Chapter Title: That Jedi Smell
Series Title: Unlikely Brothers
Ages in this chapter: Tanner (14) Dashen (20)
POV: Dashen
Chapter Summary: While working an off-planet job for Grunley, Dashen finds himself trying to keep the locals from sniffing out his brother and former Jedi, Tanner.
"I can sniff Jedi out from anywhere. You, kid, smell like Jedi. And I can be gettin' me alotta money off this. Ya betta go or I'll can sell ya for a good bit of coin."
"Jedi? This kid? What the hell you been smokin' man? This is my kid brother. He ain't no filthy Jedi."
Ain't? That was a new one for me. But this toad in front of me was just getting annoying, and I was stooping to his level. Acting the part, I guess. We'd come here to find transport to the next town and he started babbling about this whole Jedi thing. Of course, Tannerlin was a Jedi (or had been), but only a select few were knowledgeable about that fact. The toad was right about the money part though. There was high stakes being paid for anyone who could turn a Jedi into the Empire, just so they could slaughter them.
"Sure smells like Jedi. Cut the hair, put a brown robe on 'em and ya got one money-rich Jedi. Ain't needin' that around these parts."
I stepped between toad-boy and my brother. He really was a toad – well, sort of. There was no hopping or croaking and he walked on two legs, but he was short, green, warty, had tiny little holes for ears and along sticky tongue that darted in and out every time he said the word Jedi. Disgusting little creature. Nevertheless, I had to continue to play along, conscious of Tanner nearby who stood looking stupid – his facial expression trying desperately not to give him away.
"Look Tarfel, we just want passage to the next city. And there ain't no way I'd be ridin' with a foul Jedi at my side. Good riddance to them all – a thorn in my side all my life, they were. So, you wanna stop defacin' my brother by calling him one of them things, huh? Get us a ride and we'll be out of your face."
"Huh. Ya hate them Robes too, yeah?"
Robes? Okay. That was a different name for them. But, what the hell…
"High and mighty and all that crap. Had a tussle with a couple of 'em one day. Never again. Pain in my skinny butt is what they are."
Tarfel reached up and smacked me on the back. "Yah? Hah. Maybe ya not so bad after all. The kid here still smells suspicious though."
"Trust me, he ain't Jedi. I been raisin' him since he was a tiny baby. Nothing creepy or magical about him. He can't hardly lace his boots without my help, much less move stuff around with his mind, ya know?"
The toad sniffed once more in Tanner's direction, snapped his long tongue and then snorted. "Blah! Needs a bath then. All right. Gimme ten minutes, I'll get ya to the next town."
Toad-boy finally came through and got us out of that horribly grimy town. The next town wasn't so different, but it was less confrontational. I felt safer for Tanner's sake. There were fewer eyes following him around. Hopefully we could crash here until Colton received our message and was able to come find us. I had no way of knowing if our comm messages were getting through to him. Hell, I didn't even know where he was. He'd left for business a couple weeks before I'd dragged Tanner on this job with me. If he was getting our messages, but was in the middle of something he couldn't shake, we were stuck. Figures that we'd be stuck on this disgusting planet filed with nothing but shady characters and money hungry toads.
I'd gotten us a room (or what passed for a room) in a dingy hotel for the night. We had enough money, so that wasn't an issue. I just didn't want any unneeded attention. The room had one bed, well, one mattress that seemed suctioned to the floor. We each had a small blanket in our travel packs, because I wasn't about to touch the one that came with the room. I'd seen less grime and disgust in a fecal-mud pit. The dirt floor worked better than anything. Tanner had no want to set any part of his body on the so-called mattress. It wasn't quite mud-pit-esque, but it was close. Mainly, the room offered shelter from the cold rain and a place to hide from any wandering eyes and dangerous Jedi-sniffing noses. Who knew Jedi had a smell?
We sat together in the dark, leaning on the hard wall, each with our small blanket wrapped around our knees and chest. The rain pounded heavy outside, but we were safe enough, if not very comfortable.
"Dash, you think that Colton got our messages?"
"No idea, Mouse. I hope. And if so, I hope he's not in the middle of something he can't get escape. This is not a good place to be stuck. Where there was one Jedi-sniffing toad there is bound to be more. We'll move tomorrow. Find out where the local port is and go there."
Which we did. The port wasn't much to look at, but it appeared to function normally enough. Unfortunately, the owner of the port was another toad. This one much taller than Tarfel. They came in different sizes? Worse still, this one was just as sniffy as the other.
"No Jedi allowed 'ere. Bad fa business, unless I can sell ya to tha Empire. Payin' a pretty coin for Jedi type. Don't be needin' the trouble right now. Be gone, boy."
This was just getting stupid. I mean, seriously, who knew Jedi had a smell? I stepped forward.
"Look, we just need a lift from point A to point B. And for the love of Hoth, what is with you people calling my little brother a Jedi?"
"Ya smell him?"
"No, I've not smelled him. I don't generally make it a habit to smell my family members. Can we please just get a ride?"
"Nah. Maybe he ain't Jedi. Maybe he is. No matta. Don't like his look. Be gone."
"Okay, enough. This has got to…" My mouth stopped on the word stop when Tanner tugged at my tunic.
"Dash."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. Not worth the fight. Come on."
Leaving Toad-boy number two in our wake, we meandered for a while as I got to the bottom of the whole smelly Jedi thing.
"What exactly do Jedi smell like anyway, Tanner?"
"How should I know? I took a bath before we came on this job. I can't smell that badly. Do I smell that badly? Here, smell my hands."
He stuck his hands in my face.
"I am not sniffing your hands or any other body part. Something's up though. And we can't run into too many more toad people before one says the wrong word at the wrong time in front of the wrong person. Is there a way to detect if a person is a Jedi? I mean, how else would you guys know which baby to steal?"
"Dash, Jedi don't steal babies. They take them."
"Do they give them back?"
"Well, no."
"Then it's stealing. But that's not my point. Somehow you guys knew which baby to take, steal, borrow, rent…whatever. I mean you come across three kids. How do you know which is the future Jedi?"
I grabbed us a couple of bantha-patty sandwiches from one of the seemingly hundreds of street vendors in the port town. Most were operated by the same mutant toads as we'd already seen, so I kept Tanner out of sniffing range. Then we walked and ate and Tanner gave thought to my question before having an answer.
"Well, you can do a blood test to see what the midichlorian count is. There's a certain level they look at and if it meets or exceeds that level, then that child is probably strong enough in the Force to become a Jedi."
"So he passes their midclorafill test...
"Midichlorian."
"Mid-whatever. So, he passes the test, the Jedi then they steal the kid, take him back to the temple, stick a brown robe on him, give him a laser sword and teach him how to throw rocks around with his mind? That about it?"
Tanner gave me a look and rolled his eyes just enough to get the look across. "I guess that's the illiterate bare bones version." (Did he just insult me?) "But none of that matters anymore."
Right. No Jedi. All dead. Except for this one kid, a hermit on Tatooine and a few others probably scattered here and there. But that didn't really answer the question of how the toads were able to sniff him out, did it?
Maybe..."Hey, you think these toad people can smell blood? Is that even possible?"
"I guess so," my brother shrugged, "It's as good an explanation as any. But how come they don't turn me in if they are so sure of what I am?"
Good question. No idea of the answer either. I think so far we'd just been lucky. I didn't expect that to hold. And…it didn't.
Two hours later, as I tried to check us in to another hotel, the managerial toad decided that he smelled a Jedi and that he wanted the reward that went along with it.
I put up my pathetic story again, but this guy wasn't falling for it. So, we ran. Ran and ran and ran until our throats burned with fire and our legs ached towards collapse. We didn't stop until we hit a wall. A tall, blond and very unhappy wall.
Colton.
Tanner and I bounced off his chest in tandem and fell backwards.
"Colt!" I said, dragging myself out of the dirt.
Colton held up a hand. "How is it possible for the both of you to get into so much trouble on a simple visit to another planet? Do you know what I had to do to get here and what I had to leave behind? I don't appreciate being dragged from my own work to save your sorry asses. And exactly why are you on this planet of all places? Don't you know these people can smell blood?"
There you go. That explained it.
"If you didn't know, I suspect you do by now. And it's probably something you two idiots should study up on before you leave Terra. Always know your destination and it's people. You're lucky the kid isn't already dead or sold. And you, Tannerlin, I'm surprised. You always know where you're going, the culture, the people…this is disappointing. But I'll forgive you, since you have this idiot influencing you."
"Come on, Colt, we're not here on purpose. Well, we are, but we didn't get stuck on purpose. I was here for a job."
The big man shook his head. "Not one that I signed you up for."
"No. Grunley again."
Colton whapped me on the side of the head. "Why are you still running for him? He's a nut."
"True, but he's a decent nut and he pays well. He's creepy as hell, sure, but the money is good. And he treats me well. He also doesn't whap me in the head."
Colton whapped me again. "He also doesn't have to live with you. Would you care to go home now? Before the kid here attracts any further attention?"
Beside me and two steps back, Tanner spoke up. Even raising his hand. "I would like to go home. I've had enough people sniffing on me to last a life time, thank you."
"See?" Colton said, pointing to my brother. "He's the smart one. You should let him lead once in a while. Did you at least finish the job that brought you here?"
I nodded and held up a small bag that I'd hidden inside my tunic. "Safe and sound. We were just trying to get out of here. We finished the job yesterday. But it was like toad infested maze trying to get away. If we didn't smell like something before, we do now."
We started walking. Well, Colton turned and walked away from us, we followed. He said to me from several steps ahead, "Thank the gods you're good at your job, Dash. If you were a a cheapjack runner, you'd be dead or worse by now."
"What's worse than dead?"
"You don't want to know."
Tanner and I shrugged at each other as as struggled to keep up with the big man's even bigger strides. Colton was impossible at times, but he cared about us. At least most of the time. He didn't have to save our butts, but he did. I owed him a lot. Hell, I owed him everything. One day, I'd pay him back for it.
But not today. That was especially evident as he grabbed Tanner and me by the collars and threw us into the small ship he'd landed nearby. We tumbled in together, into a two-person pile and he stepped right over us to the controls. "Buckle up, boys. Gonna be a wild ride out."
We didn't know what he meant, but found out quickly when blaster fire started nailing the outside of the ship. Tanner was partially upright when he went full throttle, but lost his balance and fell right back on top of me. Jedi. Ha!
Once we were safely out of range, we managed to our chairs and strapped in for the ride home. But not before seeing Colton sneaking a smirky smile in our direction. A smile that said we were the two biggest idiots in the galaxy, but one that also said he'd not have it any other way. The expression that came next mostly told us that we both smelled. So, perhaps there was something to that Jedi smell thing after all.
END
