❛ I don't know. You think a stormtrooper and a guy like me - ? ❜
Callisto is worth a lot of credits - being an imperial deserter will do that to a person. But an annoying farmboy ( with pretty eyes ) that she meets on a backwater planet may just be...
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CHAPTER II
CALLISTO HATED SAND.
The air on Tatooine was hot and dry, and sweat traced tracks down her face like tears. Her helmet did little to help. Even though the sweltering heat was harsh, and the binary suns beat down upon her back with a savage relentlessness, the worst of it was still the sand. She'd only been on Tatooine for a short while, but the sand was everywhere. It blew around her feet, getting in her boots and sticking between the grooves of her armour.
Maybe she was regretting her rash decision.
Even Mos Eisley wasn't safe. The spaceport was a strange array of low concrete squares and peculiar half-domes. Together, the crumbling sandstone buildings looked like a city flattened beneath a god's shoe, ruins left to the mercy of the wasteland. A harsh wind swept across the floor, picking up dust and dirt and whisking it through the sun-baked streets.
Callisto kicked at a particularly evil-looking pile of sand and regretted it when it came back to hit her in the face.
She didn't hate sand. No, she loathed it with a passion.
The streets of Mos Eisley were crowded with so many strange transports (and even stranger people) that she was beginning to feel overwhelmed. There were species of alien Callisto had only ever read about, and with the Empire's limited and carefully regulated holo-files, there were some she had never even dreamed of.
She drew her cloak tighter around her body. There was nothing to look at. If she wanted to get off this rock, she had to focus.
Besides, more people meant more potential threats. Callisto didn't know if the Imperials had a bounty on her, but if the strange figure that she'd noticed trailing her through the streets was any sign, she had her answer. After a cursory glance around, she couldn't seem to find her little shadow.
Maybe she was just paranoid. Maybe, just maybe, the cloaked figure just so happened to be walking the same path as her, and it was all one big coincidence.
Or maybe troopers were already being traced to her location. It was a miracle Callisto had even got away — if not for the distracting explosions, she would be back in her barracks. Or dead.
Along the edges of her vision, heat shimmered from the ground, and the haze distorted the huts and transports in the distance. Callisto rubbed her eyes with a gloved hand. The standard-issue leather was stiffened with clay and blood and left streaks of colour across her face. She could already feel a headache coming on.
Over there.
The voice, paper-thin and on the verge of whispering, brushed up against Callisto's ear like a lover's caress. Her spine stiffened; no one was near enough to have spoken to her. A heavy silence filled her mind.
