Star Wars - Tales From The Mos Eisley Cantina

by Kevin J. Anderson

  safe for a moment, and Trevagg turned back to Nightlily, grasping

  the smooth dark ivory of her hands. "Nightlily, you mean . . .

  Everything. Everything to me."

  She said "Oh ..." while staring up into his eyes. "Oh . . . Oh,

  Trevagg. That we should have met like this-that you should have

  come into my life like this ..."

  He wondered if he could slip away for a moment, summon the city

  police . . . But he needed a go-between if he were to get the

  money. Slip away and contact Jub Vegnu-first speak to one of the

  assassins, in case Balu had tracked the old man here himself.

  He felt the flare of emotions, of irrational rage and drunken

  aggression, before the yelling started. Swinging around in his

  chair, Trevagg saw, to his horror, that the sinister Dr. Evazan

  had decided to pick a fight with the farm boy, throwing him

  sprawling into a table while Wuher ducked under the bar yelling

  desperately "No blasters! No blasters!" and someone else grabbed

  for a sidearm . . .

  The roar of the Force in Trevagg's cones peaked like the

  drumming of a high-desert gravel storm. The old man, in what

  seemed like a single smooth gesture, somehow had a glowing stalk

  of light in his hand. A lethal slash, a severed limb leaking blood

  on the floor, Nightlily's terrified hoot, and silence-a silence

  less shocked than cautious as everyone reevaluated the situation.

  Then the band started up again. So did the conversations. The

  wounded would-be combatant was taken away. So was the arm, by

  Wuher's small helper Nackhan recognized as operating a fast-food

  stand in the marketplace. The old Jedi picked up his young

  companion, moved off with the Wookiee to the booth where the brown-

  haired smuggler with the scar on his chin waited. Trevagg became

  aware that Nightlily was clinging to his arm, and his every

  instinct told him now was the time to move in on her.

  Unfortunately, now was also the time to listen, to stretch out

  his hearing, to key and sharpen his hunter's awareness of every

  word they said. Trevagg disengaged his arm from the trembling

  girl, stated "You need something to calm you down, my blossom,"

  and moved over to the bar, listening over the jumble of the music,

  the murmur of the crowd. Lingering by the bar, he heard the words

  "to the Alderaan system," and felt the swift rush of hunter's

  adrenaline in his veins. It was, indeed, now or never.

  Then, a moment later, he heard the old man say, "Two thousand

  now, plus fifteen when we reach Alder-aan . . ."

  Trevagg breathed a sigh of relief. That meant a delay here,

  while they raised the cash. Probably they'd sell the speeder the

  boy had mentioned, or the droids, or all three. That only left the

  question of Balu.

  The brown-haired human and the Wookiee were obviously not for

  hire as assassins. Judging by such of the conversation as he could

  hear, Trevagg guessed they were only smugglers anyway. The Wolfman

  was engaged in a sharp altercation with a lampreylike thing beside

  him, whose vibrations caused Trevagg to back quickly away, and,

  nearby, the hookah smoker felt too eerily dangerous, too deadly.

  That left the Rodian . . .

  "Docking Bay Ninety-four," he heard the smuggler say, and the

  old man repeated it, "Ninety-four," as Trevagg returned to his

  booth with his own drink and Nightlily's, double-strength and

  dosed with a Love-Wallop pill Trevagg had had the foresight to

  slip into his pocket before leaving the office. He knew how much

  Wuher charged for them. There would now, he knew, be plenty of

  time.

  Riches, he thought, and the beautiful creature leaning on his

  arm, crooning softly, "Oh, my love, my love." Maybe he'd even

  spring for a first-class ticket for her. It was, after all, the

  least he could do.

  He wasn't surprised, or particularly upset, when the

  stormtroopers snowed up. He even felt a kind of scorn for them as

  they looked around, for of course the old man and the boy had

  vanished. So, incidentally, did several other patrons, including

  the hookah smoker. The Rodian didn't, Trevagg observed, and

  slipped one hand from Nightlily's soft waist to feel in his belt

  pouch for the money he'd brought. A hundred credits, he had been

  told, was the current going rate for the down payment on a man's

  life.

  He would be glad, he thought, to get this annoyance out of the

  way. To make sure Balu was not going to cheat him out of the

  reward that was rightfully his.

  Unfortunately, just as Trevagg was rising to go to the Rodian's

  table, the Rodian himself got up, with a shift in aura that told

  Trevagg that this was indeed a hunter, closing in on his own prey.

  That prey, it turned out, was the brown-haired smuggler, who after

  a prolonged altercation shot the Rodian neatly with a blaster

  drawn under the table.

  Nightlily shrieked again and clung to Trevagg's arm; Wuher's

  helper ran to guard the remains even as the smuggler and his

  Wookiee companion tossed the barkeep a couple of credits and took

  their leave "Sorry about the mess." After a momentary pause, the

  band took up its tune without missing a bar.

  Disgusted and annoyed-because the Wolfman had also left by this

  time-Trevagg gathered the flustered and languishing Nightlily on

  his arm. So much, he thought, for trying to shortcut middlemen.

  When he contacted Jub Vegnu to arrange information to the City

  Prefect about intercepting the old man and the boy at Spaceport

  Speeders, he'd mention the need to dispose of Balu for an extra

  hundred creds. That should take care of any competition for the

  reward for the old man's hide.

  And in the meantime, thought Trevagg, slipping his arm around

  the trembling bundle of aromatic sensuality that fate had dropped

  into his lap, there was the matter of this girl, and getting a

  room at the Mos Eisley Inn, to consummate what she thought would

  be the start of a wonderful marriage-the more fool she!- and what

  was, in actuality, merely the more delectable of the two hunts

  upon which he had engaged today.

  Really, Trevagg thought, as he guided Nightlily's tipsy steps

  along the gold and shadow of the street outside, he might have

  retired from the trade, but he was still quite a passable hunter

  after all.

  What with the commotion of Imperial troops coming into Mos

  Eisley to search for a pair of droids, the sudden rumors of a Sand

  People massacre on an outlying farm, and the firefight at Docking

  Bay 94 ending with a smuggling craft's illegal liftoff, nobody

  found Feltipern Trevagg's body until the following afternoon.

  "Didn't anybody tell him?" demanded Wuher the bartender,

  brought over to the Mos Eisley Inn by Balu's deputy to view the

  body and give the security officer his deposition.

  "Tell him what?" Balu looked up from jotting on his logpad.

  He'd never much liked the Gotal, but that kind of

  death-evisceration with what looked to have been a long, thin

  knife, skillfully wielded-w
as something he wouldn't have wished on

  anyone.

  "About H'nemthe." When Balu continued to look blank, the

  bartender added, "The girl he was with. The H'nemthe female."

  "Nightlily?" Balu was starded. The girl had looked too

  frightened by her surroundings-and too dazzled by Trevagg's

  charms-to have harmed a hair of the Gotal's head.

  "Was that her name?" Wuher rolled his eyes. "It figures."

  A small crowd had gathered. Of course, none of the Imperial

  stormtroopers and none of the Prefect's guard, either. A murder

  this small wasn't worth their time. Balu couldn't help observing

  Nackhar in the background slipping the coroner's deputy a few cred

  its. For what, he decided not to ask.

  "The m'iiyoom-the nightlily-is a carnivorous flower that feeds

  on small rodents and insects that try to drink its nectar," said

  the barkeep, hands on hips and looking down at the dark-stained

  sheet the coroner had laid over what was left of Trevagg. "After

  mating, H'nemthe females gut the males with those tongues of

  theirs-they're as sharp as sword blades, and a lot stronger than

  they look. Some kind of biological reaction to there being twenty

  H'nemthe males for every female. The males seem to think it's

  wortih it, to achieve the act of love. I saw them together in the

  can-Una, but I didn't think Trevagg was crazy enough to try to bed

  the girl."

  "He was always bragging about being such a great hunter," said

  Balu wonderingly, stepping aside for the coroner's deputies to

  carry die body out of the dingy and bloodstained room. "You'd have

  thought he'd sense it coming."

  "How could he?" The barkeep tucked big hands into his belt,

  followed the officer back out to the street. "For her it was the

  act of love, too."

  He shrugged, and quoted an old Ithorian proverb current in some

  sections of the spaceways "N'ygyng mth'une vned 'isobec' k'chuv

  'ysobek.' "

  Which, loosely translated, means "The word for 'love' in one

  language is the word for 'dinner' in others."

  Empire Blues The Devaronian's Tale

  by Daniel Keys Moran

  I don't suppose it took us five minutes that afternoon to

  execute the Rebels, start to finish.

  The Rebellion on Devaron stood no chance. My home world is

  sparsely settled even by Devaronians, and is politically

  unimportant; but it is near the Core. Near the Emperor, may he

  freeze. I was Kardue'sai'Malloc, third of the Kardue line to bear

  that name; a Devish and a captain in the Devaronian Army.

  Kardue had served in the Devaronian Army for sixteen

  generations through the Clone Wars, back into the days when no

  one dreamed the old Republic would ever fall. The army lifestyle

  suited me, and I the army; aside from the stress of dealing with

  the Imperium, and the detested necessity of placing Devaronian

  troops under Imperial command during the Rebellion, it was a

  tolerable life.

  Sixteen generations of military service ended the afternoon

  after we overran the Rebel positions in Montellian Serat. It took

  me half a year to hang up the armor; but that was the moment.

  Montellian Serat is an old city. Well, was; it dated back to

  the days before my people had star travel. That the Rebels chose

  to make a stand there was tactically foolish, but not surprising.

  I spent the night overseeing the shelling of the ancient city

  walls, and in the first light of morning stopped shelling long

  enough to offer the Rebels a chance to surrender. They accepted

  the offer, laid down their arms by the shattered walls at the

  city's edge, and came out in single file man and woman they were

  seven hundred strong.

  I herded them into a hastily constructed holding pen, and

  mounted guards. I had concern for a rescue attempt; half a day's

  march south, another group of Rebels were still fighting.

  After they surrendered, we shelled the city into rubble. The

  Empire wanted to make sure no one made the mistake of sheltering

  Rebels again.

  Our orders came just after noon. The Rebels were believed to be

  moving north; I was to take my forces and intercept them. I was

  not to leave any of my forces behind as guards for the captured

  Rebels.

  The orders were no more specific than that . . . but they could

  not be misunderstood.

  I had them executed in mid-afternoon. I pulled the guards back

  into a half circle, and had them open fire on the Rebels inside

  the holding pen. It took most of five minutes before the screaming

  stopped and I could be certain all seven hundred were dead.

  There was no time to bury them.

  We marched south to the next battle.

  With one thing and another it took almost half a year for the

  Rebellion on Devaron to be put down. Rebellions are drawn-out

  affairs, even the failures. When it was over, I submitted my

  resignation. At first my superiors, humans all, could not decide

  whether to accept it and let my fellow "natives" kill me once I no

  longer had the protection of the Imperial Army, or to refuse it

  and execute me for treason for having made the request in the

  first place.

  I recall I did not much care.

  They let me go.

  I vanished. Neither my Imperial superiors, nor the family or

  friends left behind, who lusted for my horns, ever saw me, or my

  music collection, again.

  Time passed.

  Halfway across the galaxy from Devaron, on the small desert

  planet of Tatooine, in the port city of Mos Eisley, in a cantina

  tucked away near the center of the hot, dusty city, I looked up

  from my empty drink and smiled at my old friend Wuher.

  I gave him the polite one. Devish are more sharply

  differentiated by sex than most species. Men have sharper teeth

  than women, designed for hunting; Devish evolved from pack

  hunters. Women have canines as well, but also have molars and can

  survive on food that men would starve on. In rare cases, though,

  about one birth in fifty, a Devish man will be born with both sets

  of teeth. I'm one of them. In the old days it was a survival

  trait; Devish men with both sets of teeth were used as solitary

  scouts by the pack. They could range farther and survive in

  terrain where most males would starve. It may be cultural and it

  may be genetic, but there is no question that Devish with doubled

  teeth are less creatures of the pack than most Devish men.

  I doubt most Devish could do what I've done, at that.

  My outer row of teeth are female, flat and not at all

  threatening. The inner row, composed of sharp, needle-pointed

  teeth, is for shredding flesh. When I feel threatened or angry,

  the outer row of teeth retract. In those circumstances it's a

  reflex; but I can do it on purpose.

  Sometimes I do it on purpose. It startles humans . . . well, it

  startles most noncarnivores, but humans are a special case, a

  whole species of omnivores. There are not many intelligent

  omnivorous species out there. I have a theory about them They're

  f
ood that decided to fight back. In the case of humans, tree

  munchies. They never quite get over their own audacity, I suspect,

  and they're a nervous lot because of it.

  (A human once tried to tell me that humans were carnivores. I

  did not laugh at him, despite his molars and his pitiful two pair

  of blunted incisors, and a digestive tract so long that the flesh

  he ate rotted before it came out the other end. With a body

  designed like that, I'd take up leaf eating.)

  Wuher gave me the usual scowl in response to my polite, flat-

  toothed smile. "Let me guess, Labria. The glass is defective."

  Wuher is my best friend on Tatooine. He's a squat, ugly human

  with a bad attitude and none of the human virtues. He hates droids

  and doesn't care much for anything else. I like him a great deal.

  There is a purity to his loathing for the universe that is quite

  spiritually advanced. If I could free him from his love of money,

  he might well attain Grace. "Yes, my friend. It has ceased

  functioning. If you would fix it . . ."

  "With?"

  "Oh, the amber liquid, I suppose."

  "The Merenzane Gold?"

  "The bottle bears that label," I conceded.

  "One Merenzane Gold, point five credits."

  I dropped the half-credit coin on the bartop, and waited while

  he refilled my drink, Merenzane Gold is a sweet, subtle

  concoction, with many thousands of years of brewing tradition

  behind it. A single bottle goes for well upward of a hundred

  credits, depending on vintage.

  I took a sip of my drink and smiled again. Proper. You could

  use it to clean thruster tubes, except it might melt the

  shielding. I wandered over to my favorite booth, as far away from

  the bandstand as I could get, and settled in with my ear plugs for

  the day.

  I was the first customer in the door that morning. I could

  barely remember a time when I had not been.

  Tatooine is a nasty, useless little planet. The only noteworthy

  things about it are Jabba, and the pilots it produces year after

  year. I don't have any idea why Jabba picked Tatooine as a base;

  maybe because it's so far from the Core that the Empire is less

  likely to bother him here. Doesn't matter, really.

  As for the pilots, well, Tatooine's a desert, filled with

  moisture farmers north to south. A single farm takes up so much