I

The Town Of Dented Armour

Bright stars begin to flower across the sky. By night, those of Ma'ar Shaddam could look up at the endless black abyss and see the velvet cocoon enveloping them punctured by the pinpricks of distant light, distant suns. But no one on Ma'ar Shaddam did look up, for the stars were only a painful reminder of the better lives the people of those faraway planets surely had. Easier to look at the grit beneath your feet.

Ma'ar Shaddam spun on, tracing through the darkness on its slow, elliptical orbit of a hard sun, and its people went with it.

The town of Maksur was spat out on the wrong side of the planet; Ma'ar Shaddam's only hub of activity and promise was in the other hemisphere, a lifetime away, if a scrapheap spaceport and a few factories of the weaponsmiths and armourers of old could be counted as forming such. Maksur was a town made of whatever scrap the bitter wind managed to blow that way, and the inhabitants too found themselves living there only at the behest of an ill breeze. There was a loose gathering of houses, squat little huts of canvas and torn sheet metal stuck together with mud, a few shops, of which half dealt in the long forgotten bits and pieces of ancient ships, and a tavern, the most popular place in Maksur. Once or twice every trip round the sun, a supply ship turned up from the capital, bringing a few medical supplies, shipments of food, a great deal of liquor, and whatever else the pirates operating it couldn't sell anywhere else.

Pirates ruled the Rseik sector. The Empire cared not for small, insignificant, backwater worlds, and although the Rseikharhls had left a few LE-VO droids on Ma'ar Shaddam, most of them operated within the industrial city of DuuFaan, the capital, and outside of that any Planetary Security Forces were a joke, outgunned and outmatched by the pirates. But pirates aren't all bad, and indeed those of Maksur surely relied on their benevolence; if they decided to stop making their trips out to Maksur, the town would wither up and die.

There was one employee of the Ma'ar Shaddam Planetary Security Force in Maksur, the town sheriff, though since it was the pirates themselves who delivered her paycheck, Persie Hotarv's job was mostly limited to making sure no one got too drunk and tried to fight a moisture vaporator.

Persie stood outside the tavern's front door as the regular parade of patrons came tumbling out. She counted each, making sure they were in a fit state to walk home, not that it was ever very far, rather like a shepherd watching over her flock.

'G'night, Sheriff,' Ginger slurred, the old Dressellian stumbling away with a respectful nod.

'Goodnight, Ginger.'

Eventually the steady stream of the inebriated stopped, and it seemed that the tavern had emptied itself, but the sheriff knew there was still one more to come, a difficult one, a one who seemed to enjoy creating trouble for her.

Persie stepped into the bar, and sure enough, Knud Rr was pointing a short, ugly-looking blaster at the tavern keeper. The Duros behind the bar had his hands up, but didn't appear particularly phased, not least because this was becoming a regular occurrence.

'Evening, Persie,' said Deon, his big red eyes blinking slowly as a thin smile spread across his lips. Deon, the owner of the tavern, was probably the richest man in Maksur, not that that meant much.

Persie returned his smile, though hers formed itself more as a grimace across her grime streaked face, and she stepped up to Knud.

'Howdy, Knud. Fancy putting the blaster down for me?'

It took a moment for the big H'nemthe to focus his swimming vision onto the short human woman who was standing before him, her hands on her hips, but when he finally saw through the grog, a huge grin broke out on his face. Knud swung the blaster around to point it at the sheriff, although he was having a hard time holding it steady, and Persie felt confident he would have a harder time actually hitting her should he actually decide to shoot. Deon went back to cleaning glasses.

'Sheriff Hotarv! This is nice,' cheered Knud. 'Are you going to beat me up again tonight? Or perhaps even throw me in that cell of yours?'

'No, Knud. I'm going to send you home to your wife.'

'Ack, the worst sentence of all!' He laughed uproariously at his own joke, and holstered his blaster, managing to slide it back into its home after a couple of attempts. He stepped forward, unsteadily, and stared playfully at Persie. She knew what was about to happen.

Suddenly, Knud swung at her, bringing around a huge, three-fingered fist that he would have very much liked to see make a connection with the sheriff's face. But he was drunk, and he missed, and with a little push in his back, Persie used the big brute's own momentum against him, and Knud went tumbling to the floor.

'Alright,' he mumbled, 'let's go home.' He scrambled up to his feet and leant heavily on the tavern doorway, starting out into the darkness. He called back over his shoulder: 'Same time tomorrow, Deon. Have 'em lined up and ready.'

The tavern keeper only grunted a reply. Persie and Deon watched him go.

'You know,' offered the Duros, 'you should send him back to DuuFaan, he gets worse every night.'

'He's harmless,' the sheriff shrugged. 'Besides, you'd have no customers if I shipped back every difficult drunk we've got.'

'Touché.' Deon slipped into silence, and the sound of the Ma'ar Shaddam night filtered into the tavern, settling between the two of them until Persie realised the conversation was over. She slipped quietly out of the tavern and out onto the endless desert beneath the stars.

The gritty sand swept away for hundreds of miles in every direction, only a shallow mountain range a few days ride to the north offered any disruption to the dead horizon. Persie Hotarv felt for all the people of her town, felt for those all so like Knud; this was a lonely place to live, a lonely place to work, a lonely place to die. She ran a hand through her thick hair and tried to avert her mind from such dangerous thoughts for one could quickly lose oneself in the pit of all that despair that accompanied Maksur. More often than she cared to admit she thought of it as neglect of her duties to keep the people suffering here, that perhaps she should just find a way for them all back to DuuFaan, back to the closest thing Ma'ar Shaddam had to civilisation. But that wasn't her job. Her job was keeping the peace, and for now, the peace was kept.

Persie turned on her heel and began walking back toward her own house at the far edge of the town. It was a very modest abode, a shack adjoined to the slightly larger shack that served as the police station. She strode down the main street, past the shuttered up shops and the still houses of their owners, the only noise anywhere in Maksur coming from Frackel's place, her young son undoubtedly still up and tinkering in her workshop.

The sheriff rapped gently on the door: 'Go to bed, Armand.' And she continued on her way.

Finally, Persie came to her own home, and she felt her bed calling to her. It had been a long day. It was always a long day. She was about to go inside when something caught her eye out by one of the moisture vaporators that stood erect against the desert: a boulder that was not usually there. Her tired legs begged her to ignore it, reasoning that at least she could have a look in the morning, but something pushed her to investigate. She gave a thought to firing up the battered old C-PH patrol speeder and riding out, but even that seemed too much effort, and so she took herself to trudging slowly over toward the mysterious boulder.

As the sheriff got closer she realised it was not a rock, but a man, which would explain why it had not been there before, and as she got closer still, she realised it was not just any man, but one she had had few dealings with. He lived outside Maksur, isolated and alone in a hut way out amongst the dunes, so far out that she wasn't even sure if it was in her jurisdiction. He came to Maksur infrequently, sometimes for food, sometimes for spare parts for farming equipment, but he had lived out here for a long time. There were rumours about him, about what he had done, about why he had come to Maksur. The townspeople feared him.

But he kept himself to himself and didn't cause trouble, and that made him alright in Persie's book.

Still, she approached cautiously, scuffing her feet through the pinkish grit of the desert so that he would not be startled.

'Hello,' Persie said at last, recognising that the mysterious stranger was not going to turn to greet her. He appeared to be meditating, and offered no reply.

'Hello,' she tried again. 'I'm Sheriff Hotarv, I just wanted to make sure you were OK.'

The hooded figure said nothing.

The comfort of her pillow and the sweet embrace of sleep beckoned once again to Persie, the darkness of the night now seeming so heavy and thick around her, as though the very absence of light was weighing her down. But being sheriff comes with responsibilities.

'Do you require any help? Are you hurt? Lost?'

'All is lost.'

His voice was deep, gravelly, each word bitten. 'All is lost,' he said again, somewhat more wistfully, morosefully, Persie thought, though she was perhaps imagining it. The man began to get to his feet, his back still turned to hers, his ragged cloak still obscuring his features. Something cold stirred deep within her, a fear, a tightening of her stomach and a squeezing of her heart; he exuded something unnatural.

The people of Maksur called him The Mage.

He faced her.

'You fear me,' he whispered.

The Mage was taller than Persie, by a good head and shoulders, and though his hood hid him from the starlight, she saw a long silver beard and a dark face badly scarred. He had wide, bloodshot eyes that cradled in them a spark of madness, of darkness, of a strange hunger the sheriff had never before encountered. He was an old man, old enough to have witnessed things that Persie could see in his face that looked carved from ancient wood to be beyond her understanding of everything that was wicked and evil in the galaxy. He smiled, a snarling snicker behind the thick beard. Persie looked down; his fist was made of metal.

She feared him.

'Good,' growled The Mage, and he stalked off into the desert, into the night.

Sheriff Persie Hotarv did not sleep well that night. She tossed and turned in her narrow bed, at times freezing cold and at others dripping in sweat. Her dreams were plagued with spectres. She heard nought but The Mage's words: All is lost.

A foul wind rattled her shack until dawn, threatening to pry loose the walls and blow all her belongings across the rose-coloured sands. At last, when she could bear it no longer, Persie got up and watched the sun rise. The rays did little to warm her bones. As the first signs of life began to emerge from the village, moisture farmers setting their droids to work, the shopkeepers opening up their stores, Persie found herself reluctant to start her daily routine at the station. Being the sheriff of Maksur didn't seem so appealing today, for there was something on the air, an acrid smell, the taste of rust and dried blood. Her nightmares were lingering.

Eventually she found her way to the radio at her desk. The police station was a large square shack, a jail cell big enough for a couple of rowdy drunks in one corner, her desk in the opposite, an equipment cabinet by it, and a few chairs beneath a picture of her family just inside the door. Her family smiled down at her, but she rarely smiled back. Her father had brought her to Maksur when she had been a child; with her dying breath, her mother had apparently foreseen the rise of an Empire of woe and bid her husband to take their baby to a remote town where no harm would befall her beloved daughter. Persie had never believed the story. But then again it didn't matter what she believed, for here she was, and here she was the sheriff.

Persie flicked the switch on the radio and a taut burst of static filled the room, causing her to flinch as she tried to tune it. She tapped at the long range scanners, checking for life outside the parameters of Maksur. Some days she prayed she'd find a crashed ship that she could come to the rescue of, or perhaps a caravan of travellers seeking refugee in her town, but today, as always, the scanners showed nothing. Sheriff Hotarv's sector of Ma'ar Shaddam was as desolate as always.

Frackel, the mechanic came into the station, shuffling through the door nervously. Although the Rodian woman had a brilliant mind for engines and machines, she struggled when it came to organic beings. Her son was a different story. Frackel could fix any kind of ship or droid or device that you put in front of her, but her son, Armand, was her pride and joy. He was outgoing and boisterous, and like his mother had the gift for machines. Armand was getting to a certain age where in the next few years he might start to cause trouble for Persie, but for now, his doting mother kept his mind engaged with helping her in the workshop.

'Morning, Frackel,' Persie said, stifling a yawn. 'What can I do for you?'

Frackel looked at the floor shyly, her hands fretting over one another. Her snout twitched. 'It's Armand,' she began, 'he's done… something.'

'What kind of something?'

She took a deep breath, and Frackel started to spout: 'Well, do you remember last year when the pirates bought all that junk around and Carnegie took most of it but our little Armand begged me and begged me for this one thing, I didn't even realise what it was exactly, but he so wished for it, and you know how I am, so I bought it for him, and he's been tinkering with it for a while, you know how he is, always messing about with bits and pieces, and, well, it wasn't quite as broken as I thought it was, and now, now, now it's doing something.'

Frackel kept up her worrying as Persie followed her back to her workshop, and as the sheriff stepped inside she realised that whatever was happening, it would probably be the most interesting thing to occur all week and as such had drawn a suitable crowd. Persie pushed her way past Ginger, past Knod, who smiled knowingly at her, past Carnegie, one of the scrap and spares dealers, past Deon, who was still in his pyjamas, and up to the side of Armand, the little Rodian boy at the centre of all this fuss. A third of the townspeople stood inside Frackel's workshop. They all stared at something none of them really wanted to see: a large black sphere, trapped in a vice, whirring and beeping and flashing little lights.

'Is that what I think it is?'

'You're damn right, Sheriff,' Knud answered. 'It's only an Imperial crinking probe droid. And this little idiot has brought it back to life.'

Armand wasn't sure whether he should be proud of himself or not, he had done a sterling job on a droid model he had never seen before that had been delivered to him in a state of total disrepair, but the general consensus in the room that the fact he had restored it was a bad thing.

'Well,' reasoned Persie, trying to think on her feet, 'it's not like we've got anything to hide. Shall we just let it go?'

'Let it go,' scoffed Knud. 'Are you out of your mind? I for one do not want the Empire crawling up my backside over some stinking droid. There's a reason I live all the way out here in the middle of the empty bit of the empty bit of space! And it isn't the views! We need to destroy it.'

'If you want to avoid the Empire I highly suggest not destroying it,' Ginger put in, scratching his head. 'They have sensors in, and it's Imperial policy to investigate whenever a probe gets blasted.'

'So can I keep it?' Armand asked excitedly.

'No,' snapped Knud. 'I don't want that thing scanning me.'

'It's not like you'd register as intelligent life,' said Carnegie with a laugh, and a friendly scuffle broke out between them.

Persie looked at Armand: 'Can't you just deactivate it again?'

'I could,' he said, unenthusiastically.

'Let's just do that then,' the sheriff decided, pleased to hear a mumbling of agreement from behind her. 'Besides, if the pirates had it, and were flogging it for scrap, any investigations would have already been made. It's not like it can die twice, right?'

But then, all of a sudden, none of the discussion really mattered, because the probe droid broke free of the vice and flung itself toward the door, everyone diving out of the way.

Persie ran out after it and watched as the little droid began to tear away across the desert, and then begin to climb higher into the sky. Knud fired off a few wild blaster shots after it, all of them missing the target.

The sheriff and the others could do nothing but watch it go, the sense of the machinations of the galaxy working against them filling them with a dread they had not felt for a long time. Most of Maksur were wanted by the Empire, and the others were certainly no fans. Knud had been right; it was not for the views that one came to the wrong side of a planet like Ma'ar Shaddam.

Persie sighed. 'I have a bad feeling about this.'

Knud sighed too. 'No poodoo, laserbrain.'

The Mage sat out beneath the stars again that night, a little further from the town this time. It helped to be close to living, breathing organisms, as though the energies that flowed through them all could help connect him to something he had not felt connected to for a long time.

He drew a large, callused hand through his beard.

When he looked at the stars he saw the shatterpoints of the galaxy, like the cracks on a frozen lake. Every step made, and those cracks grew, twisted, deepened. Everything depended on everything else, and through all that, a route could be plotted. But that was the old ways, the ways he had forced himself to forget. The Mage cared not for tracing his mind down the cracks of the future anymore; there was nothing there, nothing but misery, desolation. When those fools calling themselves the rebels had destroyed the death star, they had thought they were striking a devastating blow against the Empire, but they were only pounding on the very ice they walked on. Cracks on cracks.

A farm boy blows up a super weapon, and it rains on Ma'ar Shaddam.