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He and 4-LOM had never been treated like this, not even by their own guild. The Empire certainly never invited them to witness its ceremonies. It had rushed to give them many things after they accepted the contract from Vader, but it had not given them as gifts. It had not included them as members of a team fighting for an important cause, like these Rebels did.

The other ammonia breathers poured themselves full glasses. Zuckuss held his glass up. “To Toryn,” he said. They all drank. Zuckuss then held his glass up to 4-LOM. “To our new lives here,” he said. 4-LOM bowed to Zuckuss while Zuckuss took a drink. Zuckuss coughed a little. 4-LOM helped steady him on the edge of the bed. He quickly calculated the importance of ceremony. He and Zuckuss would incorporate it in their new guild. Ceremony, and the bonding it promoted, would give them a small statistical edge over other guilds that might form in the New Republic.

In the days that followed, while Zuckuss healed, 4-LOM received programming for his new work in Special Forces, and he oversaw the camouflaging and refitting of the Mist Hunter. Rebel technology would make her a remarkable ship indeed. General Rieekan had talked with him about how he and Zuckuss might attempt a possible rescue of Han Solo, since they would probably have access to Jabba’s Palace. Perhaps they could even intercept Boba Fett.

The time they spent waiting for Zuckuss’s lungs to rapidly grow could be explained as time spent hiding from Imperials. 4-LOM calculated extreme dangers in such a plan, since the bounties Vader had placed on him and his partner were undoubtedly large enough to tempt Jabba, but it amused 4-LOM to calculate Jabba’s surprise when—if he and Zuckuss succeeded in rescuing Solo—Jabba would realize that he and Zuckuss were not merely luckless bounty hunters but Rebel agents.

It also often amused 4-LOM to calculate the Imperials’ shock when they realized that not only had he and Zuckuss defected to the Rebellion, but that they had managed to take ninety Rebels and two medical droids from a downed transport with them.

That the Imperials would be furious was an understatement.

And often, as he worked alone on his ship, he practiced meditation. He completed more and more of his equation. In one meditation, he thought he glimpsed the futures that lay ahead of him. One, above the others, intrigued him. In it, he saw himself sitting with young Jedi Knights in a newly established academy. He could not tell if he had learned the ways of the Force or if he were still attempting to learn them. It was a brief glimpse only, and just one of many possible futures.

When 4-LOM told Zuckuss what he had seen, Zuckuss never doubted him.

The Last One Standing:

The Tale of Boba Fett

by Daniel Keys Moran

The last statement of the Journeyman Protector Jaster Mereel, known later as the Hunter Boba Fett, before exile from the world of Concord Dawn:

Everyone dies.

It’s the final and only lasting Justice. Evil exists; it is intelligence in the service of entropy. When the side of a mountain slides down to kill a village, this is not evil, for evil requires intent. Should a sentient being cause that landslide, there is evil; and requires Justice as a consequence, so that civilization can exist.

There is no greater good than Justice; and only if law serves Justice is it good law. It is said correctly that law exists not for the Just but for the unjust, for the Just carry the law in their hearts, and do not need to call it from afar.

I bow to no one and I give service only for cause.

“Jaster Mereel.”

Journeyman Mereel sat in his cell, in chains, with early morning sunshine streaking in through a tall and narrow barred window, high on the cell’s wall.

His ankles were chained together so that he could not walk; another chain encircled his waist, and his wrists were linked to that. He was young, and he did not rise when the Pleader entered his cell; he could see that the discourtesy displeased the older man.

The