Bulls-Eye

1 BBY

Tatooine

Beggar's Canyon was aptly named.

It was a haven for marauders and scavengers, flyboys and runaways. A place to hole up for the night, to scrounge up some food, and to plunder the trash that was known to accumulate. In a sense, it was a looter's heaven. Night had long since passed though, and it had taken the loot with it.

Now only two critters remained. Defiant in their search, desperate in their plight. The pair meandered through the canyon's pathways, ratty tails dragging in the sand behind them. Their names were etched on hind legs, not so much chosen as they were enforced, granted by an "animal control" unit they had escaped from some weeks prior.

Jenth and Cherek. Mother and cub.

In the land of the lost they were far from alone, their companions just weren't altogether... living. Trekking through a canyon of skulls and carcasses hadn't been what Jenth envisioned their foraging trip to be. She would have much preferred the hunting grounds to the north of here. But the temperatures were climbing, and her child was starving. Beggars couldn't be choosers, and freedom wasn't always what it was cracked up to be.

As if to reinforce that point, the twin suns grew hotter in their bake. An urgent reminder that they were running out of time. Paws thumped across the dunes in turn, new imprints on a land ravaged by sandstorms the night before. Weather made up for what the looters could not. The place was stripped bare, canyon heads towering over their scruffy forms.

The fact that they were rats was never lost on them. It was driven home as much by size as it was by their former-owner's opinion of them. Maybe that's what made them run. A denial of fate, an attempt to escape the inescapable.

Cherek turned to Jenth at thought, the cub's whiskers prickled with sand. "How long?"

The words were spoken as much as they were yelped. Their dialect was basic, primitive. Crafted by trial and their need for survival.

Jenth turned to regard her son, mug no less sullen. "Longer still."

Again the old adages came back, beggars couldn't be choosers, runaways didn't get to complain. They were on their own, and they needed to get used to it.

Cherek slumped at the thought, tattered fur rolling along the nearest sandbank. Maybe it wasn't worth getting used to. Maybe they weren't going to find the food and water their stomachs were pleading for.

Jenth yelped another command, this one harsher than the last. "Get moving."

That only made Cherek flop about all the more. He was starved but not tired, youthful exuberance had done much to diminish his fatigue.

Not his laziness though, something his mother had become increasingly aware of. While the animal control facility had been hell in its own right, it came in a different shape. One where they were still granted food, albeit between beatings and pit fights.

There weren't many things that could pull her thoughts away from those days, but a droning echo far overheard did just that. The mother could feel her limbs go rigid at the sound. It was a familiar echo, a deadly one. A hunter's call.

"Forward," Jenth hissed then, ears perking in alarm.

Cherek still remained though, playfully gnawing at a bone with his fangs. The sound of engines droned louder now, shaking the canyon floors.

"Forward," Jenth hissed again, more urgently this time. Cherek disregarded her, rolling over with a purr, the bone bouncing from paw to paw. The cub didn't know what it was like to be chased. To be harassed and blasted at. He hadn't been privy to those pit fights. Still too young, too innocent.

Jenth wasn't.

Survival instincts kicked in. Next moment, she had picked Cherek off the ground, carried by the dullest of her teeth. She bounded down the passage, ducking beneath rocky outcroppings.

The droning came all the louder now. They sounded like birds, but not anyone's that Jenth had heard before. These ones howled, ion engines outpacing their prey by several kilometers per hour. Their wings were tilted downwards, a lone cannon beneath its maw. The long-ago vultures had evolved. Now they were mechanized death gods, the likes of which she had only seen once before, helmed by her owner.

Things became all the clearer. This was a hunt. They were the prey. Just like it had been back at the pits, just like it always had been. She had thought there was more out there, a better life, a less violent one. As much for her sake as it was for Cherek's.

Now all she could do was run, clinging tighter to the cub as he thrashed about. They were in a desperate flight, bobbing and weaving, chased constantly by a tireless pursuer. All the same, she could imagine this going on endlessly, for hours, days even. It would almost have to until one of them gave out, until one of them made a mistake, until...

Bzzt!

"Yahoo!" A boyish voice cheered on from the craft's cockpit, sailing by as laser met its mark. Crimson dissipated as it struck the creature, vapor streaking from the womp rat's skull and flesh. "You see that one, Biggs? Caught 'em right between the eyes!"

"Sure did, Luke. That was some good hunting."

The T-16s ran a ring over the canyon, admiring their kill's decrepit form.

"Luke?" A voice chimed on the other line then, breaking the pair from the celebration. "Are you almost home? It's getting late."

"Yes, Aunt Beru," the nephew recited with a roll of his eyes. "I was just uh- , picking up a new moisture vaporator for Uncle Owen. I'll be home in a bit."

Biggs gave a teasing laugh as the line was ended. "Somebody out past curfew?"

Luke grinned back. "Guess so, worth it just to vape a few more Womp Rats."

Their Skyhoppers blazed away in the next moment, out of canyon's reach and into the gleam of the twin suns. The pilots wouldn't be seen again, not together at least. One would go off to shoot bigger targets, those backed with military-grade cannons and done in the name of the Empire. The other's hunting was just beginning. Still stuck at home, still working another season. He had nothing but an endless supply of varmint to take his boredom out on.

Beggar's Canyon wasn't bare, not anymore. The departing pilots had left a few treasures in their wake.

For Jenth, the story ended here. Her remains stewed in the blaze, a roll of smoke reeling off her decaying form.

Cherek's story continued on, though not for long. He was still trapped in Jenth's muzzle, crushed by the weight of his mother. No air, and no way out. He begged for life, begged for mercy, and soon, he would beg for death.

The looters would be back later that night, there to grant his wish.

End