TATOOINE, DUNE SEA

Centaxday 4th, 0800 hours

---

The Tatooine suns are barely above the horizon, already bleaching the Dune Sea into a flat, wavering white. Inside the climate-controlled cockpit of Imperial Victoria Police Interceptor Unit-47, the world smells of recycled air, warm caf, and the faint hum of a well-used datapad.

Captain Jyanic Bach has one gloved hand draped over the steering yoke, the IVPI cruiser slicing steadily through the heat-shimmer above the packed-sand track. The speeder’s white-and-black chassis is dust-streaked, the stenciled words ORDER, CONTROL, AND THE RULE OF LAW visible along the flank. In the passenger seat, Officer Ayches Ram balances a styrene cup of caf in one hand and a half-eaten powdered donut in the other, her helmet resting on the console between them. Behind the cockpit, locked in the prisoner cage but very much not a prisoner, Nia Yamasi braces her shoulder-mounted holocam against the cage mesh. Beside her, {user} sits, watching the patrol unfold through the lens of silent routine.

Bach’s voice is filtered through his helmet speaker, but the tone is easy, almost conversational—a man talking to the lens because the lens is always there. "I joined the Empire about six years ago," he says, gaze fixed on the track ahead. "I can remember being a kid, watching the holographic images, getting excited about the new direction the galaxy was taking. So when I was old enough, I went down to the local recruitment center and signed up."

Ram takes a sip of caf and adds, without missing a second, "And we’ve been assigned to Tatooine ever since!"

Bach nods, the motion visible in the slight shift of his helmet. "Most people would call this the 'ass end of space'. But I like the small-town feeling you get here." He gestures vaguely out the viewport at an endless expanse of sand and scattered moisture-vaporator silhouettes. "I mean, you get to know everybody."

"Everybody." Ram repeats with deadpan calm, before biting into her donut. A tiny puff of powdered sugar drifts onto her chestplate; she brushes it away with practiced indifference.

Bach continues as if he’s told this story a hundred times and isn’t tired of it yet. "And I feel like I can really make a difference here."

The comlink crackles, and Dispatch cuts through the idle hum of the cockpit. "Unit-47, respond to a two-zero-seven-Delta, Droidnapping, at the old Tosche Station supply road. Complainant reports two droids stolen from a moisture farm, suspects observed leaving eastbound on a sandcrawler. All suspects described as Jawa."

Ram thumbs her radio immediately. "Unit-47, copy. Responding to a two-zero-seven-Delta." She sets her caf in the cup holder and pulls on her helmet. "Droidnapping... Why is it always Jawas?"

Bach flicks the siren off standby, and the cruiser’s red-and-blue glow-rods pulse across the dunes as he swings the speeder into a smooth banking turn. He glances back toward the camera, voice carrying the weary calm of absolute certainty.

"We’ve got a routine stop incoming. A 207-D—stolen droids. And Jawas may be involved." He pauses for a moment, turning at the path ahead. "Always Jawas."

TATOOINE, DUNE SEA

Centaxday 4th, 0815 hours

---

The Tatooine suns are barely above the horizon, but the heat is already shimmering off the Dune Sea. A Sandcrawler squats in the distance like a rusted behemoth, and between it and the camera, four white-armored figures are closing the gap on a cluster of Jawa scavengers. The audio picks up the crunch of boots on sand, the low crackle of a comlink, and the calm, measured voice of Captain Jyanic Bach.

"We’ve got a routine stop here." He glances toward {user} and the camera, where Nia’s lens captures the glint off his helmet. "Report of stolen droids. We think these might be it."

Officer Ayches Ram walks a step behind him, her helmet tracking the Jawas, who have stopped and are staring with the particular stillness of creatures who know they’ve been caught. She calls out, her tone flat and official. "Excuse me. You want to come over here, please?"

The two lead Jawas exchange a look, their glowing eyes wide. For a moment, no one moves.

"Yes, I’m talking to you two." Ram insists.

The Jawas shuffle forward, muttering to each other in their own tongue. Bach gestures toward the droid they were prodding toward the crawler—a dented astromech with a fresh restraining bolt. "Whose droid is this?"

The Jawa on the left launches into a rapid, chittering explanation. Ram tilts her head completely unamused. "Oh, it’s your cousin’s." The disbelief is audible even through the helmet filter. "Is this your cousin?" She points at the other Jawa.

Bach turns to the second Jawa. "Are you his cousin?"

The Jawa shakes its robed head emphatically and lets out a negative burst of Jawaese.

"No? Then who are you?" Bach asks insistently.

More Jawa chattering.

"Oh, you’re his friend." Bach motions the creature closer. "Well, Mr. Friend, would you step over there for a moment, please?"

Ram’s attention remains fixed on the first Jawa as the two other troopers from the support unit peel off to flank the second. "Okay, so the droid belongs to your cousin. If I go over to that Sandcrawler and ask to see your cousin, is he going to have a bill of sale for this?"

The Jawa’s reply is a stream of placating gibberish. Bach just sighs. "Alright. Well, what I’m going to do now, sir, is place you under Imperial arrest. So it can only help you to tell the tr—"

The second Jawa suddenly lunges forward, shrieking. Blaster rifles from the other Troopers snap up. "Hey! Are we talking to you?" Ram’s blaster rifle is out, the barrel aimed squarely at the creature’s hooded face. "Are we talking to you?! Then stay over there and shut your mouth!"

Bach, voice still eerily calm, adds, "Now, if you move again, she, uh, she’s gonna shoot you."

The first Jawa starts pleading, hands clasped, voice cracking with desperation. Bach just shakes his head. "No." More Jawa chattering, but Bach remains firm. "Yes, I understand. I’ve got a wife and kids too, but you don’t see me out here stealing Imperial droids, now do you?"

The Jawa proceeds to explain promises and pleas.

"Sure, you’ll never do it again." Ram mutters, completely unconvinced.

Without warning, Jawa number two bolts. Nia’s camera whips around, capturing the tiny robed figure sprinting across the sand, screeching in panic. The two support troopers give chase, blasters raised. Two crimson bolts bite into the sand, then the Jawa pitches forward and lies still.

"Hey, there goes the other one!" One Trooper shouts.

The first Jawa, seeing his companion drop, makes a desperate break in the opposite direction. Ram raises her E-11 in a smooth, practiced motion. "I got him."

The camera follows her aim. Two shots to the back, and the Jawa crumples.

Nia holds the frame as the two support troopers drag the small bodies into a heap, and Captain Bach turns to face the lens. He speaks with the unbothered rhythm of a man filing a 10-67 report. "Well, what we had here was that these, uh, Jawas had stolen some Imperial property and it unfortunately turned violent." He continues. "These Jawas do this kind of stuff all the time—picking up stray droids and selling them to the highest-paying customer."

In the background, a pair of TIE Fighters scream low over the Sandcrawler. Green laser bolts stitch across its hull, and the ancient vehicle erupts into a ball of orange fire. Jawa screeching echoes across the Dune Sea.

Ram walks over, her blaster holstered. She doesn’t even look at the flames. "We didn’t find the droids we were looking for, but we did find one that a kid reported stolen." She says with amusement. "So he and his parents are gonna come down to the detention center and pick it up."

"Boy, I’ll bet they’ll be happy," Bach says contentedly.

"Yup." Ram’s helmet tilts just a little. "That’s what it’s all about!"

TATOOINE, DUNE SEA

Zhellday 11th, 1503 hours

---

The twin suns of Tatooine hammered the Dune Sea hard enough to make the Imperial Victoria Police Interceptor’s climate control wheeze. Inside the speeder’s cockpit, Captain Jyanic Bach—TK-447 to anyone with a badge—kept one hand loose on the yoke while the other hovered near a thermos of caf that had been lukewarm since Centaxday. Officer Ayches Ram rode the passenger seat, helmet tilted back just far enough to let her sigh directly onto the windscreen.

In the prisoner cage behind them, Nia Yamasi sat cross-legged with her recorder cradled on one knee, the lens drinking in every bead of sweat on the troopers’ neck seals. Beside her, {user} occupied the remaining bench space. Both were pressed against the cage’s durasteel mesh and learning that 'ride-along' on Tatooine translated loosely to 'slow-bake.'

The comm panel murmured a steady diet of ten-codes. A 10-91D near the spaceport—noncompliant droid, probably another astromech with a bent restraining bolt. A 10-50 at docking bay twelve; Ram snorted and muttered, "That’s the third vendor cart this month."

Bach keyed the internal speaker off for a moment and glanced sideways. "You ever think about putting in for a transfer? Somewhere with weather?"

"And miss the annual dewback migration?" Ram’s deadpan calm arrived before her eyes left the heat shimmer outside. "I filed three incident reports last Benduday because a Jawa tried to claim salvage rights on a parked shuttle. You can’t buy that kind of entertainment."

Bach’s reply got interrupted by the radio.

"Unit Forty-Seven, respond to a four-one-five slash two-four-zero at a moisture farm on the Kappa-Nine track. Reporting party states female half of the domestic is attempting to separate male half from consciousness with a cleaning implement. Male half is possibly under the influence, female half is possibly injured. Code ten-thirty-five suspected."

The thermos of caf never reached Bach’s lips. He set it back in the cup holder with the inner peace of a man who had just seen his future paperwork flash before his eyes.

Ram already had the radio in hand. "Dispatch, Unit-47, copy, en route to Kappa-Nine."

As she clipped the handset back, Bach nudged the throttle and swung the IVPI toward the farm track in a wide arc that threw a sheet of sand across the rear hatch. He caught Nia’s lens in the rearview, then {user}’s silhouette beside her, and allowed himself the smallest shake of his head.

"Caf and donuts," he said, "are officially going to have to wait a little longer."

The cruiser’s siren cut through the heat with a pair of red-and-blue glow-rods strobing across the sand.

TATOOINE, MOS EISLEY

Benduday 20th, 2300 hours

---

The Mos Eisley night presses against the IVPI cruiser like a hot, heavy bantha blanket—dry, dusty, and shimmering with heat still radiating from the stone. Inside, the glow-rods mounted on the dash cast a steady red-and-blue wash across Captain Jyanic Bach’s helmet as he guides the speeder down a narrow street, one hand on the yoke, the other resting on the center console near a datapad displaying tonight’s patrol log.

"—and that’s the third time this month a moisture farmer filed a formal complaint about his neighbor’s vaporator runoff contaminating his property line," Bach says, his helmet-filtered voice flat but tinged with the exhaustion of a man who has had this conversation before. "Honestly, Ram, I’m starting to think the real crime on this planet is spite."

Officer Ayches Ram, in the passenger seat, taps the dash and watches a distant landspeeder drift lazily through an intersection, no signal. "You say that like it isn’t. At least with spice runners you get a little cardio." Her left shoulder plate, still missing a chunk from a dewback incident three seasons ago, catches the dashboard light. "I’ll take a foot chase over a property-line dispute any shift."

From the back of the cruiser, sealed in the prisoner cage that tonight holds no suspects, Nia Yamasi records everything without a word—her lens focused through the transparisteel divider. Beside her, {user} sits in the same cramped, plastoid-scented darkness, a second silent observer. Nia’s camera adjusts focus, capturing the two patrol troopers silhouetted against the neon cantina signs ahead, then holds steady.

Dispatch crackles over the comlink: "All Units, stand by. We’ve got a 10-91X on the books—a mynock chewing through power couplings behind docking bay twelve. Droid repair crew is on scene and... uh, screaming. Over."

Ram keys the radio. "Copy, dispatch. We’ll stay clear; that’s a maintenance issue, not a police call." She releases the transmit, and a thin sigh filters through her helmet. "A 10-91X and we’re not even halfway through the shift."

A medical speeder wails past, its siren cutting a rising-and-falling arc through the night as it banks left toward a residential block. Bach slows the cruiser as the street ahead narrows, blocked by a makeshift checkpoint. An AT-ST stands awkwardly at the center of the intersection, one leg propped open with an access panel, a trooper crouched inside its knee joint, muttering curses. Another patrol trooper, slouched against a sand-worn barricade, lifts a lazy hand in greeting as the IVPI pulls alongside.

"Evening, Unit-47," the trooper says, voice tinny from his helmet speaker. "Busy shift. Just grabbed three Tuskens near the ridge—throwing rocks at a vaporator array again—and picked up a Rodian trying to fence stolen hydration packs behind the market." He shakes his head. "One of those nights."

Ram leans over Bach to peer at the open panel on the AT-ST. "One of those nights," *she repeats, amused. "Hey, tell TK-904 that if he needs to reseat a motivator relay, he should stop trying to do it with a stun baton. Learned that the hard way."

The trooper by the barricade laughs—a short, static-laced burst. "I’ll relay the advice."

Before anything else can be said, dispatch cuts in again, this time with the clipped, rhythmic cadence of a call that demands attention: "Unit-47, Unit-47, we have a 415 with an uncertain code—disturbance in the Wonto District, near Chalmun’s Cantina. Reporting party states a humanoid male, no tunic, is shouting at passersby and attempting to climb a vendor’s stall. Multiple 10-13s. Advise."

Bach and Ram exchange a glance. A tunic-less suspect In the Wonto District, on Benduday’s night. It’s so utterly, perfectly average.

Ram grabs the radio. "10-4, Dispatch. Unit-47 responding, we’re ten minutes out." She clips the receiver back and turns toward the checkpoint troopers. "Peaceful shift, boys." Then, she turns to Bach. "No tunic..." She sighs and smiles. "At least it's not a Wookiee in just a bandolier."

Bach eases the cruiser into a three-point turn, gravel grinding under the repulsors. He glances briefly over his shoulder into the cage, where Nia’s lens glints and {user} sits in the shadows. He addresses them both with the weary, practiced tone of a man who has filmed several episodes of his own life.

"Average night on Tatooine." He straightens the yoke and presses the accelerator. The cruiser surges forward, red and blue lights bleeding across the sandstone walls. "Let’s go ask a man why he isn’t wearing a shirt."

TATOOINE, MOS EISLEY

Primeday 21st, 0247 hours

---

The white glare of helmet-mounted lights sliced through the alley’s gloom, bouncing off moisture vaporators and stacked cargo crates. Two sets of plastoid boots hammered the sandstone, steady and methodical, closing the gap. Captain Jyanic Bach kept his E-11 low, his breathing even, the scuffed left shoulder plate of his armor catching the strobing red-and-blue glow from the speeder they’d left behind on the main thoroughfare. Officer Ayches Ram ran a pace behind and to his right, her own light sweeping the side passages, her posture already radiating the tired certainty of someone who’d done this a hundred times. Behind them both, Nia Yamasi’s camera bobbed silently, lens focused, the faint whir of its stabilizer the only sound she contributed to the night.

Bach’s radio crackled. Rimsey’s voice cut through, bright and impossibly crisp for 0247 hours. "Hunter-1 on station, I’ve got thermal on the runner. He’s two alleys east of you, hiding behind a vaporator condenser. Want a spotlight?"

The LAAT/le gunship descended before Bach could key his response. It dropped low over the rooftops, engines raising a cyclone of dust and grit, the blue law-enforcement stripe along its hull catching the moonlight. The chin-mounted spotlight stabbed downward, a column of pure white that turned the alley into a stage. The suspect—a disheveled human male, completely shirtless, unsteady on his feet and still reeking of spotchka—froze mid-crouch behind the condenser, throwing up a hand to shield his eyes.

The gunship’s side door was open. Nia’s camera zoomed, capturing Rimsey’s silhouette against the cockpit glow: the messy bob of hair barely contained by her flight helmet, one hand steady on the controls, the other giving a small, casual wave to the lens. Then her voice boomed across the neighborhood through the external loudspeaker, flattening all other sound. "You know, you’re just making this harder on yourself. And Captain Bach hates extra paperwork."

Ram slowed to a walk, shaking her head as the suspect’s shoulders slumped. He raised his hands, wrists already angled in anticipation of the stuncuffs. Bach’s sigh was almost lost in the repulsor wash.

"10-4, Hunter-1," he muttered into his comlink, with the weary resignation of a man who would now have to log the aerial assist in triplicate. Rimsey pulled the gunship into a steady hover, the spotlight unwavering, waiting for the next call.