Jaq the Jedi Hunter
Atton Rand...
Atton Rand, the more I say it the weirder it sounds. Its my name though, why should it be weird? Why should anything I own be weird? It's mine, my name, my past. Well let me tell you something 'missy', that's all a bunch of lies, every last bit of it! But you probably don't understand what I mean. No one does, not because what I'm saying genuinely does not make sense, but more...they, and you, don't know me. You may think you know me, even she thought she had me all figured out. Heck, I didn't even know me back then! But she...she does now. She does. Meetra Surik, the woman of my dreams. But this isn't about her.
The last few weeks have been kind, I arrived on Nar Shadaa expecting trouble. Only, for the first time since leaving Correlia I felt free, at home, at peace. When people ask, "Whose that sexy, smug, son of a Bith standing over there at the bar?" people who claim they know me would say, "That's Atton Rand, the dashing, young and beautiful Smuggler and he's at home in that stink of a home they call Nar Shadaa."
But she knows me. Meetra Surik would turn around and say, "No, you're wrong. He's Jaq, the Jedi Hunter who served and tortured the innocencts of the Galaxy...who lived on Alderaan...and is good at Pazaak...and has good smelling hair." But would she even go that far? She's kind to me and promised never to tell a soul what I had done in my past life. I love her, and she...I hope she never finds out. She can't, "she's got too much in her glass", as Mira would say. She taught me how to be a Jedi for Kath's sake!
The only other person who knows is that witch, Kreia. She's just a...just a...well, a witch. She's known my little secret ever since Telos! When that other Jedi captured us I let my guard down and made her aware I feared Jedi. Then I let my guard down again and she tore right into my skull and saw all my secrets. She called me a murderer, a Jedi killer. What was worse was that she was right. I can just feel her, watching me. She watches me all the time…through the walls…through the Force. She's sitting there in the Port Quarters, meditating, thinking of my past and how much she despises me. I know, I can feel it, and she's letting me know it too. But I know she's playing us, playing us all. I can't wait until we arrive on Korriban and I can get away from her and her mind games.
Meetra only found out much later, not long ago in fact. We were on Nar Shadaa when she approached me claiming some refugee Twi'leks had come up to her saying not to trust me. It was the first time I lost my cool with her. I broke out in anger, I wanted to strangle those two scum who told her. Naturally, I had to tell Meetra everything. And so I did. She kept calm and collective, in return for me speaking she granted me a gift, redemption, and thus my Jedi training began.
I was a boy, a boy with dreams - back then on Alderaan. I wasn't much younger than I am now; but wow, I was dumber. I had planned to fly to Nar Shadaa and become a Smuggler. Did I want to become a Smuggler? Sure I could, but did I really, really want to? No, no one ever did, it's horrible and meaningless with very little pay unless you know what you're doing. Like living in the Refugee Sectors on Nar Shdadaa, which by the way I ended up visiting once or twice more in my…uh…adventures.
When I was old enough I bought my first shuttle, I wouldn't have been able smuggle much on a shuttle but there were no freighters to buy on Alderaan - at least not where I was looking. My plan was to fly this top of the range shuttle to Sleheyron and buy a new ship with credits I would gain from selling this silver beauty but as I soon found out no Hutt was going to sell a freighter (no matter how run-down) to a kid who looked almost as though he'd stolen this brand new shuttle from a wealthy politic or whatever. Hutts - pathetic slugs who hide behind false power and lies in order to intimidate others. Stare one down enough and they may just crack, they may be the ones feeling weak and intimidated. And then there the Gammoreans, but don't get me started on them. Green pig people, they were too stupid to understand? Or maybe they were the smartest beings in the Galaxy but kept their true intelligence in secret so they may one day rule over all… Then again, it was only last year I saw three Gammoreans fight over a piece of Boma meat.
Regardless, my journey took me to Nal Hutta. Sure it was the Hutt home world, after the gas world of Varl, but hey, if there were so many Hutts on Nal Hutta the slimy space slugs would'nt have needed to intimidate other petty criminals. So the way I saw it, they were bound to be kind and make me an offer. But again, I was wrong. Atton, Atton, Atton, you crazy juvenile. If you asked me, "Atton my strapping young friend, what was Varl?" I would say...well...well I'd look you in the eye and call you an idiot for not knowing. Everyone knows the story of Varl! Varl is a Hutt, no, Nal Hutta is a Hutt - yellow gas flows through the atmosphere and the inhabitants are warned to wear breathing apparatus'. Nal Hutta is as slimy as the Hutts I would say, I still say it in fact. If Nal Hutta is a Hutt then Varl is Hutt excrement. It is dead, so smelly its past funny, its atmosphere has completely degraded (along with its flora and fauna). Nal Hutta is much better, but still the worst livable planet out there.
Nal Hutta was far more overridden with Hutts sure but it was also overridden with every scum and bounty hunter the galaxy feared and looked up to. If you did so much as swear in the presence of an overly pretentious slug, you'd have your head marked for a bounty. And with the Hutts here, it's probably better for you if your bounty was collected with you dead rather than alive. I approached one Gherlga the Hutt who almost straight away refused me his freighter. So naturally, I sold my shuttle and "swapped" it for the freighter. As I took off I chuckled. The Hutt said I would never fly his ship as love as I lived. And funnily enough the Hutt never went searching for me, they found me many years later, but completely by accident. I, that day, had smuggled my first item. A ship, my ship, the Violet Horizon.