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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ankh-Morpork Guard" data-source="post: 1853951" data-attributes="member: 10079">Chapter 45: To Endor...yet againArik Landau had served in the Imperial Navy for longer than he could remember. Considering he had felt old for at least ten years now, that was a long time. He sighed and ran a hand through his slightly grey hair, stepping over to look out a viewport, seeing the endless tunnel that was hyperspace. Such a common sight, yet the galaxy seemed to have forgotten the amazement that had once come with such travel. Children still felt it. Landau wished he did. To him, though, it had grown to be the calm before the storm.    For the first time in his life, Landau was glad to have left the Empire. He’d seen too many young men die. He’d been the one to send too many of them to those deaths. He’d ordered the deaths of too many innocents. Not once in his life had he truly accepted the Emperor’s New Order. Yet still, he’d served as the perfect example of an Imperial Naval Officer. Now, he wondered why. The why had always been there, yet he’d managed to bury it with his strong sense of duty. But the more men that died, the more ‘inferiors’ killed, the more that the question of why had grown more and more. When he finally had become fed up with the lack of an answer, he left the Navy.    So now he stood in a small Lambda-shuttle, with another former Imperial Officer and an Alderaanian native. By both, he should have hated. Yet they had come to him for assistance. Landau always repaid his debts, and he owed his life to Titus Voort. So he had no real choice other than to provide what the man had asked for. A ship. Navigation charts. Latest New Republic warrants. The last of which, Landau had gone through much trouble to get a hold of, and finding Voort’s name up fairly high on it, he decided to go with them if only to find out what his old friend had done to anger the New Republic so much.    “It’s a miracle you don’t have every bounty hunter in the galaxy after you,” Landau commented, turning to look over to Voort, who was sitting in one of the bucket seats in the small main cabin. The woman, Jen Zaarin (interesting that she held the same name as one of the Grand Admirals, however no relation was likely, as the Grand Admiral had not been an Alderaanian), sat next to Voort, her blonde hair a mess and a look of pure exhaustion on her face.    Voort just shrugged, “Obviously, the bounty hunters are smarter than they look.”    Landau just nodded, tugging at the collar of his grey tunic, “You should have come to me earlier, Titus.”    “It was hard enough finding you,” Voort commented with a grin on his face, “You’re better at hiding that I’d have thought.”    “All you had to do was exactly what you did,” responded Landau, “Just leave that message on the old comm frequency. You know I’m always looking for an excuse not to sit around.”    “Even back in the old days you hated it,” Voort said, laughing shortly.    “Yes, well, those days ended for both of us,” Landau’s voice changed to a more somber tone, “Never thought I’d be going back to Endor though. What could you possibly want to do on that rock?”    “Hopefully,” Jen spoke up, sounding just as tired as she looked, “Hopefully there are friends waiting for us.”    Voort nodded, but Landau was the one to speak, “Those two you told me about, I assume. You think Sadrak is still looking for them?”    “I doubt it,” Voort said.    Jen gave him a stern look, “I don’t.”    “Either way,” Voort glanced to Jen a moment, “They need to know where he is.”    Landau sighed and stepped over to look through the empty cockpit and the viewport again, speaking over his shoulder, “You mean, where we think Sadrak is.”    The sound of Voort standing up was one that was hard to identify unless you had years of experience. It was not as much a sound really, as a lack of sound where one should have been. Landau could identify easily, and Jen was getting good at that also. Voort took a couple steps over to the other side of the cabin, saying, “Its out of the way, lightly populated, and off most of the charts. Not only that, but according to his file, its his home.”    “Files can be altered,” that was Jen. Strange though, as she had agreed with Voort on the matter up until that point. Though she was right, files could be altered.    “Not these files,” Voort said a little too arrogantly, “They were part of the Emperor’s private records. He gave them to me when I was assigned to watch Sadrak.”    Jen nodded, a smile slowly creeping onto her face, “I just don’t like deserts.”    Landau sighed again, nodding. He didn’t either. Without a word, he stepped into the cockpit and had a seat in the pilot’s chair. Noting the chronometer he leaned back and closed his eyes. The planet Arranis. It was a small world not all that far from Endor, bordering the Unknown Regions. About the same time as the start of the Endor project, Arranis had been used as a garrison planet. It was not rich in natural resources, simply in land. A never ending desert that some would liken to Tatooine. Those who did so, had never been to Arranis. The planet was three times as hot and dry as Tatooine. There was not even enough moisture for vaporators to pick up, and specially designed equipment could barely get enough for drinking water. Among those who knew of Arranis, and that number was few, it was synonymous with hell. And if the planet wasn’t bad enough, the natives were vicious. Landau had served there for three months before being transferred to a Star Destroyer at Endor. In that time, he’d learned that the natives could not be dealt with peacefully, and he’d tried many times. Out of that brutal, bloodthirsty environment, Sadrak had come.    Honestly, it explained a great deal about the Inquisitor.</blockquote>

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