Huh, okay, don't know how two whole years passed me by on this story, but… Given the last update was September 22, 2022, that people are still willing to Review on such an old story and hope it continues, is a nice confidence boost.

Not that I'm lacking for my own confidence, but positive reinforcement from the work I do recreationally certainly helps keep my life from being all about my work.

Which is actually why this SI of myself isn't an "Adventurer" like other SI and/or OC-centric stories, but is just a working stiff/Blue Collar worker within the wider Star Wars universe. Not to mention that with so many "Zero Days" in galactic history, from an insider's perspective, it's a little tricky keeping track of certain events if you don't have an eidetic memory. Which almost all writers seem to give their SIs, but I digress.

Anywho, had a recent fit of inspiration after reading Star Wars: Rise of the Battlemage by MetaBettaOmegaLetta , an Author whose other works I greatly enjoy, so let's see where I can take this version of myself in a pre-Original Trilogy universe.

*STAR WARS*

"I can't believe you actually brought them here…" Max deadpanned from the lounge as he and his captain watched the ship's external security feed, showing a trio of Jawas on a cargo speeder ferrying yet more prime salvage into the Not Yet Dead's cargo hold where half a tribe of Jawas had been making their home for the past half-week.

And just where had these two Couriers found themselves?

Why, the junk planet of Lotho Minor, of course; which, to Alex's knowledge, was the planet where the Sith Assassin Darth Maul spent more than a decade keeping himself alive with the Dark Side, fashioning for himself an arachnoid body even as his higher faculties continued to massively deteriorate.

This retcon in of itself left Alex wondering, just what did Maul do about the bathroom?

Thoughts for another day.

Of course, it wasn't like Alex was fool enough to pop a squat planetside like a common rube. Not only because the "Junkers" would strip any unattended vessel for all of its parts, or that large swaths of the planet were constantly on fire because of the various flammable debris scattered about, or even that pools of toxic sludge were almost everywhere due to centuries of quasi-illegal hazardous waste dumping, but because the planet was also exposed to periodic bursts of deadly acid rain that would strip you to the bone in seconds if you were caught without shelter.

No. Alex's berth of call was a result of his work ethic with the Courier's Guild actually paying off.

In his early days with the union, Alex had little to his name but a curmudgeonly astromech, a real junker of a ship, and the dietary equivalent of ramen noodles so he could keep the fuel tanks full; this was compared to the better-established captains and crews whose vessels were almost entirely composed of after-market upgrades just barely skirting the line of Imperial law. Hardly any of them were as legendary as the Millenium Falcon, which had yet to truly establish its own legend, but then again, Alex wouldn't trade reliability for superior raw stats that bottomed out to less than factory default on a whim.

In order to keep the money coming in when it was just him and Clank, Alex on an almost constant basis ran the "D-List" jobs that were too unglamourous for those with disposable incomes to bother with. This meant long stints in Hyperspace ferrying supplies to and from Outer Rim worlds, bordering on the Unknown Regions.

One such world was Lotho Minor, a rusty, and quite frankly unattractive rust-colored ball of literal garbage that made the planet Earth of Disney's Wall-E look like the tropical paradise world of Skarif. Lotho Minor was such a heap, even from high orbit, that just looking at the thing prompted him to keep his Space-Tetanus shots up-to-date every time he calculated his own approach vector.

His port of call, thankfully of which there was one, was a "Flying Fortress" not unlike the one he remembered from Star Wars: Clone Wars where a Trandoshan Hunting Guild unintentionally introduced Ahsoka Tano to Chewbacca.

Of course, what separated this massive vessel from the one that Ahsoka and the Wookies took over, was that it was home to a small commune of what were aesthetically the complete opposite of the reptilian Trandoshans.

The Lepi, a sentient species from the planet Lagos, characterized by their lanky frames, long ears, and buck teeth, were essentially bipedal rabbits like you'd find on Earth standing at around two meters in height. They were covered in fur, ranging in color from dark green, to blue, to gray, white, and a more common brown, with five-fingered hands and three-toed feet.

Lagos has been a part of Duchess Satine's Confederacy of Independent Systems, and while they'd evaded the worst of it in the wake of the Clone Wars, once the Empire took over… Once Palpatine began the mass privatization of businesses and the seizing of countless "Legacy Worlds" whose beauty had been preserved from exploitation by the Old Republic, those that had been neutral in the war were first on the chopping block.

Lagos in of itself was a lush garden world, but the Empire wasn't content to take the land. No, to squeeze out every Credit from the world they could, they took the vast majority of the population as slave labor. While the Lepi were hardly as robust as the Wookies, they were still "bodies" of adequate use in slave labor, and because they bred "like rabbits" and aged rapidly before meta-stabilizing, Palpatine was quick to capitalize on them as a resource. He had to work harder at it because their ability to speak Basic meant he couldn't call them "non-sentient" like he did with the Wookies, but as a Sith, Palpatine had wickedness to spare and all the time in the universe to do so.

The Lepi in the wake of this new regime scattered to all the arms of the galaxy, some successful, some not. Those that were successful retreated either to sympathetic worlds like Alderaan or Chandrilla in the Core, but more-frequently found niches to hide out within the Outer Rim on whatever backwater world would take them in. Something easier said than done when almost every alien species in the galaxy had the exact same idea.

Lotho Minor was one such world, where a Lepi by the name of Bucky, a green-furred veteran of the Clone Wars, won a number of Bon-Mark 316 "Flying Fortresses" in a Sabaac game and had Hyperspace Tugs ferry them away from the auspices of the Empire. From there, the more mechanically inclined of the runaways were able to eke out a living salvaging quality scrap before the planet's acid rain turned it all into slurry.

Or course, as a "Junk World", Lotho Minor was far from the sort of place where you could grow your own food, so the Lepi living there had to hire out couriers through intermediaries to bring foodstuffs from off-planet.

The job barely pushed past breaking even after the return trip to the nearest hospitable trade world, but what happened to the Lepi, the same that was happening to the Wookies… Alex decided to stay on retainer to the Lotho Minor Warren if only so he could stick his middle finger up at the Empire behind their backs. As a Human with no criminal record, he genuinely had nothing to fear from the "Space Nazis", but watching them oppress so many simply because they could, and being able to do nothing against it, was soul-crushing in its own right.

That's why the relationship he made was only a small victory, but a victory nonetheless.

The work wasn't glamorous, it hardly paid, but the fact that the job didn't immediately turn over to a new courier ingratiated Alex to the Lepi. Of course, it probably helped that he didn't try to wring every spare Credit he could out of them, nor did he treat them with contempt like the Humans of the empire, and they were always grateful to see a cargo hold filled with supplies and foodstuffs from the Mid Rim, even when it meant the Not Yet Dead landed a little roughly.

Alex not being a closet xenophobe like most of the other couriers they did business with over the years probably helped too. And it was a result of this gratitude that many quality mods found their way into the Not Yet Dead's hull, which in turn cut down on costs, which in further turn increased the profit margins for these Lotho Minor jobs.

"Hey Max, I'm gonna step out for a drink. You ganna join me?"

"Nah, I'll just stay here, keep an eye on the Jawas and our flatware," the Clone Trooper replied. "Besides, this is a relationship you cultivated. I'm just a hanger-on."

"Max, you're more than just a hanger-on, you know…"

"Yeah. Yeah, I know, it's just…" he said scratching his head. "It still takes some getting used-to, you know?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I know…"

*STAR WARS*

"Bucky, how're the wife and kids?" I asked after being let into the bridge, located at the very apex of that flying fortress overlooking the planet's acid rain clouds.

"We're making do," the Clone War veteran admitted from his captain's seat, rubbing at the bum leg that took him out of the worst of the fighting in the first place. "Once again, we thank you so much for sticking with us all this time."

"Yeah, well, you know. Fuck the Empire," I hummed in this veritable Fortress of Solitude. "The Jawas give you any trouble?"

"No, but they did almost throw hands with some of the Junkers," Bucky hummed. "Still, I'm amazed you got them to agree to this."

"Yeah, well, when I had a friend of theirs tell them there was an entire planet of scraps just ripe for the picking, one of the more down-on-their-luck clans bit the line," I shrugged. "Certainly gets me some store credit, and I might need a favor out of them someday."

"True. Sometimes a favor is worth more than money," Bucky nodded. "So, how're things in the wider galaxy?"

"Oh, you know… Things are still pretty much 'that bad'," I sighed.

"Well, nothing we can really do until the Empire implodes on itself."

And implode on itself the Empire eventually would. While I didn't pretend to have any sort of Foresight or even imply as such, I pointed out to the Lepi how in the olden times before the Russan Reformation, the Sith Empires of old would always implode on themselves due to in-fighting if not the Old Republic's sheer industrial might. With Sith ideologies dripping down and poisoning all levels of power, it was only a matter of time before whatever resistance movement was forming would be able to push the Empire to the brink.

Said "brink" in all likelihood would be when Tarkin had the Death Star destroy Alderaan, but what the hell could I do about something like that? I had no idea where the Death Star was, how far along in its construction it was, what its capabilities at present were, what it's defending fleet looked like... And it wasn't like I could just go up to Bail Organa like I knew he was one of the founders of the Rebellion and warn him in advance.

And there was no way in hell I could go public with any of my meta-knowledge, either. Palpatine was the master of "the spin", he'd suckered the Old Republic into making itself an Empire and handing over all powers to a man with zero term limits, and trying to rock the boat sounded like a good way of landing myself in a dingy torture chamber filled with torture-bots after drumming me up on false charges that no-one would even question because the Kool-Aid pouring out of Human genitals withered by Dark Side energy was just too succulent to refuse.

With my own non-encyclopedic knowledge of Star Wars lore, at the absolute most, I knew about the Rebel Bases on Yavin IV and Hoth, but didn't have the slightest clue where or even when those bases would be established, and if I circled the planet like I were actively looking for them… While I was sure the Rebels would treat me humanely, it was also unlikely I'd ever be able to say anything to anyone in any position of power and potentially avert a catastrophe.

And even in the best-case scenario where I did tell the Rebels about the Death Star and they did something about it, without the destruction of Alderaan, without that look under the hood showing people galaxy-wide what the Empire was really about, would the Rebellion be able to muster the numbers it took to beat the Empire back?

"Always in motion, the future is." -was one of several quotes I remembered from Grandmaster Yoda, and if there was one thing that Back to the Future, Terminator, The Butterfly Effect, and other time travel movies taught me, it was that events in time were either fixed -thus disproving the very notion of free will-, or that any attempt to make things better by stopping something bad from happening in advance almost always made things a million times worse.

Like, say I prevent the destruction of Alderaan: What's stopping Palpatine from blowing up another Core World like Chandrilla, or even his home world of Naboo as a massive power play to show that the Empire would go to any lengths?

Not to mention, just like Commander Shepard in Mass Effect 3, "One man can't move the universe."

The ending was massively divisive within the fanbase, both before and after the tertiary "Green Ending" was added, but if there was one thing I'd grown to accept as I got older, it was that sometimes a single person couldn't "save the universe". Sometimes, it had to be an effort on everyone's part, and that you wouldn't always get to live long enough to see if what you did ever made a difference. Not with something as old as an entire galaxy, with a lifespan as comparatively short as a Human's.

It really sucked getting Isekai'd into the Star Wars galaxy as "The Villager", but it wasn't like I'd had any choice as to the Why, When, What, Where, and How-slash-Who of it. Not everyone who "Reincarnated" into another world could save the whole damn thing. Some people got tossed to the side after getting summoned as part of a "bulk order". Some didn't have any "bargaining power" with the happenings of things at all. And as much as popular fiction back on Earth liked to paint getting Isekai'd as one of the best things that could happen to a person down on their luck, it was equally if not more likely that it could just be rolling out of a hot frying pan and into the fire.

I'd made peace with that. Or at least that's what I told myself as I struggled to find sleep at night.

"Amen to that," I hummed, meeting the rim of his glass with my own as we both indulged in some kind of vegetable juice made with a yellow root vegetable that looked a lot like a carrot. "So, how're the hydroponics doing?"

"We're getting by, but there's always gonna be a need for a courier we can actually tolerate," Bucky replied. "I seriously mean it, we're grateful that you've stuck by us for as long as you have. Most just stick around long-enough to afford the mods & upgrades that'll let them handle bigger and better jobs."

"Well, I mean…" I said as I scratched my cheek. "What good are Credits compared to your soul, you know?"

"I can agree with that," he nodded, looking out at the bridge as the rest of the deck crew went about their tasks, monitoring things like the condition of the fortress to Lotho Minor's shifting weather patterns. "So, once you drop off those Jawas, where do you think your next big adventure will take you?"

"Wherever the money is, I guess," I said as I drank. "Any luck finding a new home world for your people?"

Sure, the Lepi I'd seen around here were surviving, but "survival" and "living" weren't one and the same.

The ones living here still had one another, but that was about all they had.

"As long as the Empire is kicking, anywhere we try to settle down would just be on borrowed time," he said shaking his head. "There's always a few youngsters that leave to seek out some of the other Warrens, but for the time being, the best we can manage is to endure. As long as we out-live the Empire, we still win."

"Well, you're enthusiastic if nothing else," I hummed as I finished off my drink, a little blue-furred Lepi girl in some of the second-hand clothing I'd brought with me on this trip smiling up at me as she refreshed my beverage.

"You know, I'm sure there's a couple nice girls around here that'd just love to go off with a nice ship captain. If you catch my meaning~" Bucky grinned as he ribbed me lightly.

"I wouldn't want to take anyone away from their families."

Nor was this the first time such an offer had been made by Bucky or by fathers and/or mothers wanting a better life for their children who didn't mind the idea of Primate-Descended humanoids.

Sure, Star Wars wasn't a stranger to sexualizing aliens like a lot of sci-fi, but I just wasn't sure how to feel about interspecies relationships, even with all the time I'd spent among the stars. Twi'lek and Togruta were obvious ones, but me and a Lepi girl…

Did it count as being a Furry if they were an alien who looked like something from a home world that didn't exist in this universe?

That aside, you don't piss in your drinking water, and the whole thing felt too much like a "mail order bride" for my comfort...

*STAR WARS*

With the Not Yet Dead's hold filled to bursting with loot and Jawas willing to forego personal comfort in exchange for a leg up on Tatooine's competitive scrap wholesaling market, Max and Clank and I departed Lotho Minor, ferried the little scrap gremlins back home, and made way to our next port of call after loading up on another planet.

*STAR WARS*

The planet of Tao, located in the Outer Rim Territories, was a terrestrial world with a breathable atmosphere, surface oceans covered with sub-continents and forested archipelagos with the occasional rocky mountain or mountain range, and two moons.

It was a planet that had struggled to modernize despite its abundance of resources even during the height of the Old Republic, but during the Imperial Era had accepted Galactic Empire occupation in exchange for accelerated industrial advancement. While Tao's natural environment had suffered as a result of the Imperial industry, a small upside to the place was that the local Moph had fallen in love with the aesthetic of the finer regions of the planet, in particular, the Sakura blossoms that bloomed on set intervals, allowing some semblance of its pristine beauty to be preserved by policy.

Unlike Naboo, birthplace of the Emperor, the cost of living on Tao was relatively cheap once you were able to pay for the upfront costs of settling, and it was actually a world I was seriously considering retiring to after I got too old to galivant through the Star Wars galaxy. The gravity was comfortable, the seasonal shifts were tolerable, the food in places was amazing, the architecture was familiar, and the atmosphere wasn't choked with industrial gasses thanks to the installation of Atmospheric Scrubbers near the major manufacturing centers.

Of course, the major con in relation to the pros was the strong Imperial presence on the planet. Storm Troopers weren't everywhere, but you could feel the breath of the Empire on the back of your neck whenever a Star Destroyer came planet side or a Tie Fighter flew overhead.

All that said, the money to be made here was quite good. Not only were there always jobs to move cargo to and from, but cross-planet jobs were also in demand for appropriately-sized ships. The architecture was like late 20th century Earth outside the industrial centers, so because of how many sub-continents and archipelagos there were, there wasn't any major rail system that spanned the whole planet like you'd find on Corruscant, or even 20th century Earth. The only real alternative was by sea, but after the introduction of overnight delivery, people wanted certain things.

I hadn't been to every port of call on this planet, but the familiar scenery helped me feel like I were back at home. At least as long as I didn't pay attention to the chicken scratch on the signs or the Space Nazis or the literal aliens.

On our final day in port before the next job I'd lined up took us off-world, right as we were carrying out the mandatory pre-flight checks...

"Hey Captain."

"Yes, Max?"

"Infra-security's picking up a weight discrepancy."

" . . . Clank, man the bridge. Max and I will check the hold."

*STAR WARS*

Down in the belly of the YT-1000, Max and I squat walked about, Blasters set to Stun.

Not only because I didn't wanna damage my livelihood, but also because while it was possibly some hooligan stowing away, it was just as likely that it were some adventurous kid, or just a wild animal.

This wasn't the first time I'd had to contend with stowaways; back then it was with Clank, but now it was a bona-fide Clone Trooper. In fact, the entire reason I had that after-market weight sensor installed was so that if any sudden increases in weight happened while I was out getting groceries, I wouldn't inadvertently give anyone a free ride.

It wasn't like the Not Yet Dead couldn't handle live fare either, it was just a matter of the ship's "utilitarian" aesthetic being unsuitable to keeping tourists content. Not to mention, ferrying randos from planet to planet sounded like a good way to get pulled over by the Empire and get shipped off to a labor camp. For a ship like mine, it was just more-profitable to only worry about non-living fare.

Of course, since the chances were just as likely that it were an animal that'd made its way on than something outright sentient, it was also part of the reason I had infra-security measures in the hold; heat sensors in particular, which made it rather easy for Max and I to corner out little Plus One thanks to the R-Series' chattering in my earpiece.

Max and I passing the consumables down in the corner, giving the clone a three-count, when that bottomed out Clank hit the internal lights, the two of us poking our Blasters around the corner.

"EEP!"

"Hands where we can see them," I said firmly, taking in our quarry once I was sure the Blaster bolts wouldn't start flying.

She was a Lepi girl of an age I couldn't determine, her face and the insides of her ears cream-colored, the majority of her fur a light shade of brown, while her "hair", ears, and outermost extremities were a far darker shade of brown. Clutched in her arms was an orange TD-4 companion droid, tiny bordering on pet-like with a large camera-like eye, light blue accents on its chassis and white accents on its "face". The Lepi's attire consisted of a grungy gray shirt that had probably been white at some point, baggy gray pants, and what turned my stomach most of all, a black slave color with two red LEDs on the front. She and the tiny droid stared at me fearfully with blue eyes the color of the ocean, bunching themselves into the corner as they waited for me to decide their fate.

" . . . Are you a criminal?"

"W-What?" the Lepi girl stuttered.

"Are you a criminal? Do you have any priors?"

"Oh, uh, n-no, sir," she replied.

" . . . "

*STAR WARS*

A minute later, and Max and I were sitting across from our little stowaway in the lounge, the Lepi girl hungrily eyeing the bowl of fruit I'd laid out on the table between us.

"Eat. We're not in any rush to leave," I said nudging the bowl forward.

"Th-Thank you, but I'm not hung-"

*Growrrrrrrrr*

" . . . I'll be in your care," she bowed like was common on Tao, the barest trace of a blush visible on her cream-colored muzzle as she tucked into the local fruits I'd sourced to prevent "Space-Scurvy", TD-4 and CL-4NK chattering animatedly off to the side as the girl ate.

"So… What's your name?"

*Om-Nom-Nom* *Gulp* "I'm Lop."

"Where are your parents?"

"My mother and father aren't around anymore," she answered, downtrodden.

"I see…" I hummed, eyeing her oppressive black collar.

Now what she wasn't pressing herself into a dark corner between crates of rations, something I actually noticed was the thing was big-enough to slip her head out of.

Were the Imperials too-cheap to make size-appropriate collars, or were they just rigged to go off if someone tried to take them off and the size thing was just more mind-fuckery?

Both were possibilities I wouldn't put past some Imperial Moph…

"I take it you're one of the Empire's slaves."

"I am. Are you… going to turn me in?"

"I'd prefer not to…"

"Oh, in that case!" she smiled my way, sucking some of the fruit juice from her fingers before taking a bobbing pin from behind her ear and fiddling with something on the right side of her collar, the thing snapping open on a hinged joint at the other side a moment later.

"Wait, you could take off that collar at any time?!" Max blinked incredulously.

"Well, yeah~" Lop answered, her expression brightening as she fluffed up her neck fur. "I'd be a lot more visible if I didn't have one, you know~?"

"Like hiding in plain sight…"

If you're an Alien, the Storm Trooper Corps. will most assuredly pull you over.

However, if you look like a Slave out on an errand for your Master, they'll let you slide on the off-chance you're under the purview of someone whose ass they have to kiss.

"Um… I'm sorry for stowing away. And for eating all your fruit," she blushed as she stared down into the empty food bowl. "I-I'll pay you back! Do you need a swabbie? Maybe an errand girl? TD and I can do some light mechanical stuff too!" she said desperately.

"Relax, I'm not going to hand you over to the Empire."

Only reason I was speaking so candidly on an Imperial-controlled world, apart from the fact that this berth was in the hands of a curmudgeonly-looking Human with a Japanese accent that had little love for what the Empire did to his planet, is the fact that my infra-security mods also covered electronic wiretaps. Wiretaps that Clank swept for on the hour every hour since the Empire could plant those things without any sort of warrant.

"Yeah, some of the captain's best clients are Lepi!" Max said clapping me on the shoulder.

"R-Really?" Lop gasped, eyes going wide.

"Well, I mean…" I blushed slightly. "Being less of an asshole than the other assholes is hardly an achievement, you know?"

"Still though, I feel loads better knowing this ship has such a nice captain~" she smiled prettily.

"Why this one specifically?"

"I… I had a good feeling. That's all," she said growing suddenly reticent.

"I see," I nodded, a chime coming in from the bridge. "Hold on a second."

*STAR WARS*

After telling the portman that one of the pre-flight checks came up "red", we were given an additional hour before we'd either have to pay for another half-day or take off regardless.

With that time bought, Clank and TD still chatting animatedly, the three of us decided on how things would go from here.

Since Lop's parents had used TD's first command after being refurbished to wipe her identity off the Imperial forced labor record, there was little risk of her being repatriated to the labor camps since in the eyes of the Empire "all Lepi looked the same". Since that time, she'd been living on the streets, moving from place to place as her "sixth sense" dictated, staying well ahead of Imperial inquiries since there were slave owners out there who used their Lepi for things other than soul-crushing, back-breaking manual labor.

Of course, word had begun to get around in recent years that there was a suspected Lepi escapee running around, which was why Lop had chosen now to get off-world. And it was purely coincidental that it was on the ship of a pilot with a positive leaning toward the Lepi race.

With that in mind, while my own sixth sense wasn't going off, I still felt it prudent to get off of Tao before the Empire somehow traced Lop to this berth.

The security level on this planet was still on the low side of things, so it'd be easy to gather up some off-world fare and use one of the spare Chain Codes that Bucky had given me to get Lop past preliminary screening. And the reason he'd prepared Chain Codes for me to use was this exact situation, where I needed to get a Lepi slave or free citizen off an Imperial-controlled world. After that, I'd bring them to the Lotho Minor Warren where they would either stay, or move to any of the other Lepi communes out in the galaxy.

We didn't really have any clothing that fit Lop, but going out clothes shopping would be really pushing our luck; doubly-so if the Empire did cursory research on the vessel I captained and found out I had no females in Lop's size on my officially-registered crew. So, I gave the Lepi girl the run of my wardrobe after freshening up in the sonic shower.

Thankfully, Bucky's Chain Codes were still good, because apart from a casual inquiry as to the nature of my departure toward the Outer Rim, the Star Destroyer floating overhead barely gave me a second glance.

*STAR WARS*

The giving-way of star lines to the tunneling blue whorl of Hyperspace was all the hint I needed that it was finally safe to un-clench.

"Whoo. We're clear," I sighed, slumping back in my chair as Max manned the controls.

"I've got things here, captain. Why don't you go back, see to our little guest~"

"Max, why are you waggling your eyebrows like that?"

"I think you know why~ I saw the way she was lookin' at you~"

"I mean… Yeah, I know that Twi'lek and even Togruta are sex objects in some circles, but isn't being a Furry still frowned upon?"

"I don't know what a 'Furry' is," Max said rolling that unfamiliar word on his tongue, "but maybe that girl's sweet on you, or maybe she ain't. You miss 100% of the shots you don't take," he said patting his sidearm.

" . . . I don't even know if she's 'legal'. And besides, maybe she's just grateful and there's nothing romantic or sexual happening between us."

"Not with that attitude there ain't. Now go on, get. There ain't nothin' wrong with likin' alien girls. You're just as alien to her as she is to you."

I mean… Can't really argue with that logic…

*STAR WARS*

Lop's fur, or more specifically her "hair", once filthy from a life on the streets with infrequent bathing and no hair product, had fluffed up to almost twice its original volume, the excess drawn up like a high ponytail. The white tee she borrowed from me was almost like something she swam in, the cobalt shorts she borrowed hanging lopsided off her waist.

Out of those street rags and cleaned up like this she certainly looked enticing, and she technically was an alien who only "coincidentally" looked like an anthropomorphized animal from my home world, so I guess if anything happened between us, I wasn't technically a Furry, more a "Xenophile" or a "Xenosexual".

I guess in a universe with space travel and actual aliens, "Furry" culture wouldn't possess the same connotation, or even exist at all like it did on Earth.

But, like I kept telling myself and also Max, none of that mattered if A) she wasn't actually into me either now or in the future, and B) if she was still under-aged as far as the Lepi were concerned. And honestly, with how many planets of varying orbits there were in the Star Wars universe, it was amazing any sort of consensus for a "standard year" was ever reached. Let alone for those that aged at accelerated or decelerated rates.

"So… How do I look?" she asked giving me a little twirl, her long rabbit ears flaring out before falling back down past her armpits, almost to her waist, a cute cotton tail poking up from the waistline of the borrowed shorts.

"Cute. Very cute," I replied, resisting the urge to pet her since that might come across as violently racist.

Specieist? Speciesist? Whatever.

"Thanks," she smiled, her bucked teeth and glimmering eyes adding to her charm. "Oh, but don't worry, I'll definitely earn my way! So, um, what do you want me to do first?"

"First we'll un-clench," I replied, taking a seat in the lounge. "Oh, and before I put you to work, I wanna run you by the Doc to make sure you have a clean bill of health," I said gesturing over to a closet door with a red medical cross painted on the front. "And I guess if you absolutely have to get rid of this, we can drop out of hyperspace for a second and cycle it through the garbage chute," I hummed as I held her collar in my hand.

I didn't usually dump my trash in the middle-of-nowhere space where it could take out an un-shielded vessel, but sometimes it needed doing, and you could usually get away with it as long as no-one was watching.

"Honestly?" she blinked. "I've been wearing that thing for so long, I stopped noticing it was even there," Lop hummed, rubbing her neck underneath all her fluff. "Althouuuugh~ I guess if we ever wind up somewhere like Ziggeria and have to put on an act, I can always reprise the role~ Maybe put on a metal bikini~"

Would a metal bikini even work with the fur? Would the Ziggerians actually think better, or worse of me if I had a Lepi dress like that?

Thoughts I'll save, or discard entirely, as soon as I find out whether or not she's legal by her race's standards.

*STAR WARS*

With the nationalization of almost every commodity imaginable, like a cancer spreading across the cosmos, Empire-centric Walmart-equivalents could be found in almost every major town on every world.

Going up to the cashier and asking for a Med-Droid data-patch for just a Lepi would be suspicious, but not if I asked for data drives on Ugnaught, Twi'lek, and Wookies -all of which were common slave species- as well.

The cashier, thinking I was either a slave owner myself or the subordinate-of, hardly batted an eye as they processed my order; an order bogged down with over-the-counter meds and brand-name snack foods to make it look like I were doing some last-minute grocery shopping before leaving for our next port of call, and not participating in some sort of slave-liberation ring.

*STAR WARS*

After disgorging the cargo we got from Tao and replacing it with new wares, while Clank plotted our next hyperspace jump, I sat Lop down with our ship's medical droid, an old 2-1B model that was popular during the Clone Wars.

Wanting to give Lop at least some semblance of privacy, I left the girl to her checkup and vaccinations as I went back to the engine compartment, giving everything a once-over with a diagnosis tool before we ran our pre-flight checks.

"Captain."

"Max."

"How's our new swabbie doing?" the Clone Trooper asked.

"She's acclimating very well," I replied. "She's getting her checkup as we speak, and as soon as I have her measurements, we'll get some clothes for her on the next friendly trade world."

"That was still pretty clever of her, using a fake slave collar to make the Imps think she were still on the leash," Max hummed, having long since gotten over the failures of the Republic. "Commander Skywalker once infiltrated Zygerria that way, though I think Ahsoka was a little under-age to be in a metal bikini…"

"Kettle, meet pot."

"Hah," he laughed a monosyllabic laugh.

That too was something he'd come to terms with, given the culture of the Clone Trooper program.

"So, we heading back to Lotho Minor?" the Clone Trooper asked.

"Not yet. They haven't forwarded another supply request to the guild."

"Well, at least they always request you by name."

"Perhaps, though the other pilots in the guild don't think very highly of me."

"I didn't think you were one to care about the opinions of complete strangers," the Clone Trooper said crossing his arms.

"I don't, but I do have to maintain a certain image so they don't walk all over me," I grumbled.

The Courier Guild had a high turnover rate, whether it was getting blown out of the sky by an Imp with an itchy trigger finger, getting their vessel scuttled by pirates, or simply going into "private practice" which was a PR-friendly way of admitting one of our members turned to piracy. The members didn't outright sabotage one another, same rule as in the Bounty Hunting Guild, but that didn't stop back-handed forms of sabotage from occurring either. Sometimes it was smear campaigns, sometimes it was tipping pirates off, though if the aggrieved was able to get away or push them back, follow-up investigations usually turned out badly for the offending party in the case of the latter.

Getting some hired muscle in full armor had certainly helped my standing within the organization, and it was likely once I got Lop fully registered as part of my crew, that I'd get a little less pushback from the mixed-species crews in the guild as well. Of course, to minimize the risk of Lop being traced back to Tao's penal colonies, we'd have to put a couple galactic arms between there and where I "officially" brought her into the fold.

So-many aliens took up jobs with shippers just to get off-world, that no-one would bat an eye.

"Speaking of, how's she been faring in the simulator?" I asked gesturing idly toward the dorsal dual-laser turret.

"That Lop's a real crack shot," the Clone Trooper nodded. "Pretty soon she'll be better at it than me. Not that that's much of a stretch; I am getting on in years. I'm just glad you'll have a replacement on standby when I… you know…"

"If the Guild doesn't wanna pay your pension, I'm sure I can put you up somewhere nice on Tao. Maybe a nice fishing village, or a hot spring town."

And sure, sonic showers did the job just as well, but sometimes it just has to be hot water.

"I appreciate the thought, captain, but I think I'd rather go down fighting. Don't think I could face my brothers in the Manda otherwise."

"I mean, I won't disparage you your religion, but let's save that sort of talk for when we're in an atmosphere and not in the vacuum of space."

"Yeah, I suppose that's fair. I'd be a pretty bad Trooper if I got my captain killed."

*STAR WARS*

"So, Doctor Bee, how is the patient?" I asked once our pre-flight check was complete and we were underway.

"Swabbie Lop is the picture-perfect definition of health. She has been vaccinated to the most-common pathogens shippers face, and is well within the acceptable range to being partaking in recreational breeding practices," the 2-1B replied in his smooth monotone a moment after Lop came around the corner.

"EEEEEEEEE!" the Lepi squealed once the droid's words really bounced around inside her head, her muzzle turning as red as a Sith lightsaber before she ran for the nearest floor hatch and threw herself into the cargo hold.

"Was that last bit really necessary to tell me?" I asked in exasperation.

"I am simply relaying my findings, sir," the droid doctor replied in his no-nonsense tone.

" . . . Please go back to your charging station."

"Of course, sir."

" . . . "

*STAR WARS*

"Lop? Looooop?" I called out into the cargo hold as I squat-walked about. "Don't take what Doc said personally. His personality matrix doesn't come with a filter."

Spotting the blue-glow of common hologram technology down in the corner between two familiar crates of rations, I squat-walked over to one of them before knocking on the nearby crate.

*Knock*Knocok* "Lop. Can I come in?"

"Oh, um, sure," the Lepi replied, waving me in to sit beside her and TD.

Shimmying in beside her, shoulder to shoulder with the alien girl, she turned her attention back to the tiny pet-droid in her lap, the emitter to the left of TD's eye projecting an image of three Lepi. It was impossible to determine what color their fur was because of the hologram, but even though Lop's parents were tired and brow-beaten by the Empire at the time this image was taken by the freshly-refurbished droid, as they held a tiny Lop half the size of the one I knew now, I could tell that there was genuine love in there.

"Um-"

"Ah-"

"You go first," I offered.

"Oh, well…" Lop hummed as she scratched her cheek. "My parents… They wanted the best for me. They put everything on the line for me, and… now they aren't around anymore."

" . . . "

"My father wanted me to get away from Tao, from the Empire, but my mom," she giggled. "My mom wanted me to meet a nice boy and settle down. She didn't really care if he were a Lepi or not. All that mattered was that he treated me right."

" . . . "

"So when Doc just… blurted out my dirty laundry like that… I guess I kinda panicked," she chuckled self-deprecatingly. "I didn't want you to think I was one of 'those girls' trying to get in your good graces through your button fly, you know?"

"So… why the hold and not the cabin?" I inquired, adding in a bit of levity.

Alien or not, it'd have still been improper to make Lop share the barracks with Max, so I gave her my cabin and had been bunk bedding with Max this whole time. Lop insisted that it was too much, but I insisted in turn that it was the right thing to do, and that I didn't mind the roommate.

Doubly-so because his expired Biochip has been excised and he has PTSD meds to get him through the worst of it.

"I'm a Lepi. Some part of me has always been comfortable below ground. Or what passes for it on a starship," the Lepi answered.

"That's a real clever droid you have there," I hummed giving the pet-droid a pat atop the head, the little guy chirping happily whereas Clank would either ignore me or jabber at the condescension. "Didn't set off any alarms on the way in. It's only because of the weight sensors that we even knew you were here."

"Well, I mean… You never know who's gonna try and bum a free ride," she chuckled, leaning into my side and holding TD close. "I really do appreciate all this. You taking me in, getting me off Tao. Giving me… a real chance…"

"Well, like Max said, some of my best customers are Lepi," I said reaching around her shoulders, hesitating for a moment before giving her a comforting pat. "So! When we get to the clothes store, what kind of colors are you interested in?"

*AN*

For those not familiar with Star Wars: Visions, that's where Lop, TD-4, and the planet of Tao are from; more specifically, from Volume 1 Episode 8 "Lop & Ocho".

I'd been contemplating making Alex and Ahsoka Tano the main pairing here, but after a while I thought better of it; seemed too on-the-nose, you know? Also, using a Lepi instead of a Togruta enabled some interesting mental commentary, and Lop is cute in her own right.

Anyway, this version of Lop is one that never got adopted by the Yasaburo Clan, and given how-easily TD took her slave collar off in her own Canon, with how my mind works, I just assumed she was wearing the collar as a "feint" for the occupying Imperial forces. A slave with a collar is practically invisible, but a "slave species" without one will stick out like a sore thumb.

Star Wars: The Traveler and the Trooper is by far my most "casual" work outside my current "rotation" of Giant-Slayer (RWBY), Vigorous Vitality (My Hero Academia), Young Justice: The Hunter (Young Justice), and Chronicle of Zhu (Legend of Korra), so while I don't have a set date in mind for this story's update, I certainly hope to not let this one lapse for another two years.

If anyone wants to discuss potential plot ideas for Alex & Co.'s adventures through a pre-Trilogy "far, far away galaxy", hit me up on Discord; my username is NewMystery356 .