“Sounds good,” Figrin answered. In Bithian, he added, “Once we find a way offworld, the Wookiee can keep our severance pay. Say yes.”
I almost walked back down the back stairs, but loyalty is loyalty.
We found crash space at Ruillia’s Insulated Rooms. We emerge daily to play in the cantina where my only human friend, Wuher, tends bar. Solo beat Figrin at sabacc yesterday, so he’s still alive, but D’Wopp was shipped home in pieces. Lady Val is single again and looks to stay that way.
And every time we tune up, I check the crowd. Just now, I spotted Jabba’s swivel-eared green Rodian … Greedo. He’s not bright, but he’s armed.
I’m watching him.
A Hunter’s Fate:
Greedo’s Tale
by Tom Veitch and
Martha Veitch
1. The Refuge
“Oona goota, Greedo?”
The question, spoken fearfully, was answered by the mocking cries of luminous bo-toads hidden in the mountain cave in the dripping green jungle. Pqweeduk scratched the insect bite on his tapirlike snout and made a brave hooting noise. He listened as the sound echoed with the wind in the dark hole that had swallowed his older brother.
Pqweeduk’s spiny back shivered. He flicked on his hand-torch and the suckers of his right hand fastened tightly to the shiny hunting knife Uncle Nok had given him for his twelfth birthday.
Pqweeduk stepped into the yawning cave.
But the cave in the jungle was not a cave, and a few meters in, the rocks and packed earth ended at an open steel door!
Pqweeduk leaned through the rectangular opening and flashed his torch upward. He was in a dome that filled the inside of the mountain. The young Rodian saw three great silvery ships squatting silently in the vastness.
“Greedo?”
“Nthan kwe kutha, Pqweeduk!” That was his brother’s voice. Pqweeduk saw Greedo’s hand-torch signaling and he walked toward it. His bare feet felt a smooth cold floor.
Greedo stood in the open hatch of one of the big ships. “Come on, Pqweeduk! There’s nothing to be afraid of! Come on inside and check it out!”
Their bulbous multifaceted eyes, already large, grew even larger as the two green youths explored the interior of the silver vessel. Everywhere were strange and unfamiliar metallic shapes that glittered and flashed in torchlight or presented dark angular silhouettes full of hidden purpose. But there were also places to sit, and beds to lie on, and dishes to eat from.
Greedo had a funny feeling he’d been here before. But it was only a feeling, without any memories attached.
Indeed, the only memories he possessed were of life in the green jungle where his mother harvested Tendril nuts and his uncles herded the arboreal Tree-Botts for milk and meat. About two hundred Rodians lived together under the grand Tendril trees. They had always lived here, this was the only life he knew, and all his fifteen years Greedo and his younger brother had run wild in the forest.
The Rodians had no enemies in this place, except for the occasional Manka cat, wandering through on its way to the distant white mountains during Manka mating season.
The younger Rodians stayed close to home during that part of the year. The Mankas’ savage roaring warned everyone of their coming, and the Rodian men would take weapons out of secret keeping places, and stand guard at the edge of the village, waiting for the Mankas to pass in the night.
During Manka season, Greedo would hear the guns scream, as he lay in bed, unable to sleep. The next morning the carcass of a big Manka would be hanging for all to see, from cross-trees in the village center.
Except for the Manka-killing, the Rodians led a quiet self-contained existence. The olders never spoke of any other life—at least not in front of the children. But Greedo overheard them, when they thought he was asleep, talk of things happening out among the stars.
He heard the olders use words like “Empire,” “the clan wars,” “bounty hunters,” “starships,” “Jedi Knights,” “hyperspace.” These words made strange images in his mind—he couldn’t make sense of them at all, because the only life he knew was the jungle, the trees, the water, and endless days of play.
But the olders’ secret talk filled him with feelings of unexplainable longing. Somehow he knew that he didn’t belong to this green world. He belonged somewhere else, out among the stars.
The silver ships were the proof. He knew with uncanny certainty that these were the “starships” he had heard his mother and uncles speak about. Surely his mother would tell him why the ships were hidden under the mountain.
Pqweeduk isn’t old enough to know … but I am.
• • •
Greedo’s mother, Neela, was sitting on the ground in front of their hut, by firelight, peeling Tendril nuts. Her hands moved rapidly, slitting the thick husks with a bone knife and peeling them back. She hooted quietly to herself as she worked.
Greedo crouched nearby, carving a piece of white Tendril wood into the shape of a silver starship. When the ship was finished he held it up and admired it, making sure his mother could see it. “Mother,” he asked abruptly, “when are you going to teach me about the silver ships in the mountain?”
The rapid movement of his mother’s hands stopped. Without looking at her son, she spoke, in a voice that betrayed emotion. “You found the ships,” she said.
“Yes, Mother. Pqweeduk and me—”
“I told Nok to fill in the opening in the mountain. But Nok loves the past too much. He’s always sneaking up there to look at the ships.” She sighed and resumed peeling the leathery skins off the big nuts.
Greedo moved closer to her. He sensed that she was ready to tell him things he wanted to know … things he needed to know. “Mother, please tell me about the ships.”
Her moist faceted eyes met his. “The ships … brought us to this place … this world … two years after you were born, Greedo.”
“Wasn’t I born here … in the jungle?”
“You were born out there”—she pointed at the evening sky, visible through the tall Tendril trees, where the first stars were appearing—“on the world of our people, the planet Rodia. There was much killing then. Your father was killed, while I was carrying your brother. We had to leave … or die.”
“I don’t understand.”
She sighed. She saw she would have to tell him everything. Or almost everything. He was old enough now to know the facts.
“Our people, the Rodians, were always hunters and fighters. The love of death was strong in us. Many years ago, when the meat-game was gone, we learned to raise all our food. But our people began to hunt each other, for sport.”
“They … killed each other?”
“Yes, for sport. For deadly sport. Some Rodians thought it was foolishness, and refused to participate. Your father was one of those. A great bounty hunter was he … but he refused to join the foolish gladiator hunts.”
“What is a bounty hunter, Mother?” Greedo felt a chill in his spine, waiting for the answer.
“Your father hunted criminals and outlaws … or people with a price on their heads. He was highly honored for his skills. He made us very wealthy.”
“Is that why he died?”
“No. An evil clan leader, Navik the Red, named for the red birthmark that covers his face, used the gladiator games as an excuse to make war on the other clan leaders. Your father was murdered. Our wealth was taken, and our clan, the Tetsus, were nearly wiped out.
“Fortunately, some of us were able to escape the killing, in the three silver ships you’ve found.”
“Why did you never tell Pqweeduk and me about the ships … and about our people?”
“We have changed. There was no need to dredge up the dark past. We have become peaceful here. The guns are only brought out when the Manka cats are prowling. We made a vow, in our council, that the children should not know of the terrible past, until they were full grown. I am breaking that vow now, in telling you these things. But you are … almost as tall as your father now.”
“What is the Empire, Mother?”
She frowned and wrinkled her long flexible snout. “I’ve told you enough, Greedo. On another day perhaps I will answer all your questions. Go to bed now, my son.”
“Yes, Mother.” Greedo touched his hand suckers to his mother’s in the traditional all-purpose greeting and good night. He went to his straw-filled bed in their little hut, where his brother was already asleep.
Greedo lay for hours, thinking of silver ships, of his father the bounty hunter … and the greatness of life among the stars.
2. Red Navik
A month and a day after Greedo and Pqweeduk found the silver sky ships, Navik the Red, leader of the powerful Chattza clan, found the Tetsus.
Greedo and his brother were climbing high in the Tendril trees when they saw a bright flash in the sky. They watched with quiet curiosity as the flash flowered and became a glittering red shape that grew larger and larger, until they could see it was a sky ship, twenty times larger than the small silver ships in the cave.
Anxious voices called from below. Greedo hooted with excitement and began to slide rapidly down the smooth tree, using his suckers to skillfully brake his descent. His brother was right behind him.
Below they could see the people coming out of their huts and pointing at the big sky ship. Uncle Nok and Uncle Teeko and others were running to get the weapons. Greedo sensed their fear.
“C’mon, Pqweeduk!” Greedo shouted, as his feet hit the ground. “We have to save Mother! We can’t let them kill her!”
“What are you talking about, Greedo? Nobody’s killing anybody!” Pqweeduk dropped to the ground and obediently followed his older brother.
As they ran through the trees, the red ship swooped lower, uncoiled its landing gear, and settled in a cloud of fiery smoke at the edge of the village.
Twin hatches hissed open. Greedo stopped and turned and gaped in awe as armored Rodian warriors poured out of the giant ship—hundreds of them, each wearing bright segmented armor and each carrying a vicious-looking blaster rifle.
The sight of these killers transfixed the young Rodian. It was a full minute before he felt his brother tugging fearfully at his sleeve. And then he heard his mother’s voice, urging him to run. The last thing Greedo saw, before he turned his face to the forest, was the figure of a tall, imposing Rodian with a bloodred mark that stained most of his face. The marked warrior shouted an order, and the others raised their weapons.
The scream of laser fire mixed with the dying shrieks of the people, as Greedo and his brother and mother fled into the jungle.
Uncle Nok and Uncle Teeku and twenty others made it to the cave ahead of them. There was a great grinding noise and the roar of a landslide, as the top of the mountain opened, throwing off its burden of earth and stones.
Greedo caught his breath as the three silver ships gleamed in the light of the midday sun. Powerful engines already whined awake.
Uncle Nok greeted Greedo’s mother as he urged everyone to get aboard as fast as possible. “Neela—now you know why I was always visiting the ships! I was keeping them in repair for this very day!”
Greedo’s mother hugged her brother Nok and thanked him. Then they all rushed aboard, followed by a stream of refugees coming out of the forest.
Two of the silver ships lifted easily on columns of repulsor energy, their fission-thrust engines whining up so high that the sound vanished beyond the range of Greedo’s hearing. The third ship was waiting for the last stragglers … the last survivors of the massacre.
A portly Manka hunter named Skee charged out of the forest, screaming that everyone behind him was dead—”Leave! Take the ships away, while you still have a chance!”
The third ship never got its hatch closed. A single bolt of ion energy fused its stabilizers into a molten mass, and a split second later a powerful laser blast blew the power core.
As the first two ships shot skyward, a bright sphere of fusion fire blasted back the jungle, mocking the midday sun. The third ship was no more.
Greedo never heard the explosion. He was in the cockpit of The Radion, gawking at the starlines, as Uncle Nok’s silver ship vaulted into the unknown.
3. Nar Shaddaa
Planning for this emergency, Nok had programmed the Rodian ships to jump to a heavily trafficked region of the galaxy, where the survivors of his little tribe could lose themselves among the myriad alien races engaged in interstellar commerce.
So it was they came to Nar Shaddaa, a spaceport moon orbiting Nal Hutta, one of the principal worlds inhabited by the wormlike Hutts.
There was a continual buzz of space traffic between Nar Shaddaa and the far-flung systems of the galaxy: mighty transgalactic transports and bulk cargo vessels, the garish yachts and caravels of the Hutt ganglords, the battle-scarred corsairs of the mercenaries and bounty hunters, the pirate brigantines, and even the occasional commercial passenger liner, packet starjammer, or massive migration arks. And, of course, the ever-present star cruisers and sleek patrol vessels of the Imperial Navy.
The surface of Nar Shaddaa was an interlocking grid of miles-high cities and docking stations, built up over thousands of years. Level upon level of freight depots and warehouse and repair facilities were linked by gaudy old thoroughfares that spanned the globe, bridging canyons that reached from the upper strata, swarming with life, to the glowing depths where several forms of subspecies thrived on the refuse that fell continuously from the towering heights.
Greedo and his brother and mother and all the pilgrims on those two silver ships came to Nar Shaddaa, merging with the life of the great spaceport moon, finding a home in the huge sector controlled by Corellian smugglers.
The Corellians kept things reasonably under control in their part of the moon. Gambling was an important source of income for them. All races were invited to wander the brightly lit avenues and gawk and eat and drink and throw away money in the sabacc joints. A gun duel or a bounty killing now and then was to be expected, and petty thievery was largely overlooked. But there was an unwritten law in the Corellian Sector, enforced by Port Control: If you want to make big trouble, do it somewhere else.
The Rodian refugees merged with the denizens of the dingy warehouse districts on Level 88. Over the next months they found work as freight handlers and house servants, and went about their lives.
Nok ordered everyone to stay away from the public levels, the thoroughfares, and the casinos, on the chance they’d be recognized by a Chattza hunter. Nok assured them their stay on Nar Shaddaa was a temporary one, until he could locate another jungle world where they could dwell in peace.
For the adult Rodians it was not a happy time—they deeply missed the lush green world they had left behind. But for Greedo and Pqweeduk, a whole universe of excitement began to reveal itself.
Four years later Greedo’s people were still on Nar Shaddaa, working and surviving. Greedo was nineteen, his brother was sixteen. The green youths had merged with the boundless spectacle of the Galaxy.
4. Bounty Hunters
“Jacta nin chee yja, Greedo!”
Greedo leaped back as three repulsor bikes whipped past, jumped a broken retaining wall, and disappeared into one of the crowded concourses that had been declared off-limits by Uncle Nok.
He watched his brother and friends swerve their bikes among the landspeeders, antique wheeled cabs, Hutt floaters, skillfully dodging the strolling gamblers, alien pirates, spice traders, street hawkers, ragtag homeless … and bounty hunters.
“Grow up, Pqweeduk!” Greedo slouched against a wall, waiting for his friend Anky Fremp, a Siona Skup biomorph who had taught him the secrets of the street.
Greedo, on the edge of adulthood, had left the games of childhood behind. He’d traded his
repulsor bike for a fine pair of boots. He had stolen a precious rancor-skin jacket. He had learned how to strip therm pumps and shield regulators off Hutt floaters while the local crimelords were lounging in the Corellian bathhouses, making deals with their interstellar counterparts.
Anky Fremp had shown Greedo the ins and outs of the black market—who paid the most for stolen hardware … and who had the best price on glitterstim, skin jackets, and Yerk music cubes.
Fremp and Greedo were a team, and had been a team for two years. Pqweeduk was still a dumb kid, playing mindless street games with his pals.
“Ska chusko, Pqweeduk!” Grow up, Pqweeduk!
While he waited for Fremp, Greedo watched the street. Every kind of life, human and alien, passed through Nar Shaddaa. Maybe half were legitimate traders and freight haulers, working for one or another of the great transgalactic corporations. The rest were operating somewhere beyond the outer edges of the law.
One group that fascinated Greedo didn’t seem to be chasing gold and excitement, and you almost never saw them on the street. They were the so-called Rebels—political outsiders who had taken a stand against the despotic rule of Emperor Palpatine and his cruel military dictator, Darth Vader.
There were Rebels on this spaceport moon—Greedo knew. They hid out in an old warehouse on Level 88, the same level where the Rodian refugees lived. The Rebels were stashing all kinds of weapons there—weapons that arrived hidden in exotic cargos of precious metals and spice … and left in the darkest hours of the night, on blockade runner ships destined for far-flung outposts among the stars.
I’ll bet the Empire would pay a lot to know what the Rebels are doing on Nar Shaddaa. But how would I give the Imps that information? I don’t know anybody who works for the Empire.
Just then Greedo heard the shrill sting of laser shots and he instinctively ducked, crouching down behind the crumbling retaining wall his brother had repulsorjumped a few minutes before.
Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina Page 3