From orbit, Capridor looked as peaceful as any other planet. Rolling green continents, their coasts curling outward in lazy peninsulas and playful fjords. Icecaps at both ends. A vast blue ocean, dribbled with archipelagoes like emeralds set in blue satin. Stolid and dignified icecaps. Ponderous white clouds scudded gently across the sky like manor lords surveying their lands. Above even them, a string of satellites like silver beads on a chain wrapped the planet in an invisible web: mapping weather, sending messages, and greeting visitors from far-flung systems. Capridor was normally a welcoming place, and it wasn't unusual to see nearspace cluttered with bulk haulers, pleasure yachts, and grand old starliners.

Not today. The Mon Cal cruiser Mon Ekidna sat in low orbit. Its profile was gently rounded, not at all like the angular lines of a Star Destroyer, but with its gunports unshrouded it exuded a palpable aura of menace. Like a shark in the shallows, it had chased away the normal passenger traffic. The few ships remaining in-system flitted furtively in and out of orbit, as though tiptoeing to avoid Mon Ekidna's wrath.

Come, descend from orbit, past the satellites, through those lordly clouds, down and down and down. Now mountains claw at the sky. Now the oceans are not sheets of blue but rolling fields of iron-grey water and spraying white foam. Now the green of the land is mixed with the brown and grey of fields and cities. Vast old-growth forests sprawl across the landscape. Cities spring up, some bright and glittering, some dull and smothered under the smog of industry. Rivers wind their way ribbon-like down from the mountains and cut through the forests, dividing the land into a patchwork quilt. Follow one of those rivers, the mightiest, from its headwaters in the alpine heights of the Betarik range, down through the foothills, across the rolling prairie, and into the dense green thicket of the Forest of Guf. Follow it through the forest and down to the coast, where it spreads into a wide, shallow delta before joining the sea. Around this delta, clinging to the coast like a limpet, is Capridor City, the largest and most beautiful of the planet's cities.

See its ivory towers! The Kingsveld, with its ancient statutes! The cobbled roads, artfully preserved from the Old Republic era! The wooden piers that extend out over the river, festooned with colorful speedboats and shrimping trawlers! Capridor City is the not just the largest but the oldest of Capridor's settlements, and it wears its past like a mantle. On the highest hill, the Palazza can see all the way down to the oceanside. The rest of the city is just as grand: stone towers, slate roofs, hand-painted wooden signs advertising garment-mending or cold drinks. And, leaning against one of those towers, two troopers wearing the starbird of the Rebel Alliance-that-was, now the fledging New Republic.

"This is the life!" Carasynthia Dune stretched her arms theatrically over her head and crossed them behind her head. Next to her, Pell Rutledge smirked and shook his head. He did not answer right away, but withdrew the stub-end of a hand-rolled cigarra from behind his ear and made a show of lighting it with a wooden match.

"Come on!" Cara said, jostling him with one elbow. "Don't tell me you don't love it." She laughed out loud—a belly laugh, honest, with no pretension. She had impressive lung capacity for laughing: a stocky woman, with broad shoulders and wide hips, imposing even without her armor. Her black hair had just started to grow out from its deployment-regulation cut, and she swept a handful if it back out of her eyes.

Next to her, Pell took a deep drag on his cigarra. He stood a few inches taller than Cara, but much thinner, with narrow arms and sleek legs like a prize racing hound. His chin was stubbled with the kind of beard shadow that would have earned him a strict dressing down from an Alliance drill sergeant just a month before. He held in the smoke for a moment, then let it trickle out of his nostrils and the corners of his lips. "It's alright," he allowed. His voice was low and gravelly, though whether that was from the smoking or the blaster bolt to the neck he'd taken in the evacuation from Dantooine, Cara could not have said.

Cara shook her head again and pushed herself off the wall. "Alright, he says," she replied, her voice full of scorn. "Do you know what I did yesterday? I took a shit indoors. Indoors! Have you ever heard of such a thing?" She set off down the cobbled street at a leisurely walk.

Pell fell in step next to her. He puffed at his stub-end and blew out another thin cloud. "Fancy that," he replied. "Look who thinks she's Princess Organa. Shitting inside and all."

Cara laughed again. Pell knew what she was talking about, he was just being difficult. "I mean… nobody's shooting at us, Pell. Do you know how long it's been since I went on a deployment where nobody shot at me? And the food! I'm starting to actually remember what real food tastes like! And I don't have to hump a whole pack full of gear with me like in the dropper days. I can just leave it all in the barracks. Oh, that's another thing! A barracks! With a bed!"

"Yeah, yeah." Pell finished his cigarra with one last tug and flicked away the butt. "They're not shooting at us, but not 'cause they don't want to. Do you see the looks we get?" He gestured up ahead. They were approaching an intersection, and a half-dozen peddlers had set up stalls around its edges to form an impromptu market. A tall man in a smart blue suit was talking to one of the peddlers, by the look of it negotiating the price on a roast fowl.

At the sight of the approaching troopers, though, both men fell silent. The peddler ducked backwards, as though hoping to hide behind his wares. The man in the suit glared at the two of them with undisguised hatred. The rest of the vendors, too, seemed fixated on the new arrivals, watching them with the cagey attitude of prey uncertain whether to run or go to ground. Cara nodded amicably at the bird vendor and his customer, but neither acknowledged her. They simply stared at her until she passed through the intersection and out the far side. The whole time, Cara could feel the tall man's eyes staring vibroblades in the back of her neck.

Only when they were safely in the shadow of another tower did she relax and let out the breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. Her hand strayed to her belt and the comforting weight of her blaster. Pell already held his and was fiddling with the dial. He turned to her and nodded glumly. "They hate us, Cara. We're occupiers."

"We're liberators," she protested. "They should be thanking us. We set them free. And they were pretty lucky. You saw what happened on Elran."

"Well, maybe High Command had the right idea on Elran," Pell said darkly. "After a bombardment like that, nobody doubts that the Republic means business. Capridor got its hair mussed, but some of the people here think they gave up too easily."

"Oh, come off it, Pell," Cara said. "There's gonna be an adjustment period, but they'll get used to us. We're not taxing them into the ground the way the Empire did. We're not drafting their sons to be Stormtroopers."

"Yeah, well, you try telling them that," Pell said, jerking his head back towards the intersection and its merchants. "They don't love having a curfew, either. They're proud, the Capridorians."

"I think they're just unimaginative," Cara replied. "I mean… we're here in Capridor City, on Capridor, next to the Capridor River, fronting the Bay of Capridor. What street is this? Capridor Street? Or Capridor Avenue, maybe?" She giggled. "Maybe they're just afraid we're going to rename stuff and they'll have to remember more than one word."

"Oh yeah?" Pell gave her a sly smile. "What would you name this street? Cara Lane?"

"Naw, this is Skywalker Ave. Cara Lane is two streets over that way." She indicated with her head.

Pell looked at her quizzically. "Why's that?"

"Because that's where that bar I like is." Cara grinned. "That little side alley next to it can be Pell Street."

Pell wrinkled his nose. "That alley smells like piss all the time."

She clapped him on the back. "Perfect!"

Smiling, shaking his head, Pell matched her stride. "Look, I guess I'll admit it beats being shot at. But at least on deployment, we knew who the enemies were, and we were allowed to shoot at 'em. Here, I feel like I have to watch my back all the time. You hear partisans blew up a Tortoise the other day?"

Cara hadn't. "I thought they didn't have that kind of artillery anymore?" she asked. The TR-9 Armored Transport was the Republic's go-to platform for ground deployments. Like their namesake, Tortoises were slow but nearly impenetrable to small arms fire.

"Some kind of buried mine, on a road up in the highlands," Pell said. "Nobody died, thank the Force, but the thing's scrapped. There's people here who haven't gotten the message that the war's over."

Cara's hand closed on the butt of her blaster and her face hardened. "Well, if anyone in Capridor City needs reminding, we'll do it. But come on, Pell, it's just a bunch of pissed-off burghers and out-of-work lumberjacks here. Once the sector calms down a little and traffic resumes, the economy will pick back up and then people will be too busy to hate us."

Pell shrugged. "Maybe you're right. This just isn't the kind of work I signed up for, you know?"

"Yeah, I remember, you told the recruiter 'make sure you only give me suicide missions where I have to crap in a hole in the woods,'" Cara said. "Lighten up a little. Place is pretty enough, isn't it?" As she spoke, the two of them emerged from the shadow of a bell tower into the city's massive central plaza. Capridor City was organized in a hub-and-spoke pattern centered, not on the Palazza, but on this square: the Kingsveld, a massive marble expanse covered in fountains, benches, and delicately manicured flowerbeds. And of course the Kings themselves. Ten statues, each more than thirty meters tall, ringed the plaza. Each of them held some item: a set of scales, a sword, a net, an axe.

Cara supposed they were probably wonderfully symbolic to the people of Capridor. To her, they looked a little too much like the statues in the Valley of Memory on Alderaan. She'd loved visiting there as a child, climbing between the massive marble toes. All gone now, vanished with the rest of her homeworld, and seeing their likeness here made her homesick and wistful.

If Pell noticed her melancholy, he was too polite to say anything. The two of them strolled through the plaza at an easy pace, passing through the kings' great shadows. Pell craned his neck to look upwards. "Yeah, I guess it has its charms," he allowed. "A lot of history here. Not like at home."

"Aren't you from a proud line of dirt farmers?" Cara asked him. "You know, carrying on a great tradition of producing high-quality dirt?"

"Moisture farmers," Pell replied, but without any real animosity. "It's an important job, you know. People count on—"

"You! Rebs!" The voice caught both of their attention and put them instantly on guard. There was no humor in it, no playfulness. Cara turned to see an elderly man striding across the plaza towards her. He wore a black bombazine jacket and a matching skullcap, with a scarf twisted around his neck and thrown over one shoulder. In one hand he carried a lacquered wood walking stick, which he shook at them as he walked. He had a drooping white moustache, which was currently twisted in a grimace. "How dare you show your faces in this place!" he shouted. "Have you no shame?"

Pell raised his gun, but did not point it at the old man. He seemed to get the message all the same and came to a halt about three meters away, seething and staring at them. "And now you threaten an old man," he spat, shaking his head. "Despicable. You Rebels really are a pack of louts."

"Nobody's threatening you, sir," Cara said. She opened her arms and showed him her empty palms. "We're just trying to go home safe at the end of the day."

"Home? This isn't your home!" The man looked her up and down. Whatever he saw seemed to displease him. "I wish you would all go back to your home and leave us be! Capridor is an Imperial planet. Now, and forever!"

"Ease off, gramps," Pell said. His fingers tightened around the grip of his blaster. "You've said your piece. Now beat it before we arrest you."

Cara looked around. Their little tableaux was starting to attract attention. Just looky-loos for now, but she put her hand on her own blaster anyways.

"Arrest me?" The old man's eyes widened in indignation. "On what charge, you brute?"

"Disturbing the peace. Now get on home." Pell's eyes were flinty, two hard little chips of stone. The old man stared at him, but either his nerve failed him, or he had said all he meant to say. He turned and walked away, leaning heavily on his stick. He looked much older all of a sudden, much more worn. The spectators turned away to their own private errands.

The old Capridorian hesitated. "Young man," he called. His voice was clear, without any of its former anger. Now he just sounded resigned. Pell turned back to look at him.

"Yes?"

"Capridor endures!" Without waiting for an answer, the old man pulled his scarf tighter around his hunched shoulders and walked away across the plaza.

"What was that about?" Cara asked as soon as they were out of earshot. The whole exchange had left her rattled. Pell just sighed.

"I told you, Cara. They hate us. Especially the rich ones. I bet Uncle Capridor back there lost a bundle when the Imperial machine here went up in smoke. That's what this is about, not some kind of patriotic feeling." He shook his head. "'Capridor endures.' Really? I guess it's genteel, at least."

"Don't let it get to you, Pell," Cara said. She was trying not to let it get to her, either. The venom in the old man's voice! Like she'd killed his tooka! "He's just a bitter old asshole. He's not representative."

"Eh, whatever," Pell said. He thumbed the safety catch on his blaster back on and slotted it back into its holster. "I don't mind if they hate me. I don't even mind if they spit, as long as none of it gets in my mouth. I just don't want them to think they can cut up rough with Republic troops and get away with it."

"They won't," Cara said. "This place is pretty peaceful. I think we're just in for a rough adjustment period, is all."

"Hope you're right," Pell replied, in a tone that made it clear he thought she wasn't. "I'm heading back to the barracks. Shift's over. You coming?"

"In a bit," Cara replied. "I think I'll take the scenic route. I like walking around outside without having to duck blaster bolts, you know?"

Pell shrugged. "Suit yourself. Stay safe out here, ok?"

"I always do." Cara laughed and slapped him on the shoulder. "Take Cara Street back. We'll go out for drinks later."

"Don't get caught." Pell smiled at her and sketched a jaunty salute.

"Don't get caught!"

Cara watched Pell's retreating back and idly fingered the grip of her blaster. She tried to put his words out of her mind. Nobody was shooting at her, and nobody would. Not here, in the middle of a historic district; not now, on a beautiful spring day, with the air full of the smell of coralbine and lavodendron. So what if a few old fogies wanted to yell at her about the good old days? Soon enough, that old bastard would be meeting the Emperor he missed so much. In Hell.

Once Pell was gone, she set off on a leisurely stroll. A dozen treelined avenues split off from the Kingsveld, and she picked one at random. She wasn't due back at the barracks for an hour or two, and she had her commlink. She wanted to explore. Capridor City's people might have some unwarranted nostalgia for the Empire, but their pride in their city was well-deserved. Every storefront had an elaborate façade. Every sidewalk was neatly maintained, with jobi trees growing at regular intervals. Tiny botanist droids scurried between the trees with pruning shears, watering cans and nutrient paste dispensers. They beeped indignantly as Cara stepped over and around them.

She saw a few other people, most of them taking in the fresh air as she was, but they gave her a wide berth. Cara didn't care. None of them looked as hostile as the old man had been, only wary and frightened. Their world had turned upside down in recent weeks, and soon enough this would just become the new normal. Cara's stomach rumbled, and she decided to go looking for something to eat. Capridor had its share of fine restaurants, but most of them were still closed and locked up tight. That business would return too, Cara was sure. In the meantime she'd find a hovertruck. One could hardly walk down a street around here without being accosted by a merchant selling braised orlaj flank on a stick or fresh ronto wraps.

At least, on every street but this one. She turned left and passed through a narrow alley. High overhead, washing lines criss-crossed between balconies. She could hear distant conversations through the open windows, and the shrieking laughter of children. City sounds. Comfortable sounds.

The other end of the alley opened out onto a wide, cobbled street with buildings on one side. The other side was open to the forest. Cara searched her memory to try to remember its name. Capridor Forest, probably. Long ago, Capridor City had sprung up around the delta, where timber from upriver could be cut into the fine, strong capwood the planet was famous for. Even today, she knew, the people of Capridor maintained a proud woodcutting tradition. They showed their veneration of the forest by letting it intrude on their perfectly manicured city. She approved. Alderaan had been the same: nature and mankind, in perfect balance.

The wind whispered through the capwood trees overhead, filling the air with the susurrus of shaking leaves. With it came a faint scent: sweet, with a woody undernote, like old and well-preserved leather. Cara drew in a deep breath and held it. On top of not being shot at, this assignment was just pleasant. She'd smelled enough mud and blood for a lifetime. I could get used to this, she thought. Settle down, open a little shop… Cara's Cakes? She tried to picture herself in a chef's toque and snorted with laughter. Nah, after this it'll be on to some new planet. Enjoy it while you can, Cara.

To her left, the street curved gently away past rows of townhouses and shops. To her right, the ground sloped abruptly down into a shallow ravine. The unbroken forest filled her vision to the horizon. She walked for five minutes or so, keeping her eyes peeled for a food stand, when something caught her attention.

She paused. There it was again. Speech? Laughter? It was hard to make out, but definitely some kind of human sound. And it was coming from the forest. She pulled up short and listened. Somewhere ahead and to her right, twigs snapped. She heard someone hissing urgently, and the voices fell silent. All at once, the foreboding feeling from earlier crept back. She grabbed her blaster, but did not draw it yet. Instead she slunk forward in a half-crouch. All of her stealth training came flooding back, as though she'd never left the battlefield. What had Pell called them? Partisans? Bushwhackers, saboteurs, it didn't matter. Cara had been one of them for long enough. She knew to be on her guard.

She crept into the ravine, keeping her head down, careful not to make too much noise. There, up ahead, the voices came again. They sounded high-pitched. Women? How many of them? Were they armed? It was probably nothing, but the Republic had deployed soldiers to Capridor for a reason. She'd just figure out what was going on, and if it was some revanchist plotters thinking they could hold their little scheming sessions in the woods, she'd show them how wrong they were. She drew her blaster and made sure it was set to Stun.

A few more feet, and she could see movement. Shadows danced. It looked energetic, perhaps sparring? Had she stumbled on some kind of training camp? She raised her gun and took a deep breath, then peered around the bole of a tree.

Someone had cleared the brush at the bottom of the ravine, creating a dirt-floored clearing about five meters across. A dozen children stood in a loose semi-circle. To Cara, who'd never been good at guessing these things, the youngest was about seven; the oldest, twelve or thirteen. All of them were covered in dirt and grass stains, and most of them carried sticks.

Right now, they were watching two of the older boys in silence. These two stood at the center of the circle, a few inches away from each other, bristling with obvious anger. One of them was short and stocky, with dark brown hair and long shorts. The other was taller, thinner, with a mane of wispy blonde and a spray of freckles across his cheeks.

"How come?" the shorter boy complained. "You always get to be him!"

"Nuh uh," the larger one replied. "It was Stevil last week. And Joss the week before. It's my turn."

"But I hate being the Emperor. It's boring."

The taller boy chewed his lip thoughtfully. "How about you switch with Miles? He'll be the Emperor and you be Major Hewex."

One of the smaller boys at the edge of the ring looked like he was about to complain, but then his shoulders slumped and he nodded. The newly christened Hewex sighed. "Alright, fine," he said, grumbling. The semi-circle of boys all nodded solemnly, as though some pact had been sealed, and began to break apart. The blonde clapped his shorter friend on the shoulder.

"You can be him next week, ok?" he said. "Promise."

"Double swear?"

"Double swear."

The boys took their places, scattered around the clearing. Cara found herself watching intently. Once the initial adrenaline wore off, she felt a little foolish. To think she'd gotten so worked up over a bunch of kids! Pell was really getting to her. And maybe being yelled at by the old man had affected her more than she wanted to admit. But she had to admit that she was a bit curious about what she'd stumbled onto. The boys looked like actors rehearsing for a play.

The first part of their game was familiar from Cara's own childhood: lots of running around, shouting, and pantomiming blaster rifles with sticks. "Pew pew!" shouted the little Major Hewex, and his "troops" echoed him. "Pew pew!" Boys would sprawl over in the dirt, yelling theatrically, then get back up to run around some more. Cara couldn't help but smile at the scene. She made sure to pull back into the brush—she didn't want them to spot her and prematurely end their little game.

Soon enough, the scene shifted. Most of the soldiers on both sides retreated to the flanks, leaving the center clear. A couple of the boys carried out a tree stump, huffing and puffing under its weight, and set it down in the middle of the clearing. The little one who had been forced to trade roles sat on it and set his face in a grimace. He made a pretty good Emperor, Cara decided, even if he didn't care for the part.

A gangly, red-headed youth swaggered out of the treeline towards the ersatz Emperor, holding his stick in two hands like a sword. "I've come to kill you, Emperor Palpatine!" he shouted, growling angrily. "Surrender now or I'll chop your head off!"

The boy on the stump turned around and widened his eyes. "Luke Starkiller!" he exclaimed. "No, don't kill me! Let's end this war! We can all be friends."

"No!" bellowed the redhead, swinging his stick around in wild arcs. "I'm going to kill you, and then I'll be the Emperor! And then I'll kill everyone!"

The blonde boy stepped out from the trees on the other side of the clearing. At some point, he'd put on a long black cape. It had a homemade look to it, and fluttered out behind him in the breeze. He held up his own stick one-handed like a fencer's sabre. "Not so fast, Luke Starkiller!" he exclaimed in a voice more fitting a holodrama lead. "I'll stop you!"

"Darth Vader!" the redhead snarled. He stumbled backwards, almost tripping over his own feet, and held up his own stick-sword in a defensive stance. The boys standing around the edge of the clearing gasped and applauded as their Darth Vader stepped forward. He moved with confidence, displaying none of the adolescent awkwardness of his counterpart. Cara's face, unseen, twisted into a frown. What the hell?

"I'll give you one last chance, Starkiller," the blonde boy said. "Put down your sword and leave us alone. You can have half the galaxy and we'll have the other half. What do you say?" He pitched his voice down as he spoke, and for a moment, his voice sent a chill up Cara's spine. The effect was rather spoiled when his voice cracked on the last syllable of "galaxy," but he rallied and pressed on. By the end of his speech he was standing between the stump, with its terrified emperor, and "Luke Starkiller."

"I say… never!" the redhead replied, and charged forward with his sword at the ready. "Die!"

The two of them were quickly locked in mortal combat. Cara noted that they seemed more intent on hitting each other's sticks than each other directly. Both of them made loud humming and crackling noises, and the ring of boys around the edge of the clearing echoed them. "Fzzz! Pzow! KSSSSH!" The air filled with the clatter of stick on stick. Cara watched them fight for about thirty seconds. With a massive swing, "Vader" knocked "Luke's" sword right out of his hands. Instantly the red-headed boy fell to his knees, clutching an imaginary wound in his side.

"No!" he howled. "Curse you, Emperor! Curse you, Darth Vader! Now I'll—ACK!" He toppled over onto his back and stuck his tongue out of his mouth, then lay still. The tall blonde boy made a show of hanging his stick back on his belt, then pulled his cape around himself. "Come on, my lord!" he said to the Emperor. "We have to run away before his friends blow up our space station! Let's take my shuttle. We can go to Capridor and hide there."

The rest of the boys clapped and cheered. "Vader!" they chanted, and "Jayden!" Even the deceased Luke got up and dusted himself off to join in the cheers. "Good job, Jayden!" he said. "That's how it should have been!"

The blonde boy clasped hands with his former adversary. "You're a great Luke, Wilhuf," he said. "Really scary."

"Ah, thanks," the former Luke replied. He grinned sheepishly. "I just don't like always being the bad guy."

Cara had seen enough. She stood up and pushed her way through the brush. Every head swiveled towards her at once, and the children froze. A couple of them dropped their sticks with a clatter that resounded in the sudden silence. One of the smaller boys started to cry.

"What are you children up to?" Cara asked. As openers went, she had to admit it lacked a certain something, but she had never been good with kids. None of them answered her. She surveyed the row of dirty faces. They all looked positively terrified of her, though some of the older ones mixed that fear in with hatred. The blonde boy, particularly, the one who had played as Darth Vader, stared at her with undisguised loathing.

"A-are you going to shoot us?" asked the redheaded boy. Cara looked down and realized that she was still holding her gun.

"Shit!" she cried, and jammed it back into her hip holster. "No! I'm not going to shoot anyone. What's going on out here? Why aren't you boys in school?"

"School still closed cause'a the war," said one of the littler boys, a round-faced ruffian wearing an Imperial Navy cap at least three sizes too big for him. "We're playin'."

"Well… do your parents know you're out in the woods?" Cara asked. She felt doubly foolish, first for being drawn out into the woods chasing a bunch of kids, and second for letting their stupid game get to her. Who cared what a pack of Imp brats thought?

"My parents told me not to talk to rebs," said the blonde boy—Jayden, she remembered. His voice was full of adolescent defiance. He crossed his arms against his chest and scowled at her.

Cara tried a different tack. "You know," she said, crouching down until their faces were level, "that's not a very nice thing to call someone. I'm not trying to be your enemy, here."

"All rebs are enemies," Jayden said. "Just leave us alone. Leave our planet alone."

Cara gawked at him. She wondered briefly if this child knew the old man from earlier. Pell's words flashed across her mind. They hate us. Was it really all of them, Cara wondered, or was she just having an unlucky day?

Whatever the answer, her patience had run out. "Alright, kids, you've had your fun," she said. "Beat it. Go on home." She made a shooing motion with both hands. "Go on, get out of here."

Most of them took the hint right away and ran, leaving their sticks behind. Some of the older boys took a little longer to leave. They huddled in a little knot, muttering darkly and occasionally looking over their shoulders at her. Cara stood firm and frowned as fiercely as she could. She made sure to keep her hand off her gun. They were just dumb kids, after all. She didn't want to terrify them.

Jayden turned back at the edge of the clearing. He looked like he had something to say. It took him a moment to gather up his courage, looking Cara up and down. He swallowed and managed a shaky squawk of defiance.

"Capridor endures!"

With that, he was gone, vanishing with his friends into the brush. Cara sighed and shook her head. Even the kids on this Force-damned planet were a pain in the ass. And she was still starving.

She made her way back to the barracks by a roundabout route. The forest road had been a bust, so this time she walked along the river. In more peaceful times, this had been a beautiful route. The riverwalk was made of square blocks of polished granite, forming a wide promenade dotted with benches and flowerboxes. A wrought-iron fence lined the walk on the river side, broken occasionally by staircases that led down to the jetty. Cara stood by the fence for a moment, admiring the view. She could see boats far below: pleasure skiffs in red and green and candyfloss pink, brightly painted shrimping trawlers, hovering airboats for traversing the marshy delta. On the far side of the river, primeval forest stretched away to the horizon. It looked like a fairy-tale forest, a place of myths and monsters.

Normally, Cara supposed, this place would be swarming with playing children, dreamy young couples, and old people feeding the forkbills. Especially now, with the setting sun casting a blanket of fire across the river, it was easy enough to imagine the promenade bustling with life, busking musicians and shouting merchants filling the air with noise.

It was quiet at the moment, mostly deserted apart from Cara. The shops that lined the city side of the promenade were all closed down. Some of them had been chained shut. Cara could see a few other walkers, but they were all solitary, and they gave her a wide berth.

Not all of the merchants had vanished. A savory smell wafted into Cara's nostrils and drew her deeper down the promenade. Up ahead, a semi-circular kiosk topped with a bright red canopy stood against the fence. Cara ambled over, following the smell. The kiosk had been set up around a grill, on which sizzled a half-dozen thumb-sized shrimp. A steel counter ringed the grill, bare except for a box of napkins and a few scattered stains. A man, his back to Cara, bent over the grill, shaking seasoning onto the shrimp and turning them over with a long fork. The loud sizzle of cooking meat disguised her approach—either that, or he was simply so intent on what he was doing that he didn't notice her. Cara stepped up to the semi-circular counter and rapped her knuckles against it.

The man standing over the grill spun around in surprise. He dropped his fork, groped madly for it, and managed to catch it again in midair. Only then did he look up at his visitor. "Oh!" he said, his eyes wide. "Oh, I'm sorry, ma'am! You gave me a real start!"

Cara looked him up and down. He was a tall man, made taller by the hat he wore—a sort of brimmed cap that puffed up at least ten centimeters above his forehead. His face was slim, with a pointed chin and high cheekbones that gave him an aristocratic look. His expression was warm and inviting, though, with none of the hostility she'd seen from other Capridorians. He wore a long and heavily stained apron that had perhaps once been white. His forearms were bare, and Cara could see tattoos winding up both sleeves: sea serpents, giant cats, all kinds of animals real and mythical, all wound in and around each other. He carefully set the long fork down on the counter and then held out his hands. "What can I do for you, ma'am?"

"What are you cooking?" Cara asked. Whatever it was, it smelled heavenly.

"Ah, those would be fresh pearl shrimp, seasoned with koklav and a little Byriun pepper," he smiled back at her. "My own secret recipe."

"How fresh?" Cara leaned one elbow on the stand and propped her chin up in it. She wasn't much of a shellfish eater, but right now she was hungry enough to take whatever she could get.

"I just caught 'em myself, ma'am," the man replied with a wink. He pointed down to where a cluster of boats clung to the edge of one of the jetties. "That's my boat down there, the Adorned Lady."

Cara couldn't figure out which boat he was pointing to, and anyways, they all looked the same to her. "How much for… one?" she asked.

The salesman produced a wooden stick from somewhere under the counter. "Ah, one decicred each, ma'am. But I bet you won't be able to stop at one." He grabbed his fork and, with a flourish, impaled one of the shrimp on the end of the stick. "Here you go. Mind you take a napkin now, they're messy."

Cara ignored his proffered napkin and bit directly into the soft meat of the shrimp. Juice shot out and dribbled down her chin. Her eyes widened as she chewed. Ignoring the juice, she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and swallowed.

"This is pretty good," she allowed. In truth, it was better than that. The flavor was savory, with a slightly citrusy aftertaste that lingered on her tongue. Her stomach growled, demanding more. "This is really good."

The shrimp-seller beamed. "Ah, I knew it!" he said. "Nobody can eat just one of my patented Twice-Seasoned Shrimp. Nobody. Shall I get you another?"

Cara plunked a one-credit coin down on the countertop. "Keep 'em coming," she said, and bit into her meal again. He scooped up her coin and made it disappear into some compartment below the countertop, then busied himself transferring shrimp from the grill to the wooden skewers. By the time Cara had finished her first, he offered her two more skewers, each bearing five shrimp.

"First one's free," he said, beaming. "Call it a sampler."

Cara shrugged and grabbed the two sticks, along with a handful of napkins. Shrimp juice was already soaking into her uniform, but she didn't care. What a find! She'd have to remember this place.

"So, what brings you to Capridor?" the shrimpman said, leaning against his counter and waggling his eyebrows. Cara smiled despite herself and rolled her eyes.

"You know, I think you're the first person I've met today who doesn't hate me?" she asked. "Or doesn't hate the Republic, at least. What's your problem?"

He shrugged. "Your money spends, at least," he replied. "No point in hating you. It's not like you'd leave if I did."

"Well, I wish more of you people had your attitude," Cara sighed. "Thanks for the shrimp, Mr…"

"Yannik," he said, extending one hand. "Yannik Raow."

"Cara Dune," Cara replied, shaking it. "Stay safe, Yannik."

"You too, Cara." He smiled at her, then reached down to grab some fresh shrimp out from beneath the counter. Cara walked away, stopping every few steps to bite into another shrimp. She could already feel her hunger receding. By the time she was halfway to the barracks, she'd eaten every last bite, and the sun was just disappearing beneath the horizon. She cleaned off her face with the last of the napkins, let out a happy belch, and went inside.

Pell was already there, of course, lying on his back with a handheld viewscreen held up over his head. By the look of it, he was watching fathier racing—and if Cara knew him, he had money riding on the race. He barely looked up as Cara walked in.

"You have fun on your walk?" he asked. "Nobody shot at you?"

Cara shook her head. "Nah. Maybe next time." She dropped into her bunk and let herself fall backward. "You make bank on the fathiers?"

Pell shook his head and tossed the viewscreen down with a disgusted look on his face. "Maybe next time. Nah, scratch that. Capridor City will throw us a big We Love the Republic parade before I win big."

Cara stared at the ceiling, remembering her conversation with Yannik. "Well, you never know," she said. "Could happen."