STAR WARS: Vaults of Dellalt
DISCLAIMER: THIS IS A FAN FICTION PIECE. THIS IS NOT AFFILIATED WITH Del Ray, Disney, Lucasarts, OR ANY OTHER LICENSE. THIS WORK IS NOT TO BE SOLD UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE. ANY COMMONALITY TO OTHER WORKS IS COINCIDENCE.
Special thanks: Fa/tg/uys, particularly X-wing and Ship for all their work in keeping the swg best general and advice; my girlfriend, and a very, very special thanks to George Lucas. And lastly thank you for reading babby's first fanfic.
STAR WARS: Vaults of Dellalt
XIM THE DESPOT was an infamous pirate-king, forging an empire in the days before the Republic. The pirate was ultimately defeated, but his treasures lay buried. They sit awaiting anyone brave enough, or foolhardy enough, to search for them. Now, thousands years before the Clone Wars and before the Empire, a crew of adventurers seek the legendary vaults of Xim, hungry for the wealth within…
And so XIM spoke and told
That it was he who owned our gold
And dragged it to vaults
That he hid on Dellalt
And pity and poor were we
Then the Jed'Hai came
Swords in their sheathes, power in hand
And brought an end to the terrible man
But though his reign ended XIM's power is told
Through his great kingdom and vaults that hold
Our crowns and our staves, goblets and jewels
And to Dellalt came brigands and prospecting fools
For who are we to resist the wealth of whole worlds
We who search these dunes and these fjords
Even as greed causes friendships to twist and unfurl
A greed so strong it will devour this World!
-Poem from a dying prospector, c. 15,000 years BBY.
Chapter One
"Please ensure all hands and feet are inside the aisle during descent. Do not move to the restroom unless allowed by an attendant. Ensure all food trays are packed away into the seat. Once again, thank you for choosing Republic Skyway!"
Iro heard the automated voice, but paid it no mind. He kept his eyes closed and tried to get another minute of sleep as the rust-red cruiser began its atmospheric descent. Hypersleep had left him restless, and a month's travel even more so. He longed for a bed, or even the cryo pods. Hibernation was no substitute for a good night's rest. As he readjusted in the torn synth-leather seat, he felt the turbulence from reentry and heard the blast shields slide over the viewports.
"Please remain seated. Turbulence is expected on reentry. As always, thank you for choosing Republic Skyway!"
That voice had been the last voice he heard before the cryopod, and he was certain it would be the last voice he heard getting off the ship. He almost prayed that the Comet III would suffer some catastrophic accident to avoid hearing it one last time. The thump finally made Iro open his eyes, red still from the hibernation. He ran his hands through his chestnut hair and stood up to stretch, a vain attempt to relieve himself from grogginess. He wished they had pulled them out of sleep more than a few hours before arrival.
The cruiser finished its descent with a disconcertingly-heavy thump as the landing gear sunk two centimeters into the raw ground, the landing pad crudely suggested with fluorescent orange spray paint. With one final automated announcement, Iro made his way past the attending droid and toward the cargo compartment. Immediately the unloading-droids took to their work, long power cords connecting them to the ship's reactor. The yellow-white loaders picked up his bag and threw it into a crude pile.
Would have been nice if they could have just passed it to me, Iro thought as he started shuffling the pile about. He found his brown bag, the last possessions he had, and began to walk out of the "Star port".
His eyes slowly adjusted to the world around him. It was a land of dust, and light-red dirt. A mesa stood as the watchful attendant for the salt wastes to the north, and a faint strip of khaki was the hint at plant-life. Still the smoke and skyline gave away the semblance of civilization, a short two miles away. So far it looked virtually nothing like the brochures.
Many of the other passengers stood outside the Comet in a line for the cabs and busses. Iro looked longingly at his empty wallet, both a reminder of why he was here and macabre wishing. Like many he bought the Republic's advertisements and left Coruscant after it reached its forty-billionth resident, just as he fled Corellia after the White Grain Blight. Now, Dellalt was reminding him of the latter. "Make a fortune building worlds" was the official tagline. He suddenly was overcome by a feeling that told him this was going to be a long day.
Still struggling with natural gravity, he began the long march towards the city of Sterling. Named for its now-depleted silver veins, it was the first Republic settlement in the solar system. On several occasions he stretched his hand out to passers-by in attempt to get a ride; he was denied every time. He couldn't help but think the last car swerved towards him on purpose.
An hour's march along the road and he reached the edge of the town. Like many settlements on the frontier, it had the usual white, plastic, pre-fab houses, fused together with duraglue and solder. In his past life he had worked on commercial construction in the past. He could recognize quality; he saw nothing of the sort here. Iro took his first steps past the gate and entered a new world.
"Fried Remor for sale! Freshest for a hundred kilometers!" a Toydarian vendor yelled at Iro, holding some type of breaded fish. Feeling hunger pains, but also the comparative emptiness of his pocket, Iro continued on. Past the bars and food carts came the brothels; a twilek woman bent down and revealed herself suggestively, prices for flesh in a neon-framed sign. Unfortunately for her, Iro was familiar with the signs and lures used by dens of such iniquity. Such places were becoming all too common in Coruscant, particularly in the city of Arborwatch he had just left. It wasn't a good sign if that was how people obtained "fortune" here.
Partly out of thirst, partly out of desperation for work, and partly out of spite for the hot yellow sun Iro wandered his way towards a Corellian drinking hole, The Hot Rod. The sign was one of those new speeders he had seen in advertisements, with a fiery paintjob on the port and starboard turbine-mounts. At 100 kilometers an hour and floating half a meter off the ground it was the type of luxury he wished he could have afforded during his life. Maybe if he could make it big here.
The door hissed open and he smelled the familiar scent of death sticks hanging in the air, as well as the potent odor of faux-Corellian Ale; you could always smell the acid from the artificial flavoring process. Some turned their heads as he entered, most kept to their yellow brews. Unlike Iro most of them wore ragged beards, flannel, and numerous types of hats. Most of their clothes were stained in some manner, and most wore far-worse farmer's tans than he ever had. In contrast he felt over-dressed wearing his engineer's belt-and-suspenders over a clean coyote-brown tee.
He sat down at the bar and a twi'lek with a thick collar looked down from her work polishing the taps. So that's what type of world this is, he thought to himself as he could see the explosive warning near the collar's key-hole.
"Oka tie do ay?" the young alien asked him, her normally blue skin tinted purple from the red-neon signs everywhere around. He didn't speak a lick of Twi'lek, nor did he have one of those Protocol droids that spoke a few hundred languages.
"I'm sorry, do you speak Coruscanti?" He asked futilely. Most people who could speak Coruscanti used it with humans, and it's not like Twi'leks were physically unable to speak it.
"Chaka nord kosa Luxam torg'u" she replied. He watched as she made her way past the taps and into the back room. He heard another voice, male, Corellian, and a heavy-set man with salt-and-pepper hair and patchy beard came from the back.
"Sorry about that friend, she doesn't speak Coruscanti that well yet. Haven't broken her in all the way I guess. What'll it be?" The genial man asked, his smile betraying a hint of sadism as he said "broke her in". Iro looked to him, then looked at the bag he dragged in.
"Oh, another off-worlder then? By the Force that's the second passenger ship this month, how many of you are coming?! Just kidding, as long as the checks clear you can all come, makes no difference to me. Names Luxam Chan" Luxum said, the Greeter's Smile still on his face. Iro was taken back by the one ounce of agreeableness he had found on this planet.
"Yeah, just got here. "I'm looking for work, if you know any."
"Just so happens I might, for a hardworking person. What did you do in your last job?" Luxom sad, his thick lips forming into a grin.
Iro began to review what he had done. Years of construction was hard to put into a sentence; it would be easier to state what he hadn't done. "Mining engineering. I mostly did runoff and waste system design for coal excava-"
"Excellent my boy, I know just the job for someone with experience. My cousin Malon runs a construction crew out in the Brenar Heights, to the West. Want to know more, show up at the site in the morning and tell him I sent you," Luxom said excitedly.
Iro felt his stomach rumble at the sound of Pinlo oil pouring onto a skillet, vegetables and meat being stir-fried within. Luxom seemed to hear and turned to him. "Feeling hungry, countryman?"
Iro's pride was surpassed by his hunger. For cryosleep it is recommended you go on a liquid diet for a full 24 hours beforehand, and the ship possessed only salted crackers for sustenance. "It smells really good, but I'm a bit short on credits. Could I trouble a fellow Corellian for a meal?"
Luxom looked down at Iro's bag. "Maybe we can come up with a trade. Digital credits are no good here anyway. What's in the bag?"
"Um..." Iro muttered as he began to work his way through. Clothes that wouldn't fit Luxom, toiletries, a picture of Iro and his parents, a communicator, nothing terribly valuable.
"Aha! What do we have here..." Luxom exclaimed as he pulled out a small container of blue liquid. "Alderaanian cologne, eh? Don't worry, you won't be needing it on this planet anyway."
Iro stared at the bottle. He had bought it under the assumption it could help at job interviews. Back home it would have cost nearly 100 credits. The meal itself was scarcely more than 10, drinks included. But he was desperate.
Before Iro could speak, Luxom shouted back at the Twi'lek girl now working the stove. "Pakuni! Toya nalsun!" He then pointed her towards Iro and she delivered a plate loaded with stir fry. He could taste the warm, browned nerf and steaming vegetables just from the smell.
"Good, glad that's all settled." Luxom said as Iro glanced one last time at the cologne bottle. The twi'lek passed along a fork and napkin and started to fill the glass with the fake Corellian ale, and Iro took his first bites.
Iro couldn't help but feel uneasy. It wasn't that he had lost on the deal, he certainly knew that. It's that he had no other option. Like so many he had gambled it all on the frontier. Over a hundred thousand credits later, here he was. His research, his planning, it was all obsolete the second he got on the Comet, he saw that now. It was all on him now, and the roller coaster was just getting started.