STARWARS: The Late Era

Story One:

The Voice of the Apparition

By Matthew Snee

2,000 Years After the Battle of Yavin, the Jedi and the Sith have all but disappeared from the galaxy, taking their endless war with them, replaced by the Five Houses, independent clans of Force-users that maintain a fragile peace throughout the Republic.

Life in the galaxy goes on, and through the years sentients are born, live, and die, their stories forgotten except upon the unreadable atoms of time.

But one day along the Outer Rim of the galaxy, in the remote system of Fengdulax – known best for being unknown – bounty hunter Fimm Zobra meets his latest client…

1.

The great sea of stars beckons us all. From the shores of planets, to the cold vacuity of the heavens, adventure and sorrow wait from sun to sun – infinity expands across all horizons: this galaxy is endless.

But we are concerned with a single ship, zipping through the charged particles and fragile plasma of space until it reaches the foreign atmospheres of Fengdulax, a small system on the perilous reaches of the Outer Rim of the galaxy. The ship plummets and jets until it is tugged gently into the gravity well of the moon Ooro, which spans around the hideous gas planet Fengdulax V.

The ship is modern, made of abstract shapes and lopsided engines, with slits for windows and multiple turrets for defense – a private frigate of some sort, born in some unimaginably large factory on some unimaginably strange planet far from here. It floats through the upper skies of Ooro certain and calm, piercing the purple clouds and acidic rain, its engines blasting smoothly. Cleared for landing, it descends upon the moon's city, gliding through miles of computer-regulated air and vector pulses.

The ship settles into a gentle landing on a raised platform on the outskirts of the city, where the buildings are stubby compared with the rest of the undulating avenues. Other craft buzz around the jagged architecture. All is shrouded in pattering rain and low cloud.

The airlock opens and a tall, dark, hooded figure emerges, accompanied by a female-shaped droid that wheels across the rain puddles on four thin legs of braided, blinking metal. "Terrible weather, sir," the droid says in its electronic but feminine voice. "And no welcoming party."

The figure nods, but says nothing. He looks up at the sky, where Fengdulax V looms across everything, its magnetic groan roaring as it rotates, an object of almost obscene size. As a matter of habit, the figure brushes his fingers against the butt of his blaster, holstered to his belt, but he does not draw it. This revealed nervousness is just a sliver of him though, and for the most part he is imposing, hulking, with broad shoulders and a thick girth. His robes blow in the wind, revealing the legs of a spacesuit beneath – green, made of a reflective material – accompanied by black space boots. He also wears green gloves, and when we see glimpse of his face through the shadows, we see that he is white, with numerous visible cybernetic enhancements. His true visage is not revealed though, and his eyes, nose and mouth remain obscured by the hood.

They make their way across the platform to the standing elevator, which is ancient, dilapidated, but still functional, in a rattling, shaking kind of way. The two of them ride down a floor and are dispatched into a large lobby ripe with abandonment. The ceilings are tall; the place is alien. It's dark too, but deceptively so: our visitors can tell by their implants that the place is bathed in ultraviolet light, naked to the human eye, another clue to their location.

But they are distracted from this by the fetid smell in the air: alien, infernally recognizable, as no other creature has such a stench. This is intermingled with other exotic perfumes and fuels, and an overwhelming sense of… something –

Something is dying here.

The front desk is empty. There is no one in the lobby at all, and a holographic painting that obviously once hung majestic on the near wall now droops from one corner, its neon light flickering. Rubbish is strewn across the floor.

"Where is everyone?" the droid asks our visitor in a frightened voice. The visitor does not answer, stepping toward the hall behind the desk, which is further shadowed. Smoke oozes through the air; some sort of burning plant of some sort, or oil, rather than a machine of some sort. The air is damp with organics, and warm. They step beneath a skylight, through which a hazy blue light seeps through, illuminating them suddenly; the droid gleams, the visitor as menace. The two of them issue back into the darkness: the droid's eyes glowing, the visitor's cybernetic readouts flashing beneath his robes. There is a wide archway, leading to main throne room, which is barren, but for a bulbous shape at the back, in the darkest area.

The shape is alive, huffing, its wormlike body twitching, and as the visitor and his droid come in front of it, they can see through the darkness it is nothing but a Hutt, an enormous gastropod with eyes, mouth, nostrils, shoulders, and pudgy little arms and hands. Its eyes shine, but the rest of it is cloaked. It draws in a deep, rasping breath, and then speaks Huttese, a low, guttural language of swollen vowels and cynical consonants.

"Bounty hunter! I have heard legends of your cruelty throughout the Outer Rim." The Hutt seems like a she, though the Hutts are a Hermaphroditic race – the vile thing is most probably pregnant, or nursing a larva in its blood sack. She breathes heavily after these words utter from her mouth, and her tongue sticks out of her lips. Her voice is huge – but weak.

She is dying.

The visitor replies, in perfect Huttese, with an unassuming but wicked voice, "So I have heard legends of yours."

The Hutt's eyes light up. "Take back your hood, so I might see your face."

The visitor does so, pulling back the fabric to reveal his true cyborg head: bald but for strips of red hair, face scarred and freckled, skin covered in cybernetics, computers regulating him, enhancing him, supporting him. He is otherwise human though, with a pale light and confident eyebrows, with a stump of a nose and a small but certain mouth. His eyes are brown and hard.

"Zobra…" the Hutt says, smiling. "Fimm Zobra."

"Hello Lord Hutt," Zobra the bounty hunter responds, bowing sarcastically. "Paaxta."

"I haven't seen you in many revolutions now," Paaxta the Hutt says. "I never thought I would grow so found of a human. But despite yourself, you are trustworthy and dependable to a god like me."

Hutt's think they are gods in comparison to humans. They live for thousands of years, while we only have this brief flash.

"Those are kind words," says Zobra. His droid is silent as the two sentients converse. "Are they going to cost me?"

Paaxta the Hutt lets out a booming laughter. "Always thinking about money, Zobra. You never change."

"I change the bounty hunter argues. His droid nods.

"I suppose you do," says Paaxta the Hutt. "Everything changes. The galaxy is breaking: can you feel it?"

"I feel it," Zobra says. Life has been getting more ominous around the sector. He peers into the Hutt's countenance, trying to fathom her motivations. His fingers almost brush against his blaster once more.

"I break too," says the Hutt. "I'm dying."

"I can tell," Zobra says. "Look – why did you ask me here?"

"Because I wanted to see you before I died."

"That's bantha fodder," Zobra mutters. "If you don't have a job, I'm leaving right now."

"I have a job." Paaxta the Hutt grins. She tosses a datacron at the bounty hunter, who catches it without effort.

"Who is it?" Zobra asks, examining the data.

"Let's say it's an old friend."

"Who?"

"Me."

Zobra doesn't flinch. "For how much?"

Paaxta laughs again. "For all I have left."

"And how many credits is that?"

"It's all on the datacron," the Hutt explains.

Zobra hands it to the droid,who scans it and nods, the noise of its servos whirring. That solved, Zobra moves on to the personal business. "Are you sure?" he asks Paaxta.

The Hutt grimaces. "Of course."

"I don't understand why you would want to die like this," says Zobra.

"The alternative is worse, little man," Paaxta says, angry now.

"I guess that makes sense. But why me?"

"No one else would have been adequate."

It is quite the compliment. Despite the circumstances, Paaxta is a powerful entity. Why she has fallen into such despair – beyond her disease – is not something Zobra can comphrehend. Her enemies swirl around her. She only feigns destitution – the money is somewhere. It is a great treasure.

"What about the youngling you carry?"

Paaxta frowns and grunts.

"I guess I can't say no," Zobra tells her, realizing the terrible spot he is in.

"That's my favorite bounty hunter," Paaxta says, smiling again. "You never turn down a bounty."

"That's not true either," Zobra protests.

"Regardless – you are the best. And I want to control my death, as I controlled my life. But I will not commit suicide. That is not like a Hutt. But I will die by your blaster, and all will be as it is supposed to be. I never thought I would live this long…"

Zobra does not disturb the Hutt's monologue, only stands there itching for his blaster. "When do you want it done?" he asks.

"Now, if possible."

"Like this?"

"Just like this."

Zobra shrugs, drawing his blaster. He shoots Paaxta in the head five times. She groans, and dies, smoke rising from her skull. After it is over, he moves closer to the body to make sure it has been done. She does not breathe, and a feeling of death he knows quite well spills upon the Force around him. She is gone.

An easy job, for a lot of credits – but also a curse he knows he will never escape.

He knows a little bit about Hutt anatomy. Bending over her body, he checks Paaxta's blood sack for her larva, biting his lip as he manages this grotesque maneuver.

The blood sack is empty. Her child is gone.