Chapter Three
Jedi Sentinel: Cult of Fear
Parassis was lousy with birds. There were fish and insects, to be sure, but the few remaining reptiles and mammals were tiny things. Mere playthings compared to the fauna of other planets. Rising waters, and millions of years, had left little dry land for them to roam. They’d become isolated, inbred, and most had met extinction.
Only the birds could travel freely between island sanctuaries, so they thrived… and multiplied. They invaded every ecological niche and even returned to the sea. Terrorbirds prowled the jungle, striking down toy elephants with their battle axe beaks. Billygrouse nimbly scaled cliffs and smashed their bony foreheads together over mates. Dragonbirds lurked in the deep blue, ready to snap speeders in twain with their long, toothy maws. Owlrats infested every human settlement.
Tooka considered it an object lesson: In this life, you seize every opportunity.
That’s why she lived in a tree behind a dressmaker’s shop. It’s also why she made her own clothes, mostly from the dressmaker’s scraps. But it’s not why she kept a toy elephant as a pet. They were just so dwang cute with their floppy ears and teeny tiny toe feet. Aren’t you just the cutest? Yes you are!
Every morning, Tooka lugged her drum down to the beach and welcomed the sun. Not by herself, of course. That would make her a lone weirdo. She welcomed the sun with a small coterie of other musicians, some pro and some not, who just wanted old man Parassis to know he was missed. It was also a nice warm up before hitting the streets and performing for real.
But first… breakfast! Her favorite little spot in town was the alley behind Jerash’s nightclub, Repose, because ain’t nobody there first thing in the morning. Nobody who’s conscious, anyway. Tooka would meet her fellow urchins there and barter for stolen food. Or found food, depending on your point of view.
Once she’d had her fill of scraps and gossip, Tooka would run her fingers through her greasy hair, shrug on her signature patchwork vest, and take center stage on whatever unoccupied corner of Debtor’s Run she could find… and defend. Uncle Xen had been teaching her martial arts for years and the busking scene on Hiatus gave her plenty of chances to practice.
On this particular day, a hallisek player named Trum tried to horn in on her action. His seven strings had nothing on her drums for sheer decibels, so he attacked her rhythm insead. He fired discordant plucks into her every off-beat, swept her melodies out from under her with dissonant notes.
He was kind of an ass.
Rather than huck a rock in his bug-eyed face, she challenged him to a duel. Winner got the whole take for the day. That attracted a much bigger crowd than either of them could have on their own. Their battle was epic, one for the ages! They silenced the birds and made the jungle tremble. Well, they sounded pretty good, anyway. Good enough for quite a large pot.
In the end, she let Trum win. He needed the money more. No treehouse behind a dressmaker’s shop for him; that hallisek was his only possession. And Tooka cared more about the music than the money. To his credit, he offered her a cut after the fact… and hey, she took it. Fair is fair.
The whole adventure did leave her a bit vulnerable to a bad deal later, though. It came shortly after Tullum and Jerash had their famous falling out. Tooka was there when the Alderaanian’s well-dressed backside landed in the dirt outside Repose. Got tossed out like the morning trash.
“If you wanted me gone, all you had to do was turn the lights up!” Tullum hollered back through the beaded doorway. It parted to admit Jerash, who was still dusting off his hands. “Your decor is atrocious!”
It was hard to tell when a Bith was smiling. You had to pay attention to the eyebrows. By that measure, Jerash was grinning from ear to ear. “I think tossing your gaudy ass out really brings the room together.”
Tullum took his time beating the dust from his baby blue, crushed velvet half-cape. His eyes darted around to all the lookers-on, especially the tourists. He gathered up the dregs of his dignity and lifted his chin toward Jerash. “After all the credits I’ve dropped in this two-bit gin joint — “
“You’re tab’s a lightyear long!” the Bith countered with a jab of his accusing finger. “Count yourself lucky to have landed in the street and not a debtor’s prison.” He looked off into the distance, stroking his sunken chin. “I don’t suppose your rich family would be willing to pay a ransom?”
Tullum stammered a non-response, uncharacteristically speechless.
“Of course not,” Jerash agreed before rolling up his sleeves. “Maybe they’d pay to be rid of you once and for all…”
“You impertinent swill-slinger!” Tullum roared, face red as a birdboon’s butt. “I’ll have you jailed for assault! I’ll own this trash heap!”
“Because you’re on such good terms with the sheriff,” Jerash chortled.
“I’m sure. Why don’t you take all your credits and run back home to Alderaan? You’ve overstayed your welcome here.”
“I’ll go where I please,” Tullum muttered as Jerash waved him away and returned to the dark interior of his club. “I’ve had better drinks in a Corellian gutter,” the grifter declared, louder this time, for the sake of the gawkers.
“I’m sure you have!” someone heckled from the crowd, to no small amount of laughter. Tooka found herself among the gigglers. Generally, she was against taking pleasure in the misfortunes of others, but funny was funny.
“Miss Watanaya,” a voice addressed her from out of nowhere. Tooka nearly threw an elbow in the sneaky bastard’s face. It was one of Jerash’s dancers; Tooka barely recognized him outside of his makeup. And fully clothed.
“Who’s asking?” It was a reflex response.
“Jerash would like a word with you,” he smiled prettily. All of Jerash’s dancers were pretty, especially the men.
“Oh yeah?” Tooka demurred, immediately skeptical. “Which one?”
“He said you’re a firecracker,” the messenger smirked. “Come on. It’ll be worth your while, I promise.”
What else was she gonna do? Tullum’s improv comedy tour had dispersed the crowd. Might as well take a break in the shade.
They entered through the back, but the dancer brought Tooka out into the main room directly. It was still early, so the place was mostly empty, just a few hardcore drunks and shady folks discussing shadier business. Jerash was sitting at the bar, sipping an ale through a straw whilst surveying his domain. “What do you drink?” he asked her without making eye contact.
“Anything on the top shelf, budget permitting,” she gambled.
He did spare her a look after that, a slant-eyed one, if such a description could be applied to those enormous, black orbs. He waved to the bartender, who poured her a Merezane Gold. Things were looking up!
“How’d you like to perform on stage, kid?”
Tooka struggled valiantly to avoid spitting her very expensive drink all over the bar. She was not entirely successful. “Here?” she sputtered.
“Where else?”
She was hard pressed to offer an alternative. “Last time I auditioned, you said my music would be more appropriate accompaniment to a seabird mating frenzy.”
Jerash raised his eyebrows and shrugged. “You want the gig or not?”
“Yeah, I want the gig!” Even if she got booed off stage five minutes into her set, she’d likely make more than a week’s worth of street tips. Tooka didn’t play for the money, but still.
“Great. Chella will give you the details and,” he noted, looking her up and down, “appropriate costuming. You start tonight.”
On cue, the dancer reappeared by Tooka’s side and ushered her away. “Thanks for the opportunity, Mr Alban! You won’t regret it!” she bubbled as she slammed the rest of her top-shelf bubbly.
He waved her away, already over it.
“Gods! Are you even open?”
“Yes, yes. We’re open.” Skeeves couldn’t believe his misfortune. He’d overheard Tullum’s little soap opera — and had a good laugh, like everyone else — but now the sagging windbag was actually inside his pub. And apparently looking for service! “What can I do for you?”
“I need a drink.” Alderaanians were famous for understatement. “Pour me a glass of your second finest beverage. I’d like to preserve the illusion that you’ve got something truly adequate tucked away for special occasions.”
The Yarkora rolled his eyes so hard he nearly lost them, but he waved the bartending droid away and took care of this himself. “How about a nice Andoan White?” he offered.
“How about that Ambrostine?” the old grifter countered, pointing toward the top shelf.
“I hope you’re not looking to start a tab.”
No one could feign indignation like Tullum Aletia of Alderaan. Or maybe he really was indignant. It was impossible to tell, which was the downside of being a famous liar. “I’m good for it! In fact, my coffers are even more full than usual, on account of an unexpected inheritance.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” The barkeep really was.
“Don’t be,” Tullum glowered, clutching his glass as Skeeves poured. “His money was the only good thing about Uncle Trufta, and it lives on.” He raised his glass, presumably in a toast to the departed, before taking a long sip.
The vintage seemed to agree with him, because he leaned over the bar conspiratorially. “I suppose you witnessed my little… altercation just now?” Skeeves nodded warily. “Well, it was a Bith’s irrational reaction to being offered money. I know! I wanted to invest my windfall in something tangible, something I could personally enjoy, and I suggested that his sultry dive could benefit from a few renovations. It would seem Jerash believes he has already achieved perfection. Can you imagine the arrogance?!”
The barkeep really couldn’t, but then he wasn’t trying very hard. Instead, his mind was a whirlwind of nefarious conjecture. An investor with deep pockets could work wonders for The Wishing Tree! More droids, a bigger kitchen, some mood lighting, a fresh coat of paint… the grand dame’s best days could yet be ahead of her. If only he could convince Tullum to stay on the island and switch his allegiances.
“For the best, I’m sure,” he began, topping off Tullum’s glass. “I hear Alderaan is breathtaking. I mean, you’ve seen it all before, so I guess it’ll just be more of the same to you. How are the beaches, there?”
“Breathtaking,” Tullum sighed.
“Sure, but what about the nightlife?”
“Exactly as breathtaking.”
“I know!” the barkeep was scrambling, now. “But the food, right?”
“Best in the galaxy.” Tullum sipped his beverage gingerly, eyes a thousand lightyears away. “Do you know what I will miss? The people. Everyone on Alderaan is so…” he stood up straight and held out a solitary pinky. “It bores me to death. People are never more themselves than when they are on vacation.”
“Why don’t you stay, then?!” Skeeves all but barked, desperate to spring his trap. “I’m sure you could find some other real estate to invest in.”
Tullum’s eyes brightened. “Like an art gallery!”
Skeeves resisted the urge to slap his prodigious forehead. “Sure, or maybe a nightclub of your own? I bet you could really put Jerash to shame.”
That warmed Tullum to the idea. “Yeah, yeah. Bet I could pick up one of those old mining structures for a song, up near the spaceport. I’d pick off all the tourists before they got close enough to smell the stale sweat wafting out of Repose.”
“Absolutely!” Skeeves testified. “Of course, you’d have to hire a staff. Hospitality is a time-intensive profession. Believe me, running a bar all by yourself is a chore. Chores upon chores! It’s pretty much nothing but chores, is my point.”
The Alderaanian’s eyes wandered around the place. Skeeves waited for the idea to take root while he poured himself a glass of the Ambrostine.
“I don’t suppose you’d consider taking on a partner?” Moneybags finally asked.
Skeeves played it coy, like a professional. “Oh, I don’t mind chores. Gotta keep busy, you know.”
“No, an investor, you clod!” Tullum’s steel gray glare was withering. “How would you feel about taking on a silent partner with a few ideas about how we could class up the joint and get her swinging again?”
“I dunno. We’d have to shut down during renovations and — “
“Come on!” the grifter exploded. “I’ll bankroll the whole thing! Just gimme a private table, alright? And a cut of the profits, obviously.”
“Obviously.”
Skeeves raised his glass and they toasted their mutual good fortune.
“Cairn! The most wonderful thing happened!”
It was late afternoon when Cairn Stobi caught her paramour exiting the Serenity Self-Help Center for — she hoped against hope — a perfectly good reason. The place was like a temple’s younger sibling: smaller and less developed, but generally the same thing. A high arch of frosted glass framed the double doors, still swinging from Taos’ departure. The company logo, a stylized solar eclipse in black and gold, sat high atop. It looked pretty pleased with itself.
“What were you doing in there?” Cairn’s bony eyebrows furrowed in concern, though the situation called more for scorn and relentless mockery. She shifted her bag of produce to her other arm and accepted a quick kiss from her beloved. “Did you need to remind yourself why it is we never, ever go in there?”
“Well, I didn’t go in on purpose,” Taos excused herself. “Someone must’ve carried me in after the attack, while I was hallucinating.”
“WHAT?!” Cairn almost dropped her groceries. “Who attacked you? Are you okay?”
“Better than okay!” Taos flipped her loose curls over her shoulder and took the bag from her lover. “I mean, things were kinda hairy during the convulsions and horrible visions, but — “
“What happened?!?!”
“Alright, alright!” the shorter woman smiled, perfectly at ease. “I’ll tell you on the way home. It’s okay, really! Everything’s fine. I’m fine.”
Cairn was patting her down, checking for wounds. Taos swatted her hands away and started walking up Debtor’s Run. Cairn followed, scanning the crowd for potential threats, wishing she wore a blaster. “What happened?”
“So, I was walking down the Run a few hours ago, on my way to the beach, when some joker in a dark hood blew this black powder in my face.” Taos blew her a kiss in lieu of a reenactment. “Suddenly, I was back in that cockpit, the one where… this happened.” She pointed to her right arm, the prosthetic one that had brought them together.
“I was half way through an s-turn, upside-down and diving toward the green plains of Dantooine, pulling back on the stick as hard as I could. The ground was coming closer and closer and closer until I realized, with soul-crushing certainty, there wasn’t enough room to level this turkey off. I was going to crash. It was inevitable.”
Cairn reached out to comfort her and Taos accepted the gesture with grace, but didn’t seem to appreciate it. Something was off.
“It’s okay, periwinkle. You know, I’ve been carrying that moment around with me for so long, feeling that terror in the back of my mind, I didn’t even realize what a burden it was. But now… it’s just a story, like it happened to someone else. Like I watched it on a holo. I don’t mind talking about it.”
“What’s different now?” Cairn asked with naked suspicion.
“There I was, reliving my worst fear, right? But in reality, I was convulsing in the street, writhing around in the dirt. Or so they told me. Some passers-by carried me into the clinic… and good thing they did, because those Serenity people knew exactly what to do.”
“What did they do?”
“I dunno, but it took my fear away, whatever it was. Just took it away! Or maybe they helped me put it down, like a pile of rocks. Metaphors, right? Anyway, I woke up in there and they gave me a bunch of pamphlets.”
She actually produced the pamphlets, held them out to Cairn like she was supposed to read them. The Bith slapped them out of her lover’s hand.
“What did they do to you?!”
“It’s all for the better, Stobi. You’ll see.”
They’d arrived. The front of their apartment wasn’t much to write home about, just another rusty warehouse from the old mining days. It was conveniently near the spaceport, though, and they’d poured a lot of sweat equity into the interior.
A cavernous living room welcomed them, glowing with the red and brown hues of every kind of wood: warm redwoods and cedar, dark oaks and pale driftwood, white birch and knotty pine. Cairn was quite the carpenter. She’d made all their furniture and most of the art that hung on their walls. Half-finished pieces littered the floor.
Taos’ hobby was in the kitchen, which is also where she put the groceries. It was a serious affair with plenty of counter space and a walk-in pantry. She prided herself on preparing dishes from many different cuisines, which meant collecting every kind of cookware. It hung from the ceiling and sprouted from bins.
She cleared a spot on the counter and parked the groceries, pausing for a moment before locking eyes with Cairn. “Hey, you wanna just… get outta here? We could take the ship and fly away, fly so far and so fast that the company will never catch us!”
“Taos Zorya Mistral!” her partner exploded from the breakfast nook. “That ship doesn’t even belong to you. We’d be pirates and fugitives. Criminals! Don’t even joke about that.”
“Who’s joking?” Taos shot back, not cowed in the slightest. “That ship would be mine twice over, if not for the company’s ridiculous fees!”
Cairn closed on her sweet, brain damaged love and tried to de-escalate. She wrapped one arm around Taos’ waist and cradled her head in the other. “What did they do to you?”
“They helped me, darling bird,” Taos asserted before gently pushing her away and starting to unpack the vegetables.
“What about the person who attacked you in the first place?” Cairn couldn’t believe she’d forgotten about that already.
“No idea. Didn’t get a good look, what with the cloud of powder in my face and all. Not to mention the mind-shattered vision that followed.”
“Why would anyone want to hurt you?” Cairn honestly couldn’t imagine. Taos was instant friends with everyone.
“Can’t think of a reason,” Taos agreed. “I’m pretty great.”
Cairn looked up at the rafters and spun in a circle, exhaling a long breath. “Terrifying visions, poison powder, strangers in dark hoods…” This next part pained her. “Maybe you should talk to Xen about it.”
“Please!” Taos all but burst into laughter. “He’d probably storm corporate with his lightsaber and wreck up the place, cause a lot of trouble over nothing. Besides,” she added with a coy, sidelong look, “I thought you hated Xen.”
“He has his uses,” Cairn grumbled.
Taos put the produce down and sashayed toward her lover. “Come here,” she beckoned. “I’m gonna put you to some uses.”
Written by Daniel Bayn
Cover image by Midjourney
