all of your family's credits. Do not – I repeat, do not – spend too much. Got it?"

"I'm not stupid," said Pan. "Man, Aksel. Stop picking on me today!"

Aksel gave Pan an annoyed look but ignored him. "And stay out of trouble! This is a pirate planet, remember. Weapons left with me. Absolutely no gambling, no going to fights or other violent events, and no other adult stuff! There's plenty of fun kid's stuff to do."

"Got it, Master," said Kris. "Stay out of the titty bars."

"Kris," Aksel chided in a low voice, shaking his head, "not funny."

Kris looked up across the table to see Barry staring back at him, mouth agape and wide-eyed.

Abandoned by author