As the cheers from the Rodian’s retreat faded, Witchblade sank back into her seat like a queen reclaiming her throne. Behind the bar, Lieutenant Morkie cautiously poked his head out.

“Is it safe? Did we win?”

“You hid behind a lum keg,” muttered Alton Sureshot, sipping a luminous purple drink still labelled Bantha Hiccups. “Unparalleled bravery.”

“You mock,” Morkie huffed, brushing himself off, “but that keg’s blast-rated. You think they’d ship lum in anything else? That stuff is a military-grade solvent.”

Witchblade clinked glasses with him as he climbed onto a stool. “To lum-based shield tech,” she toasted.

“May it protect us from our own cooking,” added Sundown, side-eyeing a tray of bar snacks that looked unsettlingly sentient.

Across the dance floor, H0-P5 sighed audibly as he polished glasses. “The last crew to visit this place was wiped out by mop warfare. Simpler times.”

Witchblade arched an eyebrow. “Mop warfare?”

“Oh stars, here we go,” muttered Ryan Stiggs. “The Mop Duel again.”

Sundown dragged a hand across his forehead in mock interest, though his gaze betrayed him, it was still locked on the snack tray now claimed by Lambda Squadron’s Gytheran, Solohan, and BlackxRanger.

“I’m sorry, did you say a Wookiee and a Trandoshan had a mop duel on this floor?” Witchblade demanded. “You expect me to sip my drink and let that slide?”

H0-P5 dimmed the nearby lights - no one quite knew how he did that trick - and launched into it.

“Five rotations ago,” he began, “Gruff’Tan the Wookiee and Thrask the custodian Trandoshan got into a heated debate. About floor wax.”

“Sounds legit,” said TecGenie, leaning back in the booth and taking a long sip of something smoky and shifting colours.

“They each claimed superior mopping technique,” the droid continued. “Things escalated. One night, they arrived early. Cleared the floor. And began... a duel.”

“I assumed that was a joke,” Witchblade murmured as she shifted on her bar stool.

“That explains the dented bulkhead,” muttered Maximus.

“Both were found unconscious with mop handles tangled like limbs,” said H0-P5. “They woke up in medical. The battle was declared a draw. Custodial duelling is now forbidden.”

A respectful or perhaps nervous silence followed.

“Well,” said Stiggs, “mostly forbidden. There’s an annual underground league now.”

Before Witchblade could process that, a shrill laugh tore through the room.

“Behold!” shouted Pugnacious Pilotous, wobbling precariously atop a hoverboard usually used for hauling crates. “The Chariot of Reckless Intent!”

“Oh no,” groaned Woody.

“Too late!” Pilotous flung a glove to the floor. “I declare the First Annual Alpha Squadron Hoverbrawl!”

Witchblade’s eyes gleamed. “What are the rules?”

“There are no rules!” Pilotous yelled, already zig-zagging between barstools.

Four pilots lunged for the stack of dock-issued hoverboards by the closet. One was, somehow, already on fire. TecGenie snagged a fire suppressant tube, not to extinguish, but to turbo-boost his ride.

Witchblade mounted hers with all the grace of someone used to dodging torpedoes at close range. “Stiggs, cover me.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m going through the dance floor.”

The next five minutes were pure chaos. Hoverboards zipped through the Bastion, overturning tables, terrifying junior officers, and at one point launching Morkie into a chandelier he’d been eyeing suspiciously for years.

“I TOLD YOU IT WASN’T TO SCALE!” he shouted from above.

Gytheran and BlackxRanger exchanged nervous glances as the chandelier wobbled precariously from side to side, somewhat about the booth Lambda currently occupied.

“Do you think we should?” demurred Gytheran, his Jawa issued robes smouldering slightly from a near brush with TecGenie’s hoverboard as it had whizzed past their booth.

At the back of the booth, Solohan had constructed what appeared to be an elaborate hat out of coasters, shot glasses, and the remnants of a dessert he may or may not have stolen during the chaos.

“Let them be,” he suggested in a somewhat high-pitched Ewok voice.

Hera Storm turned from adjacent booth and nodded in agreement before pulling out a stack of credits.

Witchblade came from behind on the final lap, cutting hard between the gaming kiosk and the jukebox, her hoverboard scattering loose credits and causing the jukebox to switch to battle horns by accident.

“That’s my line!” shouted Mars.

On the final stretch, Witchblade leaned hard into the turn and stuck out her foot, and clipped a finish ribbon that someone, probably H0-P5, had strung up during the mid-race chaos.

Cheers erupted, drinks spilled and another round of cheers echoed around the bar.

Witchblade dismounted, hair tousled, grinning like a pirate queen.

“That,” she laughed, “was a rush.”

Pilotous sprawled out next to her on the floor. “You cheated. I saw you cut the turn.”

“You were on fire,” she replied. “Hard to take your complaints too seriously Lieutenant.”

Back at the bar, H0-P5 handed her a new drink, one that glowed less like danger and had a umbrella.

“That was the most idiotic thing I’ve seen since the soap cannon incident,” the droid said flatly. “Well done.”

She raised her glass. “To Alpha Squadron. May our chaos never be contained.”

Somewhere from the corner of the room a familiar groan of a door opening echoed.

Lieutenant Colonel Task stepped in and instantly stopped. He took in the wreckage. The foam. The hoverboard half-embedded in the ceiling.

Three full seconds passed in silence.

“Not. Tonight.”

The door hissed shut.