For your information:

"Desi's Noodles" is a mentioned franchise in the underworld of Coruscant at the beginning of the game "Star Wars: Jedi Survivor". The latter is a cooperation of the enterprises Respawn and EA.

Aristarchus Freeman founds his own company in the mission 'Solitude' on the iron planet 'Tinto' of the game "planetbase" by Madruga works.

A/N: The following story is a translation of my German story "Von Corsucant nach Tinto". I think I am going to start translating it in single chapters because of the amount: a completed story containing 8 chapters with two different endings, according to the respective chapter titles.

Please note that English is not my national language. If any word or phrase may seem unfitting, out of the line, grammatically wrong, odd or prone to misunderstandings, please send me a private message via the tools of this site and I will look into it.

I also appreciate your feedback, past or future ones. You have all been noticed, be it by just reading, commenting or adding the story to your list. Thanks a lot!

- X – X – X – X – X-

Coruscant, 2034th level.

Without any appetite, Aristarchus Freeman slurped his spiced noodles and chewed. He would have liked to be done with his dinner snack sooner. The little shop had been crowded unpleasantly even at this lively hour it hosted more than usual. Desi's discount promotion had worked out.

That was fine for Desi, yet, if Aristarchus' work day had came out to be way to stressful, at least he wanted to have his peace in the evening. In compensation, he sipped at the Bantha milkshake included in the menue to calm his taste buds from the spiciness.

Whatever other ingredient may be added to the food, he was not able to taste anything. It could be the filet of a Loth rat or cheap bean paste, it did not matter and somehow it filled his stomach with a cosy and warm sensation.

The muted holo news showed a picture of a red-haired, young man and the band of text informed in Aurebesh and Galactical Standard Writing that a Jedi terrorist had caused a skylane accident of a senator. The senator was brought to safety now. At the moment Aristarchus had enough stress at work to finish the schemes for the production line of the closed scientific project. He had not heard anything about the incident, yet. He would have loved to make a short trip to the surface again, breath unfiltered air and to see a sky above him. He earned the money for such luxury and could afford it from time to time as a leading engineer of Panetbase Corp., but he was lacking the time.

"When did I have my last day off?", he thought.

Aristarchus ate at the service counter, swallowed his barely chewed food and took a deep breath.

He had been shaping a scheme for a few days, but it involved to advance a lot of money for investments: purchase of real estate, notarial fees, a one-way ticket to nowhere in the Outer Rim, building materials, supplies as well as transport and mining droids. Luckily, he was able to maintain and repair the droids on his own. He made a mental note that he would check calmly at home the holo net updates of compulsory auctions at the Outer Rim. How lovely could it be to have one's own place on a planet without hectic and packed overcrowding, to have not only a small rented room to call home?

Now his bow of noodles was empty and he slurped noisily the last drops of his Bantha milk through the straw, as the reader for the credit stick for payment was presented under his nose by a green hand, yet. The person to whom the hand belonged was called Nessam, a Nikto-waitress behind the counter. He sighed. Aristarchus had been a regular customer, but today it had to be swift and efficient during the rush of people.

"A portion of yuzu-meilooron-rolls to takeaway, please."

"Sure, everything's okay." Nessam nodded, tipped into her comlink, looked at the display of the reader and waited until the amount had changed. "So, now. Ready."

He threw out a credit stick out of a small extra bag on his belt, paid with an appropriate tip and nodded. Nessam shortly disappeared and packed from a tin on the counter shelf three pieces of the desert into a plain paper bag, before coming back.
She handed it over to him with a short "See you tomorrow, Aris" and directly hurried towards the next customer.

While he squeezed himself out of the densely crowded room, past a few Twi'lek as part of a group and one Nautilian male, he swore himself to finish tomorrow's work earlier, be it for hopefully having the time to exchange some sentences in peace with Nessam.

Outside the sight of the small arcade with flashing, bright neon lights and grey-blue fronts did not turn his mood. The one who looked more closely, would realize the decay. Non-maintained wiring caused neon advertisement to darken in the midst of the writing. A broken shop window, which had been patched with duroplast ready-to-built plates and duct tape, was observed from the side by the red flashing of a black camera ball.

The wall and ready-to-built plates were decorated with graffiti showing swoop-bikes and two different kinds of gang tags. One tag in black color showed a square-stylized crossbow with an arrow in the middle representing the "hunters", as Desi had yet experienced painfully. The other sign sported red color above and blue color below. The latter showed two upper and three lower wavy lines for the "crayfishs", why ever so they were called this way. Except from drainage channels, there were no rivulets or even a river down here. Contradictory rumors as an uprising underground gang were spread around about the "crayfishs".

Full garbage cans on the sidewalk waited in a futile attempt to be collected. Instead, its surplus of content distributed on the ground or were regularly searched for eventual last treasures.

Exhausted faces slipped by him. He was lucky if dull eyes looked at him shortly for being assessed of probable danger and the person gave him a wide berth to be on the safe side. Unconsciously, Aristarchus accelerated his steps.

An old, disheveled and ragged beggar sat on a house wall with a caf take-away cup before him and looked at Aristarchus in a questioning way. Aristarchus turned his head a bit and gazed at him thoughtfully while he passed him by. As it happened, Aristarchus never ever carried cash credits, including small coins. He wished he would even have carried a nutrition bar with him to be able to give it to the beggar.

He realized a fleeting motion from the corner of his eyes. A he turned to look, it was too late. He collided with another one's shoulder. After a short staggering in the air, the other's body fell backwards to the ground and it tinkled.

Aristarchus caught himself with a step and strode into wetness, from which emitted a pungent-sour odor. As he looked at his foot, he stood in a puddle with the typical light blue color of spotchka.

"Excu…", the man on the ground did not get any further. He choked and threw up into the puddle of alcohol.

Splashes of the vomit and of the drink landed on Aristarchus' trouser leg. Any question regarding the condition of the man on the ground subsided immediately out of the engineer's brain and was replaced by shocked disgust. He wanted to step back, but reminded himself in time to check the place beforehand for broken pieces of glass.

Next thing Aristarchus felt was that his right arm was painfully turned towards his back and at his neck a weight bent his back unnaturally backwards. During hands searched his body and an electronic buzzling under his left ear confused him, he gasped for air.

He only heard words spoken from afar, so it seemed, and in a distorted way. Aristarchus only understood „Ruu… wooo ii… woo...chii".

He was touched at his belt and its buckles, which were opened. There were grips into his pockets, where the pressure of his stuffed-in gloves made of imitation leather disappeared.

Each breath was suffering for him. Motley neon lights blurred into dancing stars before his eyes and became a black unity of oblivion.