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“Okay, kiddos.” Hardcase clapped his hands together and grinned at all the little faces staring back at him from their huddles of blankets and pillows strewn about the floor of the bunk room. “Who wants to hear the next installment of The Captain and Lady Tano?”
The cadets—children, they were children. Not cadets anymore. Jesse needed to stop thinking like that. The children cheered and settled in to listen to Hardcase with rapt attention. Jesse rolled his eyes.
“I’m sorry, what kind of story are you telling these impressionable young children?” he asked with a sour face.
“It’s a story of love and romance and action and adventure, Mr. Jesse, sir,” one of the littles told him.
Hardcase winked at the boy proudly and nodded.
“And a detective!” another shouted excitedly.
One boy propped himself up on his knees to proclaim with a snarl, “And a city whose criminals are just as wily as the ocean is wide!”
They all piped up then, yelling out plot elements that were either amusingly vague or scarily precise. Jesse felt a headache coming on that rivaled the time he thought it’d be a good idea to get the Republic cog tattooed on his skull.
“And a mystery!”
“But the Captain always gets his man!”
“Yeah, last week was the case of the missing C-24 grenade launcher!”
“And he gets help from a mysterious dame!”
“Wait a second—” Jesse tried to say over the cacophony of little voices. “Back up, did someone say there was a missing grenade launcher?”
“It’s a story, bud,” Hardcase assured him, but Jesse didn’t feel very assured somehow. “And anyway, we found it after some focus grouping on the problem, didn’t we fellas?”
The kids cheered again, but Jesse only blinked. “Wait, what do you mean you found it? And what does focus grouping—?”
“Anyways!” Hardcase clapped his hands together again, the cheering falling silent the next moment like it was some sort of signal. “This week on The Captain and Lady Tano, our protagonist may just face his biggest mystery yet… The case of the missing Skywalker!”
Hardcase’s captive audience oohed and aahed—appropriately, judging by the storyteller’s smug grin. Jesse rolled his eyes again as he accepted his fate. He should’ve known there was something off about Hardcase being such a revered persona among his cohort of cad—children. The Republic-assigned therapists had warned them that the younger batches would be prone to latching onto authority figures, but Jesse hadn’t really considered the possibility of Hardcase being one of those authority figures.
“She was a dame with a past and he was a hero with no future. It might’a been destiny that had their paths crossing, or it might’a been some kind of sick joke of the Force. Either way, their stories were so tangled up you’d have better luck cutting them apart with a knife than you would by asking nicely.”
Jesse scowled as he tried to piece together the nonsense Hardcase had just spewed, but sighed as he gave up to settle more comfortably against the wall and listen to the story.
“This is gonna be a good one, I can already tell,” a little voice said near his elbow. He lifted his arm in surprise to see a boy huddled in a blanket next to him—when did they train this batch on their stealth skills for this one to be so good at sneaking up on him? The boy took advantage of Jesse’s raised arm and snuggled into his side.
Jesse sighed but allowed it.
“Captain Rex of the Five-Oh-First Detective Agency was just sitting down behind his desk when a knock came at the door of his office,” Hardcase began his narration, complete with a put-upon old-timey accent that sucked his listeners into the story, including Jesse, unfortunately. “He checked his pocket watch—a quarter after nine in the evening. Too late for the knock to mean anything but trouble.
“He crossed his legs on top of the desk and slid one of his tried-and-true DC-17s out of its holster to rest it just below the knee. If there was heat coming through the door, at least he’d be ready.
“’Come in,’ he called gruffly. The next moment, the door swung open on squeaky hinges, revealing a shadowed figure backlit by the hallway lights behind her. He’d know that hourglass anywhere though.”
“Oh boy,” Jesse muttered.
The boy under his arm shushed him politely but firmly.
“’So,’ the Captain said to the intruder in the doorway. He kept the blaster in his grip, but his finger loosened from the trigger without his permission. ‘You’re back.’
“He wanted to say more, but stopped himself. It’d been months since he’d last heard from her. Even longer since he’d seen her. A lot had changed in Tipoca City since she left, but a lot was still the same in his heart.
“’I need your help,’ Lady Tano said without preamble. She stepped over the threshold and the faint glow of the streetlamp lit up her beautiful, sad face. She was always doing that, cutting right through to the meat of the problem, the Captain thought to himself miserably. No time for catching up or exchanging pleasantries. Maybe that was why they got along so well, she and him. They were both straight shooters in a galaxy that had a lot to hide.
“’What’s it this time?’ he asked, trying and failing not to care. ‘An undercover op gone bad, a precious jewel that needs finding?’
“’No, nothing like that. Not this time.’
“And there was somethin’ about the way she said it, like all those other cases he’d helped her on meant nothing compared to what’s eating at her now. Rex dropped his legs from the desk and sat up fully. His attention, just like his heart so many years ago, fully given over to the woman in front of him.”
Several of the little boys scattered around the room aww-ed at that, including the one attached to Jesse’s side. Jesse was going to have to have a conversation with Hardcase about the kinds of romantic ideas he was putting in these poor kids’ heads with his stories.
“’It’s Skywalker.’ Lady Tano’s voice was choked with some kind of emotion even a detective like Captain Rex couldn’t place.”
Hardcase paused for effect, looking around the room and making eye contact with his mesmerized audience—and Jesse. Then he returned to the story, picking up with his ridiculous exaggeratedly sultry voice he’d been using for Commander Tano.
“’I’m afraid he’s gone to the Dark side!’”
The kids gasped in shock. Jesse didn’t know if it was because they knew what that meant or if they were just caught up in the drama of Hardcase’s narration. He hoped it was the latter.
“Captain Rex slowly got to his feet. He came to stand in front of her, still keeping a healthy distance away so he wouldn’t do something stupid like take her in his arms, but close enough to see the glint of unshed tears in her eyes.
“’We’ve faced some tough cases together, kid,’ he told her. ‘But if what you’re sayin’ is true, then all those cases were putty compared to this one.’
“’I’m not a kid anymore, Rex.’ Lady Tano crossed her arms defiantly, but he could tell it was a front. A good one, he’d give her that. But it’d been a long time since she pulled a fast one on him and got away with it.
“Rex ran a hand over his tired face. He’d been right to anticipate trouble when she knocked on his door. She wasn’t a kid anymore, and that was his problem.
“‘Look,’ he said to her instead, ‘we need to be on the same page here, all right? If Skywalker’s gone AWOL then there’s no time to waste, am I wrong?’
“’No,’ she answered finally with a heavy sigh. ‘You’re not wrong. I’m sorry, Rexter. It’s been a rough couple of nights. First trying to find Anakin, then tracking down any leads—'
“’Hold on a second, was he missing?’
“She looked at him askance. ‘Well, yes, at first. His wife was the last to see him acting normally, just five days ago. Then when she doesn’t hear from him for a spell, she calls me. I start casually looking for him in the usual haunts but nobody’s seen him, then bam, he’s on the holonet proclaiming himself a Sith Lord!’
“A solitary tear ran down her perfect cheek, a sight that cut him to the bone in an uncomfortable way. How could he, famed loner and decorated private detective Captain Rex, remain impartial if he was very much partial to a certain dame standing in front of him and spilling her guts to him like she wasn’t worried about his judgment? The question was a good one, and one he didn’t have an answer to. Not tonight at least.
“’Hey there, it’ll be okay,’ Rex said haltingly, stumbling over his emotions as he reached a hand out to her and then just as quickly pulled it back to his side.
“If there was one thing he couldn’t stand, it was to see Lady Tano in distress. But the truth was, he didn’t know if it would all turn out okay. A guy doesn’t Fall to the Dark side and come back from it without a few consequences. He pushed thoughts of Anakin away for the time being though, focused solely on the woman in front of him, and gritted his teeth as he patted her on the shoulder in what he hoped was a soothing gesture.
“She apparently took it as an invitation to throw herself into his arms, burying her face into his neck where the battered armor he still wore after all these years revealed warm skin.
“’Oh Rex!’ she cried—”
Jesse cleared his throat loudly. “This going anywhere kid-appropriate, ‘Case?”
Hardcase shot him an affronted look. “You think I would tell an inappropriate story to the younglings?”
“Yeah, I do kinda.”
Hardcase just scoffed response, and then scoffed again, which Jesse took to mean that yes, he would do that.
“Just get on with the story,” Jesse sighed and waved him along. “But skip ahead a bit, hm?”
“Well, excuse me for not running my story by the appropriate police beforehand,” he retorted with an exaggerated roll of his eyes to the laughter of the children following their exchange with rapt attention. “Anyways, where was I? Oh, right, so Lady Tano gave Captain Rex a rundown of the case, sore spots and all. Rex could tell she was taking it personally. If the facts were really as she said, it was betrayal of the highest order. Enough to make a person go insane with guilt.
“She took her leave after she’d delicately wiped her eyes on the handkerchief he provided, promising to keep in touch with any new details she may find and him promising the same. But when she got to the door, she tucked her chin to her shoulder so that the profile of her face and the graceful peaks of her montrals just barely stood out against the dim lights of the hallway behind her.
“‘Keep the martinis dry for me, Rex old boy.’
“It was their usual goodbye, but tonight it didn’t sit as smoothly in Rex’s stomach as it usually did. Somethin’ about it felt… too much like a real goodbye, like she was really leaving for good and he was really never going to get to tell her—”
“Mr. Hardcase sir?” One of the boys a couple bunks over raised his hand, but didn’t wait for Hardcase to acknowledge him or even to finish his sentence. “What’s a martini?”
“Ah…” Hardcase met Jesse’s eyes sheepishly. “It doesn’t matter. It’s just a thing grown-ups sometimes like to drink—”
“Can we have a martini?”
There were murmurs of interested agreement among the audience.
“Er, let’s just get back to the story okay? So anyway, Lady Tano took her leave of the Captain, but not without leaving behind one last cryptic piece of the puzzle for him. He watched her walk down the hall and away from his office, then with a flick of his fingers he lifted a section of the blinds of his window to catch sight of her long legs stepping right into a speeder waiting at the curb. And wouldn’t you know it, the driver of that speeder was a familiar face—or helmet, in this case. Too familiar.
“’Well I’ll be…’ he said out loud to the dark of his shabby office. ‘What’s Bo-Katan Kryze doing helping you out, kid?’
“It was too obvious of a detail for her to miss. Going straight from his door to the speeder of a known sympathizer of a Darksider? Or at least known to be the last time Rex had cared to look her up in the files. He had to assume Lady Tano was letting him see her mode of transportation on purpose. The case was already interesting—a visit from her made that all but assumed. But now he was intrigued. What was her game…? And perhaps more importantly to his own survival, what part did she need him to play in it…?”
Hardcase grinned a bit manically, then finished, “Find out tomorrow night for the next installment of the Captain and Lady Tano!”
His cliffhanger was met with groans. Jesse tried to hide his smile as he patted the little brother bravely fighting sleep against his chest and nudged him up. He and Hardcase got them all back in their respective bunks, many already well on their way to slumber, and made their own exits from the scene to a chorus of sleepy goodbyes from the kids.
“So what’d you think?” Hardcase prodded once they’d closed the door behind them.
“I think if Rex and Commander Tano ever hear what you’re filling these kids’ heads with, they won’t be so entertained.”
“Aw, come on. I’m sure they’d love the harrowing romance of the Captain and Lady Tano!”
A throat cleared behind them. Jesse and Hardcase glanced at each other with wide eyes before slowly turning around.
“Oh hey, Cap,” Hardcase said through a wince. “And Commander. Fancy seeing you two out this time of night.”
Commander Tano’s arms were crossed and one of her boots was tapping expectantly on the floor plating. Rex didn’t look much more amused than she did.
“Care to explain willingly before I get the whole story anyway?” he asked with a hard glare directed at the both of them.
“Hey, leave me out of this,” Jesse said, distancing himself physically and figuratively from Hardcase. “It was his narrative masterpiece.”
Hardcase scowled at him for a fraction of a second, before facing their superiors again with a wide and disingenuous smile. “So you see, what happened was…”
Then he took off running in the opposite direction down the hall.
Jesse watched his retreating figure for a couple seconds in slack-jawed disbelief, then turned back to the expectant frowns of his superior officers. He cleared his throat.
“Right.”
And then he ran after Hardcase.