Chapter 1 – The Game of the Drug Trade
Location: Viktu, a major city on Malastare
Time: 7 Years Before the Battle of Yavin
Ash Ulrand had gotten the routine down, finally, after several weeks. He knew all the best spots, the most inconspicuous, to hide the product he and his friends had worked so hard to get their hands on, spice, specifically a new kind that seemed to have the narcotic effect last several days at a time, and have slightly less bone decay when compared to old spice recipes. While he and his friends wouldn't dare to try it themselves, they could still see it as the valuable commodity it was. The drug market was what kept most of the Outer Rim connected, especially the cities of Malastare, which was what Ash considered home.
For now, he thought to himself.
Indeed, the life of crime he had made himself a part of was inevitable on this planet. It was the only way to get off it in the first place. If he could have it any other way, he'd be doing something productive with his time, working amongst the big city lights on Coruscant, or exploring the galaxy on a Star Destroyer... but that kind of life was far out of reach until he was able to put in the work to make it a reality. Spice was his ticket off this rock and he knew it.
The twenty year old human, dressed in typical attire for the slum dwelling Malastarian human population, his hair a thick brown mess, made his way down an alleyway. Ash, of the Ulrand family, knew he wasn't going to be doing any good for his family name this way, not until after doing what he had to if he was ever going to see what else was out there.
The garbage bins were the go to method of delivery amongst Ash and his friends. Simply drop the stash into an inconspicuous, yet still identifiable, bag of refuse into a specific bin for the garbage collector, one of their drug mules, to transport all around the city. Ash couldn't take credit for that one, it was the idea of his good friend Bihan Drow, a Verpine who was stuck in the same predicament of being chained to the bottom feeders of Malastare.
Bihan, the tall, lanky insectoid who Ash had known for the better part of his teen years, came around the adjacent alley and tossed his own bag of refuse into one of the containers. He then looked over at Ash and nodded his head. The deal was on, now it was up to the garbage collector to pick up his end of the deal.
Ash left the alley, made his way through the back door of one of the businesses and into the shop, right past uninterested alien figures, unaware of the drug trade going on right in their back yard. He made his way out through the front entrance of the shop, towards the shanty town sector of Viktu, where Ash and his friends lay their heads at night.
Bihan was on his way there as well, but the pair had thought it wise to not be seen going at the same time, plausible deniability or something like that, if Ash was remembering correctly. They had begun to plot out different routes to their part of the shantytown from the area of dealing, trying to beat each other back home each time. The mix of a foot race reminiscent of their childhood along with the setting of a drug deal made for quite the contrast, the irony not lost on Ash, but it helped break up the monotony a bit.
Cutting through the old maze-like alleys, as he had done seemingly a million times, he took comfort in the thought of never having to again in the not too distant future. His home in sight, he quickened his pace, spotting Bihan a bit further back in the distance, seemingly stuck behind a group of slow moving aliens.
Their home, a small one room shack containing one cheap dresser and two bunk beds, was all the luxury Ash and his two best friends could afford. Having built it themselves using scrap from the destroyed hulls of ships from the scrapyard, it taught them quite a bit about surviving in the harshest conditions.
Ash stopped by the entrance of their home, grinning as Bihan finally arrived, a look of defeat on his face.
"I win this time, Bug Brain!" Ash gloated.
"I think not, Ashy Boy!" Art said as he exited the home, "I've been here for the past ten minutes waiting on you two slow pokes!"
Art Regfeld, last but certainly not least in the trio of friends, was a few months older than Ash, and slightly taller. Many assumed the two were brothers, given their history, however this was not the case. Abandoned as a toddler, Art was a product of the poverty of Malastare. His green eyes and buzzcut hairstyle were his most noticeable features, on an otherwise typical slum dwelling human.
"How are we ever gonna get off Malastare with times like that?" Art said with a laugh.
"Don't rub it in, man!" Ash said, admitting defeat to the childish game.
"You sure you weren't followed?" Bihan asked, "Maybe we shouldn't be moving so close into the downtown area..."
"It's the only way we're going to make the big bucks, bud!" Art said with enthusiasm, "Our buyers have been loving the product, word spreads fast, it'll be easier for them to get their hands on it if we sell closer to where they live. We'll never get out of here if we keep selling to the gutter rats right here."
"Easier on our distributor too, less risk." Ash chimed in.
"I'm just saying, it's like you said, word spreads fast, I just wanna make sure it's the right people hearing the word, you know?" the Verpine said.
"We'll be alright man," Art said, "I've been trying to get that old holopad working, it seems to get a faint signal up on the roof."
Curious to see for themselves, the three friends used a crude ladder built into the side of their shack to climb onto their rusted home. They examined the holopad, which Bihan had found tossed aside in the rubbish bins of one of their stash spots. What could it contain? Imperial documents? Thousands of credits? Some dirty holopics? It was the only fun the boys could think to do in their current impoverished state.
"Maybe this is why it got thrown out," Art said, "It's just a piece of junk."
"We might be able to get it fixed in the city." Ash said.
"We should just save our money for our escape." Art reminded.
"Where should we even go when we get off this planet?" Bihan asked, "We always talk about leaving but we never seem to settle on where to go."
"I've heard cool things about Bespin," Ash thought out loud, "or Corellia, met a few guys from there who had nice things to say about it."
"Or we could go to Vorzyd V! Party every day and roll around in credits for the rest of our lives!" Art added.
"Hell, anything beats Malastare. I can't wait to get out of here." Ash said.
"Soon this'll all be a distant memory, bro..." Bihan said, "A few more months of these deals and we'll have enough for the three of us to get out for good!"
"As long as we get to do this together, I don't care where it is." Art stated.
With quite the view of the heavily populated and overcrowded slums ahead of them, and the bustling city of Viktu behind them, the boys tried to imagine what life must be like for the galaxy's more fortunate souls. Somewhere far from the decrepit squalor of this world, where one could make an honest living. It's what kept them going, and this view was their constant reminder of their fate if they were to remain.