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Aril kept her voice low. “Another sweep?”

Nawara nodded but remained silent.

The various alien denizens of the bar shifted around anxiously. The Gotal seated back to back with Nawara in the next booth over ducked his head, giving Gavin a clear view of the stormtroopers centered between the Gotal’s horns. Gavin killed a smile as he recalled stories about Gotals being able to read minds. It would be very interesting to be able to know what’s going on inside those helmets, if anything at all is. I wonder what they’re after?

The knot of stormtroopers nearest the Rogues stopped at a table where two squid-headed Quarren sat conversing with a tall Duros. The leader of the stormtroopers demanded identification cards. He ran them one at a time through a slot on the datapad attached to the armor on his right thigh, then returned one card to the Duros.

“You two will have to come with us.” The stormtroopers behind him brought their blaster carbines up to cover the Quarren.

“What have we done?”

“Routine inquiries. You have nothing to fear if you have done nothing wrong.”

The Quarren, pulling their robes tightly around them, rose from their stools and scurried out. No one stared at them, but everyone seemed to be watching them go. Gavin could feel resentment rising in the room as it rose in him.

The second trio of stormtroopers found no one interesting to harass, so they backed to the door while the first set of troopers approached the Rogues’ table. The leader demanded Gavin’s identification with an outstretched hand. “Far from home, aren’t you? ID, now.”

Gavin fumbled for it, then turned it over.

The stormtrooper ran it through his datapad’s slot, but didn’t return it immediately. “I asked you a question, son. What are you doing here?”

“Ah, I, ah, I’m just here.” Gavin fought to stop panic from choking him.

The stormtrooper snapped the ID card on the table. “I have reports that say you left home under strange circumstances. Maybe you want to come with us and return to your own kind. We won’t let them hurt you.”

“No, I’m fine here, really.”

The trooper shifted his attention to Rhysati. “Identification.”

She snuggled tighter beneath Nawara’s brain tail and flicked her pink tongue salaciously over the grey flesh of the Twi’lek’s throat. Nawara reached inside his tunic and held up an ID card between the second and third fingers of his right hand. As he lifted it toward the stormtrooper, Gavin saw the outline of a black triangular coin worth a hundred credits. “You don’t really need to see her identification.”

The stormtrooper took the ID card and neatly palmed the coin. He held the card up to compare the hologram with Rhysati, then tossed it down in anger when she turned her face toward him and winked. “Your kind makes me sick.”

“As does your kind, which is why I’m with him.”

That rocked the stormtrooper back on his heels for a moment and he seemed about ready to go for his blaster when a buzzing came from his helmet. He touched the side of it with his left hand, then turned to his two companions and jerked his head toward the door. Looking back at Nawara he said, “You’re lucky this time, spoiler, but I’d be thinking about finding a new friend. It wouldn’t do to have this one crying over your ashes, would it?”

“Perhaps not.”

“Definitely not. Remember that.”

The stormtroopers withdrew and darkness again descended on the Azure Dianoga. The conversational tone remained low, which allowed some of the band’s music to make it over to the table. Over near the doorway Gavin saw some figures get up and begin to sway or writhe in time to the music, though the twitching of one person led him to believe that some of the notes were being played well outside the range of his hearing.

Aril appropriated Gavin’s ale and downed a healthy swallow of it. “That was close.”

“Gand has previously avoided such contact. Gand has seen Imperials rounding up others, both Quarren and Gamorreans.”

Shiel nodded. “The kid and I saw a family of Gamorreans herded off.”

“The stories we