Southbound lanes, Tarkin Express Airway, heading into Culter City
Jason Bogan's mind was racing a mile a minute, which was actually a lot slower than the convertible flying car he found himself a passenger in tonight. The cool night air of Mars stung his face as Keatly expertly maneuvered the airspeeder through airway traffic, her long, multi-colored hair flapped in the wind behind her like an old-time aviator's scarf. He couldn't believe she wasn't freezing in the strange, golden bikini outfit she wore.
With what he hoped was practiced precision she weaved the so-called airspeeder through a pair of slow-moving heavy transports. Jason associated the fat, round craft with flying semi-trucks, which would have been an air-traffic controller's nightmare back home on Earth.
Jason was riding shotgun. Frip and Ashla rode in the back seat. They had all insisted that he ride in front for his first trip into the capital of the 1st Martian Empire.
Ashla put her hand on his shoulder and her gentle touch was enough to instantly relieve his anxiety over the Firrerreo's crazy driving skills. "It will be alright, Jason. Keatly's a great driver."
"If you say so." Jason turned and smiled at the red girl in the back seat. She had a way of putting him at ease that had nothing to do with this mysterious Force she could presumably control.
He was still trying to wrap his mind around what she was. Her species was a Togruta and she was part of some sort of magical religious sect that he was still trying to come to terms with, but she seemed so much more to him and the rest of Brakatak's crew. He wondered if he meant anything to her as well.
In the midst of his deep thoughts about her, the beautiful red alien girl caught him looking in her direction. He didn't want to seem impolite and immediately decided to pretend that he had been searching for Brakatak's airspeeder all along.
With flaming cheeks Jason scannedthe airways for the other flying car in their small convoy. He spotted a green airspeeder slightly behind them and to their left. The three-eyed Gran rested his arm on the door of the front passenger seat. Ashlei, Erw, and Raf were crammed into the back seat. Rana drove.
Rana was almost the typical alien he had been raised to believe inhabited the universe, having seen hundreds of sci-fi movies and growing up on the Star Trek TV series. Except that she was blue-green she had the appearance of the mysterious greys that abducted people while they slept or drove alone on rural roads at night. Even though she was alien through and through she still reminded him of Earth.
Jason sighed as thoughts of home surfaced in his mind. He had no idea what had happened to his old neighborhood on Earth, but he knew Boston had been a first strike target months ago in what the Imperials had dubbed the Empire-Earth war. The last time he had heard from his folks they had told them they had left Massachusetts for an uncle's place in Wisconsin. And then the Imperials had seized Honolulu and he had been taken captive.
He thought of the two friends who had gone with him to the Aloha state. Rick, who had been killed on the blood-soaked beach at Waikiki, and Eddie, who had been rejected as a slave by the Empire due to his poor health and supposedly returned to the Earth. What he would give to have the both of them here to see this now.
He could only imagine what their faces would have looked like when they first caught sight of the sprawling metropolis of Culter City shining among the Martian hills. The city was centered along a wide river that ran through a wide valley. Hundred story tall, red skyscrapers, or cloudcutters in the local parlance, stretched into the sky but even those were dwarfed by the massive tower that stood in the middle of the city. Jason wondered if its upper floors were in low orbit.
Searchlights and holographic billboards lit up the airway as they sped through the outer ring of soaring skyscrapers. Jason wrested his gaze from the city and turned it to the drivers of other flying cars. He spotted a new type of alien in almost every vehicle but it didn't surprise him. Brakatak had told him that there was almost fourteen thousand different species in Tarkin's Fist.
The crew had told him as they were getting ready that evening that the city had a population of almost fourteen million beings. That made it bigger than anything back in the North American Union, including Mexico City and New York city. On top of that it looked like somebody had smashed Las Vegas, Paris, Tokyo and Rio de Janeiro all together in the same space.
Below him he saw roads clogged with vehicles. He reminded himself that they were called roadways and landspeeders here. He had a whole list of jargon that he was trying to remember. The crew had been filling his brain with an entirely new vocabulary since they had rescued him. He understood that it would only take one slip of the tongue for the Empire to land on him like the abducting aliens they most certainly were. He wondered if there was anything worse than Concentration Camp 1138 on Mars.
Not that he was the only person from Earth in Culter City. The eight missionaries the crew had freed, led by Father George, had vanished into the capitol. The crew had given them several changes of clothes, hastily spliced identity cards and a few hundred Imperial credits. Father George had told them that it was too much but Brakatak wouldn't hear of taking the money back.
Before they left Father George had quietly told Jason that they were on a mission from God. Jason wondered if that meant they were going to do whatever it took to free the slaves in the camps or something else that would surely get them killed. Whatever it was, Jason wished them well.
After the missionaries left the rest of the crew placed bets that Father George and his people would be recaptured in one of their five day weeks. Jason thought the rest of the crew underestimated the resourcefulness of a fugitive earthling. They were intercepting Earth's TV signals up here, hadn't they ever watched Cops.
The airspeeder jumped when it hit a small patch of turbulence. Jason's arm twinged a bit as they moved into mid-town traffic. The ache was a painful reminder of the dangers of piracy and the tenacity of the pig people. No, not pig people, he thought, they're called Ugnaughts. He silently congratulated himself for remembering the correct name.
His arm was wrapped in bandages soaked with what he could only call a miracle drug: bacta. When he had changed his bandages back at the homestead before they headed out there was already a visible change in his wound's condition. Many of the flash burns around the edges had disappeared and the wound had largely scarred over. The initial pain had greatly subsided as well, thanks to some kind of spice Ashlei had given him. At first he had believed she was trying to force him to ingest some kind of alien food seasoning but it had turned out that the Imperials called all of their drugs 'spice' like they were living in one of Frank Herbert's novels.
Ashlei had told him that he should be completely healed up within a week if he kept the bacta bandages on. He wished he could get back to Earth and sell it as a miracle elixir. He'd be a millionaire within a month.
He wondered if getting blasted by a ray gun was worth their haul from the pirate raid. According to Brakatak the chest of glitterstim spice they had taken was going to make them a fortune because it could only be manufactured with the aide of some kind of spider they had left back in their home galaxy. Without the spider the value of that particular spice had gone through the roof, though personally Jason couldn't see why anyone would take a drug that came out of a spider's rear end. The rest of the crew had assured him the spice haul was cause enough to celebrate tonight.
They dove from their skylane to one much lower, where Keatly neatly squeezed their airspeeder between two other vehicles in the downtown bound traffic.
Jason looked down as they crossed over the Yos River. The river and the sprawling park along its banks split the metropolis in two. The city center itself was lit up like the Vegas strip. Lights and holographic pictures came from every direction as flying billboards soared between towering edifices. Jason's eyes and head swiveled this way and then that in a hopeless effort to take it all in. Frip laughed at him from the back seat.
Strange alien faces emerged from electronic billboards shilling whatever product they represented. All of the words were written in a language the crew called Aurabesh and Jason's shoulders slumped when he realized he'd have to learn to read and write all over again if he was to blend in on Mars. It was daunting just how much he felt he surely must stick out from the crowd.
The airspeeder flashed across a wide open space. "Tarkin's Square. It's named after the Grand Moff who sent us into the maw." Keatly sounded like a tour guide.
"It's huge. It puts Time Square to shame back home." Jason replied. The square was the size of several football stadiums back on Earth. The buildings that edged it displayed gargantuan 3D screens that that each showed a different holographic image of dozens of alien-looking products. The only break in the screens came in the airway lanes that allowed traffic to enter and exit the square. Jason's eyes were drawn to one of the screens that was showing the image of a young girl.
"Hey, isn't that your guy's Chief Ambassador? I thought she was on Earth."
"She was. Storm Commandos rescued her from some type of earthian torture. And she's not an ambassador anymore. You're looking at Princess Phasma, the heir to the Empire." Keatly said as she sped by the towering image of the girl's face.
Jason didn't like the sound of that. If this Princess had been mistreated at the hands of his nation then the Emperor would be less likely to go easy on the North American Union. He feared what was going on back on Earth without him and wished there was some way he could help.
A few minutes later Keatly pulled out of traffic and turned their airspeeder towards a well-lit skyscraper covered in the moving images of hundreds of advertisements. Jason's eyes hurt to look at the place. Keatly slowed the flying car down and settled it neatly between two parked vehicles on the promenade that lined the building. The sidewalks were crowded with hundreds of different alien species moving along the raised pathway.
Rana parked the other airspeeder in a spot several vehicle lengths ahead of them. Ashla leaned forward and whispered in Jason's ear. "Welcome to the Long Jump Casino."
"Best place to have a good time on all of Mars." Keatly said as she powered down the airspeeder. Frip jumped up and crawled over the rear trunk of the airspeeder to the sidewalk just as Jason was opening his door.
Jason stood up and straightened out his long, white, baggy-sleeved shirt. Brakatak had called it a tunic and said that they were very common in the Empire. Judging by the dress of the aliens on the sidewalk he noted that the big Gran hadn't been pulling his leg. He wore a bulky, brown belt that reminded him of Batman's utility belt with all of its pouches and pockets. The crew had given him a pair of beige pants that were tied snugly around his waist with leather laces. His white boots were shin length and held up by several long white straps.
Evidently the Empire had never heard of zippers or Velcro, and buttons were a rarity. Instead the alien society seemed to prefer belts and laces to hold everything in place. Some of the outfits he'd worn required small magnetic clasps, especially if they included body armor.
The aliens that passed by were dressed in a variety of costumes. Unlike a major metropolitan street in the North American Union, not a single person was wearing denim. There weren't any T-shirts or lettering or pictures on anything the Imperials wore. The whole scene looked like something out of the dark-ages, except the bodies that wore those clothes were completely alien.
He turned and offered to help Ashla get out of the back seat. The Togruta took his hand with a slight hesitation. She had told him that earthlings didn't feel quite right in this mysterious Force power of hers and now every time she mentioned it he would think of Newton's 2nd Law: F=ma, which just made him think of his physics and calculus classes back at MIT. He didn't know what to make of her powers yet but he knew they went well beyond mathematics.
She stood up and smoothed out her own outfit, a pair of brown leather pants and a small top that showed a generous amount of her red and white skin. It seemed women in the Empire rarely carried purses, preferring pouches on their belts or having one of their personal robots carry their stuff for them and instead of loose fitting tunics like most of the males Jason had seen, the girls all wore form-fitting attire. As a result, Jason could barely keep his eyes off of Ashla. He hoped he wasn't being too obvious. He wasn't sure what Ashla's Force could detect.
Keatly grabbed his arm and steered him through the crowd towards the other airspeeder. Brakatak slapped him on the back in greeting. "Kid, I don't know what you guys have for fun on that backrocket world of yours, but you've never lived until you've partied at the Long Jump."
The group ambled through the crowd towards the main entrance. Near the entrance life-sized, holographic performers juggled several objects that flashed through the revelers. Jason instinctively ducked as the blue hologram of a knife flew by his head. The rest of the crew laughed at his surprise.
Jason shrugged at their good-natured laughter and then stopped in his tracks. At the entrance stood at least a dozen of the robot-soldiers that had captured him in Hawaii several months ago, only these ones wore red armor instead of white. A pair of them stood to one side, with their helmets off, talking to each other, which reminded Jason that they weren't robots or droids like he had initially feared when they had seized him on Waikiki. And unlike the ones on Earth these soldiers didn't look like twins. The one thing they did look like was cops.
"Culter City Guard." Keatly whispered. "It appears they're checking identicards tonight."
Sure enough, several people entering the casino were stopped by the Guardsmen and asked for their identification. Jason swallowed hard and tried to push his rising anxiety back down. Keatly had sliced him a brand new identicard for a Corellian with his name, a botanist employed by some company named CoruFresh. Jason hoped the Guard didn't ask him any questions about fruits or vegetables.
"Your card will work. Try not to look so nervous." Keatly warned as they got closer to the checkpoint.
Jason waited behind a pair of hammerheaded aliens who were being screened ahead of him. Nervous perspiration beaded up on his forehead as he felt a tiny rivulet of sweat run down his face. They're going to know I'm from Earth and send me right back to that camp, he told himself. Why am I risking my life for a night out on the town?
As soon as the question formed in his mind the answer took him by the hand. He looked to his side to see Ashla's reassuring smile. She squeezed his hand and suddenly he was nervous for an entirely different reason.
"Identicard, citizen." The Guard at the door asked him in an electrically-amplified voice. Jason pulled out his card and handed it to the man, his pulse beating a mile a minute. The Guard swiped it through a small device that blinked blue after a second. Jason hoped that meant it was good.
The Guardsman handed Jason back his card and waved him forward without another word. He did the same for Ashla a moment later and Jason let out a sigh of relief. He could pass for an Imperial after all.
"Why are you meatcans scanning tonight? You weren't here last time we came here." Brakatak asked the Guard.
"Routine security drill, citizen. Been a lot of them lately." The red stormtrooper, Jason was happy he finally remembered their name, sounded bored with the world when he answered. "Move along." he waved Brakatak forward and scanned Frip next.
Soon all of them were in the lobby of the huge casino. Jason was in awe. A cacophony of sound crashed down upon him. Cheers and boos rose up from the sea of gaming tables that were laid out across the main floor. Bells and whistles sang out from what Jason guessed were banks of the Imperial-version of slot machines. Booming music from two nightclubs situated on opposite sides of the gaming area competed for dominance. There were two more levels of games situated on circular floors above them. A transparent elevator in the back of the casino carried people between the floors.
Big-screen 3D televisions lined the upper walls, carrying images of dozens of strange sporting events and Imperial shows. On one of them he recognized a LA Dodgers game from Earth. It must have been taped because last he had heard LA was in Imperial hands these days. The biggest screen was showing a game that looked similar to soccer but the aliens who were playing were slamming into each other like they were in the midst of a hockey or rugby game. He made a note to ask Frip about it later.
"T'bac? Cigarra?" a cute blue girl asked him. She was guiding a large levitating tray, filled with what appeared to be cigarettes and pipes, secured to her waist. He looked closely and noticed her skin was covered in tiny scales.
"Um, no thanks I don't smoke. Those things will kill you." He said. The alien girl gave him a strange look and continued her way through the crowded casino. He kicked himself for saying the wrong thing.
"Alright everyone, I'll be at the Bannak tables. Let's try to meet up here again around one o'clock." Brakatak said. Even though no one ever said Brakatak was the crew's official captain they all readily took their unofficial orders from the Gran. Jason didn't complain. Without Brakatak in the camp with him he would have been a dead man.
The group quickly split up. Jason was disappointed when Ashla was dragged off by the two Firrerreos towards one of the booming dance clubs. Dancing in public terrified him almost as much as being caught by the Culter City Guard.
Ashla looked back over her shoulder and smiled at him. "Have fun."
"You too. See you later." He waved.
He turned to see where Brakatak was going but the Gran had already vanished into the crowd on the gaming floor, Frip and Rana in tow. Before he knew it he was left alone with the two Utais, Erw and Raf. They squeaked with excitement, grabbed him by the elbows and tugged him towards one end of the casino.
As they passed around the edges of the gaming floor he noticed dozens of aliens and Imperials cheering something that was going on in the center of the room beneath their feet. People were waving credits in the air as beings he assumed were bookies took bets on something Jason couldn't quite see. He slowed his pace to get a better look.
Erw noticed his confusion and explained, "Fight, fight!" while pointing at the transparent floor.
The crowd parted for a second, which was long enough for Jason to catch a glimpse of two aliens, a werewolf and a shark-man, battling each other in an arena beneath the spectators. They were dressed in shorts like the kind boxers wore and were armed with large metal staves and clubs like some kind of Roman gladiator. A short, ugly alien with wings on its back fluttered about the arena as a sort of referee. Jason briefly wondered if the two combatants were fighting to the death. He had no idea whether or not the Empire allowed that sort of thing but after the camps he didn't think they put a high value on life of any sort.
Raf tugged his arm again and led Jason away from the subterranean ultimate fighting match. The pair of Utais pressed their way towards the longest bar Jason had ever seen. Several bartenders were stationed behind it, moving quickly to service the mass of patrons and cocktail waitresses who needed drinks. Erw and Raf pushed forward and secured three bar stools in front of a gorgeous green girl with tails coming out of her head. Jason struggled for a moment before he remembered her species' name, Twi'lek.
"What can I get you boys?" The Twi'lek purred. The thin straps of leather she wore strategically placed across her body left little to Jason's imagination.
"Ebla." Raf demanded.
"Ebla." Erw echoed, throwing credits down on the bar for the three of them.
"I guess I'll have an Ebla as well." Jason said, not sure what he had just ordered. He was relieved when the green goddess popped the top off of three beer bottles and slid them across the bar.
Erw and Raf immediately downed the drinks and asked for another. Jason timidly took a sip and was relieved to find that it tasted like beer. Back on Earth he had never been much of a drinker, preferring to focus on his studies at MIT rather than going out and partying, but he wasn't a teetotaler either. This Ebla beer tasted great and familiar like something his father and uncles used to drink on football weekends back home maybe something German. He took a bigger pull and felt the alcohol curse through his veins like a bomb.
"Careful, friend. That stuff has quite the kick for humans and near-humans." The Twi'lek warned. He took a good look at her head appendages. They reminded him of Ashla's for a moment, though they weren't as long and the Twi'lek wore them behind her head instead of over her shoulders like Ashla did. She also didn't have the tall, horn-like head appendages that Ashla sported. If he had to make a choice he thought he preferred the Jedi's to the bartender's. He wasn't about to tell the sexy bartender that though.
In spite of her warning she gave him a second Ebla when he finished his first a few minutes later. "Thanks, you have beautiful tentacles by the way."
Her hand moved faster than his mind could follow as it slapped him across the face. His left cheek stung him into sobriety as he almost fell off his bar stool. "They're not tentacles. They're my lekku, nerf-herder!" She turned and walked away in a huff.
Erw and Raf were laughing uncontrollably and Raf abruptly fell off his own bar stool. He kept on laughing from his position on the floor.
I've got so much to learn about the Empire and women, Jason told himself.
The Twi'lek was replaced by another alien that Erw identified as a Lepi and Raf insisted was the most "mesh'la cheeka" he had ever seen. Jason got the impression that he meant that as a compliment for the female alien but he thought she looked like nothing more than a life-sized Easter Bunny that served drinks.
After another round with the Utais Jason was feeling a more basic need that came hand and hand with drinking, he waved the rabbit-girl over, "Excuse me, Miss. Where are the restro . . . um, refreshers in this place?"
"Other side of the Sabacc tables, Lorda."
Thankfully she pointed in the proper direction because he didn't know if he'd be able to tell Sabacc apart from any other of the dozens of games being played on the gaming floor.
"Be right back, guys." He told the Utais. Erw squeaked an acknowledgment but Raf was fully enthralled with the Bunny girl.
Jason found the refreshers easily enough but when he arrived at the dual doors he was stunned to find that the names of the genders above the rooms was written in six different languages and none of them came close to anything he was familiar with. The first few aliens that came out of the refreshers were androgynous enough that he thought he'd give himself kidney damage before he figured out a solution.
Finally a human girl with hair swept up above her head like a shooting star, and wearing a shimmery, see-through silky outfit that left little doubt as to her sex entered one of the doors. Jason let out a sigh of relief and charged through the opposing door.
A few moments later a much relieved Jason Bogan reentered the gaming floor and made his way back to the bar. When he reached the spot where he had left the Utais he found that Brakatak had joined them. The Gran had ordered four orders of a drink he called a 'Bantha Blaster' and had a shot ligned up for each of them. He handed one of the pink and green drinks to Jason. It fizzled and popped in its glass like pop rocks in a glass of Coca-Cola.
Brakatak held up his drink, "To the Agen's Light."
Erw and Raf clinked their glasses with Brakatak. Jason smiled and joined in and downed half the sugary fruit drink in several gulps. The crew might be the only thing he had left in the Universe. They were much more than fellow crewmen, they were starting to feel like family.
"Jason, I need you to come with me. There's some being that I'd like you to meet." Brakatak said.
"Sure thing Bull. Some pretty piffer?" Jason remembered his slang.
Brakatak chuckled, "Not quite, kid. I need you to back me up. Can you look tough?"
"Um, I can try." Jason had spent a lifetime with his nose firmly in a math book of one sort or another before being accepted to MIT engineering school, and as such he'd had his fair share of bullying. He tried to recall how the bullies had intimidated him when he was a kid.
"Good, I know you'll do astral." Brakatak said as he led Jason across the gaming floor and towards one of the grand staircases that led to the second level of high-roller games. "Someone just wants to have a word with us about our little adventure out in the Phasma Belt."
Jason's step faltered. Who knew they were pirating out in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter besides the crew of the Agen's Light? The only ones he could think of were the earthling missionaries they had freed and the pig-like beings they had captured. He wondered if they were walking into some kind of trap.
Ahead of them was a series of enclosed booths that marked some sort of VIP section. A human security officer moved a velvet rope out of their way when he saw Brakatak approach. They walked into the darkened section where strange energy shields protected patrons of the casino from prying eyes. Outside one of the booths ahead of them Rana hit a hidden switch on the wall and the shield across the booth powered down. Jason saw Frip sitting across from three short beings who smelled of inebriation and ignorance; Ugnaughts.
The short, pig-like aliens only came up to Jason's waist but they did their best to look intimidating by puffing out their chests and scowling. Jason's bandaged arm twinged as he remembered being shot by one of their species during the crew's pirate raid.
The ugliest Ugnaught sat in the center of the booth. Dressed in a leather apron that seemed to be the official uniform of the pig-people, this one had also donned a strange, towering headdress covered in odd little nuts and bolts.
"Jason, this is King Wozz, leader of the Botrut Tribe from Gentes. They're the ones who run the tibanna mine on Earth 5." Brakatak said.
"Try to look tough." Rana whispered in his ear. "And don't get thrown by all the Huttese, just try to look like you've heard it all before."
Jason had a bad feeling about this. The Ugnaughts couldn't be happy with them after the pirate raid left a gaping hole in their floating city. In an attempt to be civil Jason offered his hand but King Wozz just snorted in response. Feeling foolish, Jason put his hand back to his side and slipped into a seat beside Brakatak. Frip, Rana and the two remaining Ugnaughts sat down in the booth along with him.
Rana reactivated the shield and the noise of the casino was immediately muffled to a barely audible hum. The three Ugnaughts glared at them.
"Bo shuda. You are the pirate Brakatak are you not?" King Wozz accused the big Gran.
"Of course I am. I told that karking guard on board your freighter how to find me. I've got no reason to hide from a kung like you." Brakatak retorted.
"Chuba doompa, dopa-maskey kung why shouldn't I blast you right now?" King Wozz slobbered when he talked. Jason paid more attention to that than following the odd Huttese turns of phrase the Ugnaughts and Brakatak switched between.
"Dopa mee gusha, peedunkey and besides I've got something you want. That's why. Everyone knows the D'emperiolo Army and the Navy are your only legal customers and the Emperor is undercutting your profits something fierce. Yet, it seems that every other sleemo in Culter City has a full clip of tibanna in their hold-out blasters." Brakatak explained.
"So what?"
"So what. Well it looks like you're selling tibanna on the shadow market and taking glitterstim as a payment. Since there aren't any energy spiders within a million parsecs the price the glit-biters are willing to pay for their fix is going through the roof. I'm pretty sure it's not the military that's making its payments in spice. If I had to guess I'd say you're mixed up with Black Sun."
"No Black Sun. We deal with . . . um smugglers who stash spice through the 'big jump'. They're supposed to provide security for all our shipments."
"Let me guess. Guys have a bunch of Vulture droids." Rana said.
"Fierfek yes, and now they've vanished. Took their tibanna and spice and ran. Wakamancha spacer slimos. And the four of you blew a hole in our city. Got D'emperiolo attention too."
"The Empire's not going to like having pirates in their backyard but they're especially going to hate someone undercutting their tibanna trade. It looks like you're going to need someone with a talent for smuggling." Brakatak offered.
"Nagoola! You pirate us and then you want to work with us?"
"It's the nature of the business. Nothing personal. But there's at least a half dozen pirate crews forming up around Culter City. All of them growing bored with waiting for the Empire to get off its shebs and start selling hypermatter so they can all go freelance and jump out of the system." Brakatak said.
"Bored pirate scum are going to start looking around for fat targets to hit. Like fat, little Ugnaught targets." Rana warned.
"If we go into business with you, you must obey contract." King Mozz said. Jason thought the Ugnaught chieftain sounded unsure. It was time for Brakatak to seize the moment but the Gran hung back. Maybe it was the alien drinks talking, but Jason was suddenly positive he should take over negotiations. It's what Captain Kirk would do.
Jason took a big swig of the remainder of his Bantha Blaster. "Brakatak is making you a deal you can't refuse." Jason said, trying to channel every gangster movie he had seen as a teenager. "You can take it or watch your shipments vanish right before your eyes. Trust me when I tell you we've got a way to tell whenever one of you cock-a-roaches is sneaking through the asteroid belt."
Brakatak and Frip looked at him in shock. Jason reached across to the Gran's tunic pocket, pulled out a bag and tossed it on the table between them. There was a loud thud as it impacted. As it came to a rest before King Wozz a Gallinorean Rainbow gem spilled out. One of the Ugnaughts let out a small whistle. King Wozz's eyes went wide.
"A gesture of good faith. We keep the spice and whatever else we seized from your ship and you can have that bauble back." Jason looked to Brakatak, who gave him a knowing wink with his center eye. Jason had figured out the protection racket game the Gran was playing. "In return we smuggle all of your civilian payments to your base on Jupi . . . I mean Earth 5, for a small fee of shall we say . . ." he looked at the rest of the crew for guidance.
"Percent five of your tibanna profits annually." Frip yelled.
King Wozz looked like he was choking on his slobber for an instant. "Kwanna percent is doma toma robbery. My tribe would go hungry paying that much. I suggest dopa percent of annual profits."
"Four and we can guarantee that we can avoid all entanglements with other pirates." Brakatak countered. "No dumping our shipments at the first sign of an Imperial cruiser, either."
Jason knew that as long as they had Ashla in the crew no one was ever going to detect them but he felt bad about using Ashla that way.
"Duba, we can go no higher without attracting the Emperor's attention. And you are responsible for smuggling all 'unofficial' tibanna shipments to our buyers in Culter City." King Wozz offered. Jason got the impression that he wasn't going to budge any more than that. He made a note to ask Brakatak how much 'duba' was later.
"Deal." Brakatak said and slid a hand across the table. This time King Wozz shook it.
"We'll be in touch. Goodde da lodia." The three Ugnaughts deactivated the shield, left the booth, and vanished back into the casino.
Brakatak slapped Jason on the back. "That was some astral stuff, kid. I feel just like Jabba the Hutt. How'd you come up with that stuff anyways?"
"Oh, I just channeled a little Captain Kirk. I just tried to figure out what he would have done in that situation." Jason said meekly. By the confused look on their faces he could tell they had no idea who Captain Kirk was. If only he had smuggled some old Blue Rays of Star Trek when he had been taken to Mars he told himself.
"Fierfek! Whatever you were doing sure worked. And we even got to keep the glitterstim. I was sure they'd want the spice back. I wasn't kidding when I said that stuff's roadway value has hyperjumped right out of the sector. We could buy another starship with what we'll make from selling it." Brakatak laughed.
For a second Jason imagined using a second ship to expand their little pirating venture to another system or owning a space ship of his own. He suddenly felt guilty that he didn't automatically think of using one to return to Earth. After making new friends with the crew of the Agen's Light he wondered if he really had anything back on Earth that was worth returning for.
He thought of Ashla. The beautiful red alien certainly gave him a reason to stay. He tried to figure out if he meant anything to the strange girl with even stranger powers and with his new liquid courage flowing through him he decided it was time to find out. He wondered what she was doing and hoped that she wasn't still in a dance club. Few things scared him more than having to show off his moves to a girl he liked.
"The Light could use an upgrade on her hyperspace engines, especially if we're going to be smuggling full time now." Rana's suggestion brought Jason's attention back to the subject at hand.
"Especially since no telling there is of what Imperials will find in these new Virgo and Epsilon systems they heading for?" Frip added. "Hunting pirates here they may be. Good to have quick escape it is."
Jason couldn't believe that he conceivably had a chance to one day visit those distant stars as well. The most he had ever hoped for was a visit to the Moon's Eagle Base before the Empire arrived in his solar system.
"Oh, I've got a whole list of things we can buy and officials we can bribe. It's going to be fun setting up our own little operation here in Culter City." Brakatak said with a relish. "Stick with me you pirate scum and I'll make you all rich beings." They all laughed.
Jason realized that if he was to be stranded on Mars that being a rich smuggler might not be a bad way to go. He excused himself when the other three started discussing technical matters regarding upgrades to the Agen's Light. Though fascinating to the former math major he was sometimes out of his league compared to even the most basic engineering knowledge his new friends possessed. Besides, tonight he was here to have fun not bog himself down in the humdrum business of starship maintenance. When else would he have a chance to get lost amongst thousands of alien species in a space casino that catered to every desire?
He walked back to the gaming floor. He walked over the formally transparent floor where the fight had taken place and a team of custodians was cleaning the ring. The floor must become opaque between matches and spectators had then simply returned to the gaming tables. Jason reached in his pouch and felt the high denomination credit chips that Brakatak had given him and thought about trying his luck at one of the games. He stood behind several groups of gamblers and watched them play. Though wagering was somehow involved it was all he understood about the alien table and card games.
At a nearby table a pretty girl suddenly leaped to her feet, knocking over her stool in the process. Several aliens shouted angrily from the game. The girl spun around in his direction and Jason noticed her long, pointy ears.
"Hey, are you a Vulcan?" Jason unthinkingly blurted out without noticing that the girl was charging straight for him.
"Hey, you! Stop that Selphi scum! She's got a skifter." A four-armed, alien card dealer yelled at him from the table. Jason reacted much too slow as the girl dipped her shoulder and rammed him square in the gut. Jason felt the air rush from his lungs as he violently fell over backwards into another table of card players.
The girl sprinted for the exits with several casino security agents chasing after her. Jason didn't see if she got away as an angry walrus-alien pushed him off of the table. He recognized several swears and curses that the crew of the Agen's Light threw around and meekly apologized as he backed away from the irritated aliens who were already turning back to their games.
He humbly moved through the crowd of aliens circling the gaming floor and stood along one wall of the establishment out of the flow of traffic. Yells went up when the floor over the underground arena changed back to transparent glass as another fight began.
Thumping music emanated from a nearby dance club. Jason ignored it at first but then something in his mind clicked.
"No way." He said to himself. He knew this song. It was one his mother used to listen to all the time when he was a kid. He moved towards the entrance of the club, his ears perking up at the music, sure he had to be mistaken.
At the entrance to the club a hulking alien who looked like a cross between a killer whale and a wrestler glared at him but didn't stop him from entering. Above the entrance hung a holographic marque with strange alien letters announcing the club's name; The Green Dianoga. Jason was only starting to translate some of the symbols and deciphered that the band inside was something called the 'Sol Covers'.
Inside the darkened club scores of aliens and humans swirled and danced through a barrage of colored lights as deafening music filled the room. Anti-gravity lifts propelled some of the dancers high into the air, while scantily-clad females of various species swung from cloth ropes from the ceiling.
In the center of the main stage a blue elephant-man played some kind of keyboard and a trio of bald, black-eyed aliens blew into strange wind instruments while a wrinkled, horned alien beat on a set of hanging drums. A quartet of females sang backup to what Jason guessed was some kind of human-frog hybrid. The main singer had a set of lips on a long protruding snout and belted out her own version of a Lady Gaga classic.
"S-S-S-Sabacc Face. Mum mum mum mah. . . I won't tell you that I love you. Kiss or hug you. Cause I'm bluffin' with my muffin. I'm not lying I'm just stunnin' with my love-glue-gunnin" The singer belted out.
"Holy . . ." Jason was too stunned to actually feel his jaw drop at the strange sight.
The song ended with a furious applause from the crowd. The singer took a bow and made way for another odd, furry singer dressed up as if he was in one of Elvis Presley's rhinestone jumpsuits. Sure enough the new vocalist started with, "Bright light city gonna set my soul. Gonna set my soul on fire."
"Viva, Las Vegas?" Jason muttered in disbelief.
"You know this song then?" Someone asked. The stranded earthling spun around to be greeted by the sight of the stunningly beautiful Ashla Ti.
"Um, why, um, it's from Earth. It's a golden oldie." Jason stammered.
"A golden oldie?" Ashla's eyes narrowed at the strange phrase.
"It's a really old song. I don't think my grandparents even listened to that one." Jason said.
"It's not old to us. We've been soaking in primitive Earth hyperwaves since our arrival almost three years ago. As you can see Earth music is quite popular." She waved her crimson arm towards the energetic dancers. Jason wondered if any of them even knew what Las Vegas was.
"It's an ok, um, I mean wizard song, I guess. I prefer alternative myself."
"I like a good, thumping glimmik or heavy isotope tune to get my blood pumping. You earthlings have such funny names for music; hip-hop, rock and roll." She smiled. Jason wondered if she had been drinking some of the 'Bantha Blasters' that had left him tipsy.
"How did you know I was in here?' Jason asked.
"Of all the beings in the Long Jump I always know where you are."
"Is your Force still repulsing you from me?"
"You're growing on me. When I first entered the prisoner camp with the stifling masses of Earth refugees it was overwhelming and I passed out."
"I remember. That's how we first met." He smiled, which grew bigger when she returned it.
"Yes, and I almost cut your head off for being a Sith." she giggled. Jason didn't quite find that as funny as she did.
"Do you get lonely being the only Jedi on Mars?"
"I won't be for long. Master Kolar told me that more will come to me soon." Ashla said assuredly and turning to watch the dancers as if her remark was obvious to anyone.
"More Jedi? I thought you guys were being hunted by the Empire."
"We are. Though this new Empire doesn't seem as adamant about searching for us as the last."
"So there will be other knights? Some of them would probably be guys, right?" Jason felt a pang of jealousy. What shot did he have with this girl who was clearly out of his league? Surely she would want a boyfriend who was a Jedi like her.
"I can sense what you're feeling, you know? Especially since you are an earthling. You guys are such an easy read. You should know I was taught to forsake all attachments as a possible path to the Dark Side." Ashla timidly put her hand on his arm. She probably meant it to be a friendly reassurance but Jason felt electricity pass between them at her touch.
"Seriously? No boyfriends? No families? No love?" Jason had trouble wrapping his mind around the concept.
"Seriously. That is what was taught at the Jedi Temple where I was raised."
"And do you still believe that?"
"I don't know. I have been on the run for so long. I have come to rely on groups of slaves and other refugees from Imperial law that I did form a number of close attachments. During the first years I was close to another Jedi. A human named Liam. You two actually look quite a bit alike now that I think of it." Ashla's voice got softer and Jason could barely hear her over the music.
"What happened to him?" Jason asked.
"He died. During a robbery that ended with my enslavement and his bleeding out on the floor of a Muunilinst bank. That was five years before the 'big jump'. Five years of being alone." Ashla's eyes gave a slight hint of watering up. Whoever this Liam guy had been, he and Ashla had been quite close.
"Five years before you met Brakatak?"
"Yes, the big guy certainly gave me a sense of belonging. A sense of home." Ashla smiled as if she was realizing something for the first time.
"A sense of attachment? A family of sorts?" Jason couldn't help hoping this small realization would lead to something more.
Ashla frowned. "Yes. I guess you're right. They are my friends and my family. You are now part of that as well, Jason Bogan."
Jason's chest swelled with hope as he sucked in his breath.
"But therein lies the danger. I would do anything to protect my pack, even if it entails choosing the Dark Side to do so." Ashla's head slumped in shame.
"There you go being all melodramatic. Everything to you guys is all Light Side this and Dark Side that with you Jedi. On Earth nothing is ever so clear cut good or evil. And why is this Force of yours like two sides of the same coin anyways? I don't think you can flip back and forth just because you care about someone else enough that you don't want to see them get hurt. If that were the case then my Mom was the evilest woman to ever walk the Earth."
Ashla's face became a study in how shock can warp an alien's facial features. Jason suddenly realized he had thrown everything she believed straight back in her face. Well good, he thought. He was getting tired of the Buddhist monk routine from her all the time.
"And even if there is a thing as complete goodness, wouldn't that something be love? Why do the Jedi deny themselves the ultimate application of good? A thing that every earthling, and from what I've seen here tonight, every alien species freely participates in. Wouldn't love make you a better Jedi in the eyes of the Light Side?" Jason hoped he hadn't offended her enough to make her want to leave but now that he was one a roll he couldn't make himself shut up.
Then instead of running, Ashla suddenly grabbed his hand and turned towards the dance floor, yanking him behind her. As they plunged through the crowd Jason caught a glimpse of the two Firrerreo girls, Ashlei and Keatly, in the center of a group of four men who looked like they could have passed for humans except for the fact that each of them was a bright shade of pink. The girls' multi-colored strands of waist length hair swirled around them. Keatley waved to Jason as she danced circles around her would-be dance partners. Jason nervously waved back as he was pulled through the mob.
His nerves were on edge as they reached the center of the dance floor. The music transitioned into a version of Prince's "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World", though the man-lobster alien who was singing changed the word 'world' into 'sector' for some reason.
When they reached the center of the dance floor Ashla swung around to face him, a look of determination in her eyes that made his knees turn to jelly. He'd never met a girl who was so sure of herself and willing to take complete charge like this and it was as terrifying as it was exciting. "What are you doing?" He asked meekly.
"I'm going to learn to become a better Jedi." She said. The gorgeous red-skinned alien girl grabbed him by the front of his tunic and yanked him in close. "And you're going to be the one that helps me do that."
With that she kissed him full on the mouth. Jason's heart leaped in his chest. What would Captain Kirk do, he thought? And then he realized.
He kissed her back.
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