Saccorata, Sacorria, fifth month of 3ABY/22 AE
"My name? Doria Vorr. Profession I studied for? Agricultural technician. Biggest wish? To vacation on Vagran again someday...
...Where do I see myself in ten years? I don't know. Ambitions? I never had them."
She feared that they could assume from her facial expressions that she was lying.
In reality, it was not that simple. To a certain extent, she did not lie. The brutal, pervasive truth is that she would often discover her ambitions long after whatever goal she was to pursue had long slipped out of her hands. In most cases, those goals would never find their way back to her, and they seemed normal to everybody else. In her young mind, the explanation, albeit abstract, was clear - whatever the fruits hanging way too high above were, the others must have really wanted them, they dedicated everything, every single droplet of matter to getting them.
Her graduation speech wasn't cut short by applause. It took about half a minute of awkward silence before Gredda started clapping her tiny furry hands from the front row. A couple of others shrugged and clapped along. They probably assumed that the Drall was hired to do this. Doria Vorr, relieved that she somehow didn't pay the high price of being honest, returned to the group of a couple of dozens of other students, all wearing the same long-sleeved red tunics and blue trousers and skirts.
"Dear guests, these were all thirty graduates of the First Agricultural Institute of Saccorata. The delegate of Their Majesties extends her warmest wishes to these promising young individuals and hopes that they all will serve our planet and contribute to our progress the best way they can."
As the group was heading to the large tables nearly crumbling under the weight of food, the Selonian and Drall students were tucking their graduation clothes away. It was a warm day and the refreshment was gone very fast, prompting a group of waiter droids to restock.
Maris Vorr was not attending her daughter's graduation. They had a minor quarrel day earlier and thus were not speaking for what must have been the fifth time that month. Gredda, however, would not have missed it for anything in the world. The blonde-brownish Drall, wearing a black star pendant around her neck, had more patience than ten humans together and she would forgive Doria her shortcomings almost immediately. Furthermore, she did not have the same criteria for what a shortcoming was as mrs. Vorr did.
"You survived it. Congratulations, my friend!" she waved her short arms. Doria kneeled and hugged her.
"Thank you, Gredda. If anybody knows how unenthusiastic I was about this joke of a ceremony, it's got to be you."
"Shusssh! You never know who might be listening."
"They can always ask what I am so unenthusiastic about if they care…and I am as bemused by what is inevitably going to happen tonight. They're all going to get piss drunk and convince themselves they're free, desirable and whatever else is common for…you know, young people."
"And you…?"
"I hate whatever young people like!" the Human blurted out, taking a large bite of a grain bar covered in what looked nothing like real fruit.
"So, are you coming to the banquet Duchess Branna will be holding for the five of graduates from our clan? Tomorrow evening at seven."
"I would not miss that for anything in the world. And tonight, I'm going to tuck myself in, listen to some good jizz and sleep…in no particular order."
The two friends said goodbye to each other, as Gredda noticed the aforementioned Drall students and went to congratulate them. Doria continued in the direction of her home on the outskirts of Saccorata. The afternoon was more or less pleasant and she was rethinking her decision to have an early night, as the idea of staying up at least until the sun actually goes down suddenly seemed appealling.
"Doria! Wait up!"
That was Tendra Risant's voice. She increased the pace, pretending not to have heard anything, until a luxurious, bulky open-top groundcar stopped right next to her.
"I said wait up. Where you are going?"
"Where there are no people like you." she blurted sotto voce, then turned around, smiled and responded: "Home, to show mom this incredible piece of flimsi we just got."
"Aren't you going to the party?"
"Not feeling like it. Maybe in, say…8 years from now? I'm a busy person, you know?"
She turned again and was about to leave, when Tendra spoke again.
"I guess you'll be free for other things, though? I thought you could teach me to 'sheet one of these days."
"Excuse me..? I may be closer to poor than rich, but I don't clean bloody refreshers!"
"HoloSheet, I bought a licenced copy from DOBY. I need to make myself look a tiny bit thinner in my application holo for the Dorthus Tal University."
"Aaah, HoloShed!" Doria snapped her fingers. She was confused so as to why would somebody like Tendra need to take an entrance exam either way, given how powerful her family was and that they could, perhaps, bribe anybody they wanted to.
"So?"
"Yes, I can help you. Ping me on HoloNet early next week or something. Now I really have to go."
"Okay…you may want to watch out for those…"
Tendra and her two male companions stood still as their classmate was taking a shortcut through a dust corn field.
"…grain flies."
The socialite had no idea what was going on. Her two friends, however, started giving their own points of view as soon as the red graduation robe disappeared among the long stalks.
"That disgusting little rodent is filling Doria's head with those...outlandish concepts of theirs. A female ruling the Galaxy someday, some unicorn types of things having built the Corellian system, the outside world being in the middle of a devastating, all-around war, the Triad not having any powers at the moment..."
"I don't think it's the Dralls. She's unhinged to begin with."
"You are both ridiculous. Have you ever been lonely? Say, how many 'right' people can we hang out with and how many years left of freedom do we have until we're stuck in Dorthus Tal's administration jobs and elite parties, forever?"
"Tendra …wake up and smell the caf. You are living a strange fantasy and it's time to cut it out. Haven't these four years in Saccorata with all of the grassroots scum taught you anything? They don't like us, they don't want to mingle and they're all crazy. You just happen to be desperate to befriend the craziest among them."
…
"Vorr E, Doria. Honors: none." Maris was shaking her head, looking at the diploma bearing the sharp, red, star-shaped logo of the Institute.
"No honors, but I did graduate with the average of 100%. For honors, you'd have to be very serv..."
"Your father was right. Had you dedicated as much time to studying as you did to having your head in the clouds, you would have been in Dorthus Tall by now, working in administration."
Nobody asked her if she wanted such a thing in the first place. But the next sentence angered her further.
"And you could have married a government official."
"Yes, government...that exists. And it's always been a dream of mine to marry young and die of ennui. Sure, mom."
Had this been somebody from her circle of not-really-friends-to-begin-with, they would have raised their eyebrows at the claim that the government does not exist, and had that been Gredda, she would have warned her not to say such things out loud. But this was mom, the one who never seemed to have listened to anybody other than herself, as if she was admiring the sound of her own, dramatic, high-pitched voice.
"This way, you may not end up being anything more than somebody repelling the grain flies off the rear of a huge, price-winning beast of burden."
"Don't they have droids for such purpose? The A-55 ones?"
"Sure, A-55…wait a moment, I am not falling for that! Doria, you're being a complete immature youngling again. Sometimes I wonder why I ever bother. Ever since your father died, I practically have no reason to live."
Maris broke. Her daughter tried to comfort her, but she pushed her away.
"Get out of my sight. NOW!"
Doria went to her room, pulled down the blinds, kicked off her shoes, changed into a mismatching tracksuit pants and a T-shirt and climbed up in the bunk bed. She pulled out the datapad, activated an illegal slicer program for bypassing the government surveillance and was about to spend the rest of the day reading up on a couple more obscure Outer Rim planets. Everything was better than crying herself out to sleep and replaying the entire day; which – to her – seemed more brutal than any holovid one could come across among the shelves in the heavily controlled rental across the field from the Vorrs' home.
The HoloNet was down again. Recently, it had been happening so often that she lost count. She could have got up out of the bed and gone to the living room, where her mother was probably watching some cheesy holocomedy and laughing out loud as if she wasn't claiming her life had no purpose come half an hour ago. She could have, but she didn't feel like having another argument.
Dorthus Tal City, Dorthus Tal Island, Sacorria, a week later
Code:Blue was bored at work. Getting used to sitting in the office all day and wearing a suit instead of his beloved limmie jersey was something he was taking hard. He was willing to help people, but getting used to the real world and realising that, despite his idealistic views of it, it might have been worse than he ever thought, was taking some time. The truth was slowing him down and, sometimes, coming closer to wiping off the broad smile off his face, or at least reducing it to a stiff-teethed spasm. This time, he spent the whole day stamping requests, pleas and similar documents. And his former co-star, now a fellow administrative, was nowhere to be seen.
"Are you sleeping at work again, Crybaby?" somebody spoke right into his ear, with the last word yelled out loud. Blue squeaked, as if the words were spoken through a loudhailer. Code: Red was standing at the window, pointing to the sky outside, as if something was going on.
"Heh, last time I checked, you were a human representative, not a Drall. You sure there's no Drall folk in your family lineage? That one of your grandmothers…"
"Very funny, Red."
"Lighten up, Crybaby, lighten up! It's a nice day and we have only fifteen minutes left. Your family is taking a vacation, so why wouldn't you take your chances for once and hit a bar with me? We don't play limmie no more, we don't have to be sober...I swore to all possible deities of all possible species that someday I'll get you drunk on some aged Sacorrian whiskey!"
Blue was offended. "Who do you think I am? No, no and for the last time, no. I sent Dani and the younglings on a vacation so I could get as much work done as possible and then, eventually join them at the seaside. Also, we're not done for the day, by any means. We have to go through the list of students from the FAIS applying for scholarship and there are some artists needing an approval to exhibit their work on our planet."
Red was not too keen on getting work done, but he sat down.
"Are there any hot female students?" he gacked the datapad and started searching through data, "Oh, poodoo, this one is a Selonian, yet wearing something that looks like a petticoat. My eyes! I need a new pair of eyes. Hmmm…Tendra Risant. A local who, for some odd reason, studied at the FAIS. I like her hair. But something seems to be wrong with her body!"
"Red! How dare you say that, the Gods have made everything and everybody beautiful!"
"This time it's not my pickiness. Look at the holo before you assume that I'm a nerf herder, won't you?"
Blue reluctantly gave a second look to the flickering holoimage of a young woman with strawberry blonde hair. Her arms seemed unnaturally thin, same for her legs.
"I can see what you mean right now. She could, however, be a model. Models have…arms…and legs."
"I truly don't understand you sometimes. The part I fail to understand most is how you managed to get married and father three children."
Blue sighed. Every other day at the limmie field back in the days looked like this. Nothing changed since they got hired. His partner in crime was abusive from day one. He quietly continued reading the documents for the day, doing the best he knew to be a proper, hard-working Sacorrian. For the next twenty minutes, as he was typing on his datapad, Red was starring through the window, occasionally catcalling the women passing by, knowing that they could not spot him. The main government building was fifty stories tall and all the windows looked identical.
"This is it. I am bored. See you after the holidays, Crybaby!"
"How about you help me with this one? A pronk band named Dee…"
Red had already slammed the door. Blue was by himself once again. He shrugged and continued reading the e-mail out loud, to himself.
"A pronk band named Deeply Religious would like to take part in the Cobble Stone Square Youth Music Festival this year. The plea was signed by all three members – their human singer and quetarra player Charon San Valorum…I wonder if he is related to that politician, that playwright and…hmmm…Anra Reken, their bass mando player from Duro…and their Ortolan drummer, Kaabalt Nubes. I am not sure what genre of music pronk is, but I am sure they mean well. They sound non-threatening to me. Young people need some good role models!"
Without any further thinking, he copied and pasted the approval template and attached a couple of mandatory flyers promoting the Triad, the famed Sacorrian whiskey and the artisan crafts of the Cobble Stone district of Dorthus Tal City.
...
Nuba City, Nubia, minutes later
Pronk bassoon player Anra Renek was surprised with the e-mail that just flashed on the screen of the datapad. His friend Kaabalt Nubes, who was until then sitting in an exceptionally large armchair, watching sports on HoloNet, got up.
"What happened? I hope I didn't move my bum for nothing."
"Approved! We were approved! This makes no sense; it's Sacorria we're talking about!"
"How did this happen? What does the holosignature say? Who approved you?"
"Somebody who signs their e-mails with Code:Blue."
Anra looked at his stocky friend and he could swear that his trunk just went up in the air. They were not good at reading each other's expressions, with one of them looking permanently sad and the other being extremely lazy when not in proximity of food or his beloved set of drums. However, they could both read Charon San Valorum, their Human frontman, who had just entered the rehearsal space, carrying three cold bottles. His face lit up, as he jumped up and down.
"No way! No way! Holy Mandalore varactyl with constipation! That guy was a limmie player until, like...last year! He and that other guy, Code:Red were my favourite people ever. They beat the poodoo out of Naboo in the Galactic Cup finals six years ago and he is responsible for that weird winner dance everybody is doing nowadays."
Anra was not too familiar with limmie, but the "weird winner dance" seemed familiar from somewhere. Has he heard of this person before?
"These are the three very last bottles of Aldeeran beer, by the way," Charon said as he was re-reading the e-mail over Anra's shoulder, "They must be worth thousands of credits, but I don't care. We managed to fool the most notorious administration known to Core Worlds! And this time next week, we will be drinking the famed Sacorrian whiskey, anyway!"
For the next couple of minutes, they were chugging their beer in silence and then Koobalt spoke again, with the same excitement, as if he was unable to believe that their complex fraud paid out, for once.
"So, Taungsday, the 12th of this month, at the Cobble Stone Square in Dorthus Tal. I am still surprised by your courage, pal. We are risking a lot of by choosing such a strange place to show our disobedience."
Charon winked at his friend and continued to peel off the adhesive flimsi label from his beer bottle. He did not seem to think that his plan was outrageous, in any way.
"You see, Koob, sometimes one needs to opt for the strangest scenarios possible in order to achieve what is necessary. Sacorria is, after all a neutral planet. If we don't give a kriff about the Imperial Board of Culture, we may as well not give a kriff somewhere where we can gain alies…"
Anra was suspicious. "How neutral is neutral in this case? Aren't they dependent of the Corellian Diktat?"
"Aren't we? Let me help you: we are not. All the Nubian corporations made this a pretty harmless place to be in the face of this awful, awful war. The same way the Galactic Empire needs us for our technology, the whole sector needs Sacorria for its food and booze. Right? Now, let's rehearse. If we're to shock them, we need to be shocking enough."
Charon slammed his beer bottle against the sonipool table, grabbed the quettara and played the riff to "Ooh, It Bites!", the song that prompted the Imperial Board of Culture to take interest in the Nubian pronk scene.
Footnotes:
Anra Renek is a Clone Wars orphan, yet his name means King of Laughter in Durese. Isn't life ironic sometimes?
I would assume that I don't have to explain the name Koobalt Nubes, especially not when Max Rebo's real name is actually Cerulean Phantele.
While Deeply Religious are legends-canon, nobody ever elaborated on them; so I made them resemble an influential band from our planet. As the time passes by, it will become clear which band it is, this may depend on your knowledge of music. I am reinventing some actual punk scenes from our planet and some other bands as I go.
Fanon:
First Agricultural Institute of Saccorata - Farmschool in the biggest city (but not the capital and the administrative centre) of Sacorria
DOBY - a joint venture of two corporations from Nubia, known for their ground-breaking, Galaxy-wide famous software Holoshed, as well as Stylus, HyperThreads, Thunderoo, HyperFilmsi. Coming up by 4ABY: HoloMatinee and Starfield - HOLOSHED, BUT FOR HOLOVIDEOS!
Holoshed - A renowned tool for sophisticated holography editing, the use of which among amateurs is often frowned upon by professionals. Though DOBY was never in direct control of the Empire, it has been rumoured that the Imperial Intelligence is using a special, advanced version of Holoshed for psychological war. Holoshed is so popular that a neologism "holosheding" ended up in the University of Coruscant dictionary of modern Basic; meaning "to enchance one's features by the use of Holoshed".
pronk - punk in GFFA. The instruments in a pronk band would be quettara (of Zabrak origin, according to Wook), a bassoon and, well, good old drums.
sonipool - my poor attempt at reinventing pool, billiard, snooker, whatev'