6. Lethia

Several months went by since Greta was taken away and life at the palace continued, barely noting her absence. Galaxy scum came and went. New slaves were brought in, bounty hunters collected their credits and business was as usual. The only thing different was that Boba Fett was hardly seen there anymore.

Lethia served water in the audience chamber as usual, but her expression had hardened. Her once porcelain skin was now thin and drawn over her cheekbones. It had not been easy for her to accept Greta's disappearance and the loneliness which came with her absence.

Nine years ago, when she was only six, Lethia had been taken to Jabba as a slave. Her father, a moisture farmer on Jabba's land, had been terminated for not producing enough crop and she, still in the burning house, was pulled out by an ugly Twi'lek only to be presented to the ugly Hutt in hopes of gaining a few credits. Fortunately for her, a then 18-year-old Greta who had just finished her first year as Jabba's slave, had seen the small, shivering girl, and felt at that moment, a need to rescue her.

The fat Hutt laughed at the child with the silver-blond hair. "What should we do with her?" he asked the audience. The room shook with the cries of his slimy clientele.

"Feed her to the rancor!"

"Bake her in the sun!"

"Tear her apart!"

A steady female voice interrupted the mob. "Let her live."

The crowd parted as Greta approached the Hutt's throne, careful not to pause over the trapdoor. She was wearing a mechanic's outfit, soiled from engine grease and fuel fluid. The Hutt's watery eyes stared. Her proposition intrigued him.

"Why? Her father owed me millions of credits in moisture. I will do as I please to his daughter."

"She grew up on a moisture farm. She knows all about it – how to handle it and store it with the utmost care."

"What do I need with a moisture connoisseur?"

"Why wouldn't you need one, oh great Hutt?" The fat worm wiggled a bit, visibly showing his delight at being flattered. "Your stores of moisture are unparalleled in the galaxy, despite this dry planet. And you of all Hutts know how precious moisture is. Your current slaves lose gallons by not storing it properly. You don't want all of your precious moisture to evaporate, now would you?"

Lethia, though then only a child, chimed in. "Yes. I was my father's water keeper. He taught me how to conserve every drop and to practice the best storage protocol."

The Hutt licked his oversized lips, and after a long, agonizing silence, he sputtered, "Very well." Jabba then looked at Greta. "Mechanic, since you're so willing to save this one, you be in charge of her. Show her to the moisture plant."

Lethia smiled at the memory of her guardian. If it weren't for the Hutt's greediness and Greta's initiative, Lethia would have become one of the rancor's meals. And since then, Greta had been like a sister to her, and her only friend. So when Boba Fett entered the picture soon after, she was suspicious, being naturally possessive of the only one who was like family to her. She did not want to share her friend, especially not with a man with so widely feared a reputation.

She remembered how Fett would solicit her – and over the next several years, Lethia noticed the frequency of his visits, observing an attachment that was unspoken, but deeply rooted. Greta, she recalled, didn't speak of her relationship with Boba Fett. It wasn't until Lethia confronted Greta, almost five years since their acquaintance began, about the nature of their attachment.

Greta had shrugged. "It's a working partnership, Lethe. I don't know what else you could be suggesting."

"But he singles you out – almost every time."

"Like when?"

Lethia drummed her fingers, thinking. "Like, whenever you enter the chamber, he looks your way."

"You can't be certain he's looking at me."

"He always turns his head."

"Well, have you seen his eyes?"

Lethia kicked at the dirt. "No," she replied defeatedly. "Just tell me, Greta. Do you like him?"

Greta shrugged again. "There's nothing to like or dislike. He's just – " A slow smile spread on her lips.

"What?"

"He helps make time go by quicker. That's all."

"Oooooh!" cooed the younger in a sing-song voice. "You do like him! You enjoy his company! But – " she paused. "Aren't you afraid of him?"

Greta looked down at her drink and tapped the glass with her fingers. "A little, yes. His reputation is infamous. And I've seen all of his bounties from Jabba claimed. He never loses. Ever."

"He's like a droid," Lethia said off-handedly. Suddenly, a thought occurred to her. "Do you think he really is one? That's he's not a man after all?"

"The thought had crossed my mind," Greta replied. "But he isn't. I'm quite sure. I don't know how, Lethe – just, little things, I guess."

"What little things?"

"I don't know. Just give it a rest Lethe. I don't know." A flush was rising from Greta's neck into her cheeks. She had been thinking about Boba Fett and the moments he would touch her, or watch her – even the ways he spoke to her.

"Ok," said Lethia rather disappointedly. "But doesn't it make you think – of, you know, - that future?"

"What's the point? Hope isn't useful for people like us, Lethe. I don't want to delude myself, The only thing I'm trying my best to do is staying alive."

At present, a drunken stormtrooper wandered over to the bar, demanding a glass of moisture and subsequently interrupting her thoughts. He was talking loudly when Lethia approached, banging his fist on the table. He was making such a commotion that everyone around him stared. The trooper's helmet was off, revealing a mass of sweaty hair and an ugly face – a thug. That's what they all were, coming into the palace like they owned it.

Lethia quickly and expertly poured him a glass of moisture, of which he slammed back like cheap liquor. He hit the empty glass back on the bar and Lethia filled it again. This time, the trooper drank it more slowly, while eyeing her standing next to him in her white uniform. But before the obnoxious trooper could say anything, a rough-looking fellow sat down next to him and began a conversation.

Seeing her chance to shake off the trooper's attention, Lethia slipped away behind a pillar, listening. She knew, by experience, that the man talking to the trooper was Logos Pathan, a merchant whose wordiness certainly lived up to his name.

Usually, when stormtroopers came to the palace, Lethia would eavesdrop on their conversations, just in case she could hear anything about Greta, by the slim chance they knew anything. But over the months, Lethia had heard nothing and was losing hope about ever hearing about her friend.

Today seemed fruitless, until she heard the stormtrooper talking about Boba Fett. Her ears pricked up and she leaned more fully against the pillar to hear the details. The stormtrooper had checked behind him, making sure Fett was absent, and began:

"I've seen Boba Fett with Darth Vader, pal. I'm telling you that's where he's been all this time."

"Fett used to hang around here a lot." Logos said. "Used to come here to get his ship repaired by a female mechanic – and no one else."

The stormtrooper smirked. "A female mechanic? He want his ship to cough and bitch at him in hyperspace?"

"She was good," replied Logos. "Had her lookit a few things on my own ship."

"Maybe I can get her to look at a few things, too," the stormtrooper said with a dirty grin. "Where can I find her?"

Logos sipped his drink, answering from the side of his mouth. "Sh'not here anymore."

"Lemme guess, Fett took her for himself."

"Dunno, might have. He stopped coming here after she disappeared."

The stormtrooper fingered his glass, thinking. Finally, he said, "Fett's brought a woman to the Deathstar."

Lethia leaned in, hurting her neck as she strained forward. She had to hear this.

"Really?" Logos replied, disinterested. "Sure he's brought plenty to Vader."

"This was different. Fett never looked so reluctant to deliver a bounty before."

"How could you tell?"

"He kept staring at her, you know – just looking her direction. When he got back in the ship, he punched the hatch command so hard, I heard the knob crack."

"Maybe that had nothing to do with the ship. Maybe he didn't get paid in full? That always makes me mad."

The stormtrooper shook his head. "Naw – you'd be mad if Vader made you give up something you didn't want to give up. She was real pretty. Brown hair, nice curves. Had a bracelet tattooed on her wrist."

Lethia almost choked on her own spit.

Logos put down his glass, his interest now raised. "That's her. The female mechanic. What happened to her?"

The stormtrooper shrugged. "It's a shame. Vader sent her to the labs."

"What labs? You mean, experiments?"

"Yeah. I've never seen it, but you need special clearance to get in. It's too bad – when you're sent to the labs, don't' expect to come out."

"But what for?"

"Not sure. I hear they take worthless humans for military experiments – to create enhanced soldiers to defeat the Rebels." The stormtrooper held up his hands, claw-like. "Gene therapy, mecchies for hands, droid parts for eyes – to make cyborgs and other freaks."

Logos shook his head. "You serious? That's fucking twisted, man."

"Never underestimate what lengths the Empire would go to conquer the universe, pal."

At this point, the conversation turned to the Rebels and ways the Empire was going to wipe them all out. Lethia leaned on the pillar for support as the words Mecchies for hands repeated in her mind. She was so angry, and so bewildered that her hands shook, spilling precious moisture from the pitcher. Her friend could be dead – or worse, a mindless patchwork slave to the Empire. All because of the man Greta had trusted and perhaps loved.

Lethia had made a choice. She was going to kill that bastard Boba Fett.