Umbrous - Empire's Shadow
Part 1 - Awakening of Shadow
NOTE: Sorry for the delay in uploading... I will try to upload on Saturdays.
Chapter 3
"All right, what's going on?" boomed Bongo's loud voice. He was big for an Ukian of his age, and his voice carried even over the rabble of what appeared to be angry Ukian farmers. A leader was standing on top of two upturned carts, which seemed about to break under his considerable mass. "We will not accept this any longer! We cannot even afford to feed our young, or send them to school, because of this Empire! Why should we pay for the Empire's loss of its Death Star? It's time Governor Matap either reduced these ridiculous taxes or gave us back our lands so we may farm enough crops to pay them!".
The crowd cheered at the leader's words, and some had turned to look at the pair, while many others cursed the Governor and Empire in Ukian. Kaan rolled his eyes at Governor Matap's stupidity, while Bongo grimaced and braced himself for a lecture about his parents profiting at the expense of other Ukians.
His parents were amongst the few Ukian families who, generations ago, had been noblemen and kings. The Republic had left them alone, with only a few Jedi here and there to kidnap, (sorry, induct), the few Force-sensitive Ukian children into their order, but those were rare. During the Clone Wars, the Republic had placed a small outpost on Ukio, due to its close proximity to Kamino, and the Ukio system had played host to a small skirmish, but which had not entered the atmosphere. But then the Empire had come and used the Ukian nobility to establish itself in a position of power to control the people. Now the Palto family, currently led by Bongo's father, Tra Molk Palto, owned much of the small shipyards that constituted the only official mode of interplanetary transport in the system. Despite being located on the Manda Merchant Route, Ukio had never seen much interstellar traffic, and even less after the battle of Scarif, so the shipyards remained small, and were managed by Bongo's family.
Kaan, on the other hand, felt that a large part of this unrest would easily have been avoided if Governor Matap simply did as the locals asked and gave back some of the land for farming purposes. Large swaths of countryside had been fenced off and guarded by stormtroopers under the pretext of a possible future military base, but everyone, down to the last illiterate farmer on the far side of the planet, knew there was no way the Empire could ever spare the resources for that now.
But the leader of this crowd had come over anyways to talk to them, and there was no escaping the inevitable lecture. "You two think that just because you're privileged enough to attend that university you can boss the rest of us around?" he demanded, his face turning a deep orange.
Bongo and Kaan had to fight to resist the urge to giggle at how the sides of his eyes had twisted in anger. "We are here, struggling to make our livelihoods, and now we are disgraced by the sons of the two richest, foulest families on Ukio, who despoil our very soil by your presence!". At this Bongo and Kaan snapped their eyes to look straight into his, but the leader did not waver.
"Oh, don't you look at me like that, I know who you are!", his voice rising almost to a shout. People had begun to crowd around them, but the leader held them back with a massive arm. "Kaan Pritcher, son of that Imperial archivist with her head stuck in Imperial propaganda, besmirching the good name of the Jedi in the name of her Empire". He spat at the last word, and a big yellow glob of spit splattered all over Kaan's boots.
The leader then turned to Bongo, and continued in Ukian, "And what should I say about Bongo Tra Palto, son of the greatest disgrace to the name of Ukio since the cowards who let the Empire who come and take our world! I'm willing to bet you don't even know your own native language, stuck as you are in that university, learning to be a human. Look, you even wear clothes like them, covering up your natural hide with pathetic pieces of dead plant and metal!". Bongo's eye twitched almost imperceptibly, the approximation of a flinch that Ukians used given their lack of cheek muscles. Kaan was fairly certain only he had seen it, because the leader gave a snort and seemed about to spit on Bongo's uniform, before Kaan interrupted, speaking in fluent, accent-less Ukian,
"Perhaps if you learned to be more tolerant of people like the Palto family, they might be more willing to use their considerable power to help your case, instead of letting you squabble around the Market, waving your signs in the hopes of some drastic change. As it is, the way you talk about the Jedi is hovering on the edge of treasonous speech. The increase in taxes impacts us all, and the destruction of the Death Star is a loss for the whole Empire". Kaan spoke calmly and coldly, and the leader seemed rather taken aback by this, and even those around him were murmuring angrily to themselves. But he regained his composure as quickly as he had lost it, snapping "I care nothing for your Empire! All it has brought us is oppression and poverty! And when we throw off our shackles of oppression, the name of Tosta Di Casto will resound through the galaxy as beginning the internal crippling of the Empire! Already the Rebel Alliance has succeeded in striking a major blow against the Empire and have hidden themselves while making the Empire think they were foolish enough to remain on Yavin IV!". He finished with a shout, and the crowd cheered with him.
Kaan spoke in a low but carrying voice, "And how did you know that the Rebels tricked the Empire into thinking they were still on Yavin IV? Wasn't the Rebellion officially destroyed?". The leader's face went a pale yellow colour as he watched Bongo and Kaan walk away, hiding the smug expressions on their faces as Bongo walked back home and Kaan walked up the steps and into the town hall, looking for the governor's office.
A slightly shorter chapter this week, it'll get longer and more interesting from now. And remember the name of Tosta Di Casto. Is he essentially the main "bad guy" for Part One, or is he a freedom fighter?
(Edit: I changed all text in Ukian to italics, cos I thought it made more sense that way)
Next chapter we explore this further as we meet Governor Matap.
