Don't worry, he said. No worries, he said. Fucking easy to say when you're not stuck in an Imperial destroyer's tractorbeam. Don't worry, my fucking ass!
All I was doing was flying as casual as I could, avoiding as many of the main shipping lanes and keeping my distance from the larger ships, when WHAM! came the inescapable military-grade tractorbeam out of nowhere. Given that there had been at least dozen space-way blocks that I'd managed to come through without incident, there was a good chance this was a routine spot-check. To be on the safe side though, I threw out all of Londo's bloody fine green weed (I have to admit I cried a little when I saw it drift off into space), aired the cockpit and applied a few good sprays of freshener to get rid of any incriminating smell.
My comm crackled with official and bored-sounding bureaucratese instructing me to shut down my engines and prepare to be boarded and thoroughly searched, including a possible dismantling of my craft and body cavity search – sorry for the inconvenience. I nearly hyperventilated, replying in my most chipper, upbeat voice and threw in an inane laughter I hoped would be interpreted as being totally unsuspicious.
As my shuttle drifted steadily closer to the gaping maw of the destroyer's holding area, I spent a few moments succumbing to my weed-fueled paranoia, imagining my guts splattered across some stormtrooper's boot and my body flung out into space. Calm down. Stay calm. CALM DOWN! Ok. Check that there's no obvious evidence of drugs. Ok. It's all gone. Really, it is. What about me? Do I look like a junkie or anything other than a perfectly ordinary, normal wholesome Imperial Citizen? Looking into the mirror to check on my eyes, I was relieved to see they didn't look any more bloodshot than someone who had stayed up too late. I started to breathe easier with the thought that I might be able to pull this off. Now, the main thing was whether I could trust that Londo's people had done their job properly.
Hearing the familiar thudding noise of the shuttle being secured, I zipped up my jacket – noting with some dismay that the vomit-stains were still there – and was about the exit the shuttle when:
“DON'T GET OUT OF THE SHUTTLE!!!!! Stay inside the shuttle! DO as you are TOLD! You are being scanned!” a rather alarming voice screamed at me through the window, as I, effectively alarmed, jumped away from the door and nearly had a seizure. There was a low-pitched thrumming and a series of pulsing, electric fields that strafed my body, which I assumed to be the scanners – which I also assumed would either render me infertile or ensure my future offspring would be mutants.
“CLEAR!” the outside voice yelled. “Come out of the shuttle now!”
“Ok! Coming out!” I called to be sure that no one would shoot me upon stepping off the shuttle.
Gathering my datapads together, I stacked them in the order that I expected them to look at, doing my best to to demonstrate my cooperation and make the inspection go easier. My shoulders hunched over in submission, I stepped out the shuttle, putting on my most ingratiating smile for the expected, distracted grey-uniformed officer with his stormtroopers milling around – but was instead rendered completely frozen (and yet again alarmed and terrified) by the barrel of blaster-rifle rammed up my nose, as a lunatic screamed at me,
“TURN AROUND! TURN AROUND! Get up against the shuttle! Move it! Spread your feet! SPPPRREEEEEAAAD THEM!!!”
I rushed to comply, but honestly, did everything need to be screamed at the top his lungs? Wouldn't it be such a nicer experience, if everyone could speak in soft, dulcet tones, like that of patient receptionist? Maybe they could even try signing or semaphore for a day and see how nice the silence would be – instead of getting all upitty and riled up; really, it seemed as if the more they yelled the more agitated they became.
I had to say though, the yelling guy who seemed to be in charge was probably the most pointlessly aggressive officer I'd ever met, almost to the point of being humorous. As I thought of it, I could feel the giggles coming up... Oh, crap. I was still high. This was definitely not the time to take anything lightly, let alone giggle stupidly. With the effects of the weed still mercilessly tickling me, I struggled to keep a straight face throughout the absurdity of it all. It was thus a strange thing to be relieved to have my face smashed against the shuttle, as it made not laughing a lot easier.
After a rough pat-down that thankfully didn't involve any of my clothes being a removed, a jittery hand twirled me around, and I was suddenly facing a wild-eyed, unshaven psycho, who had apparently missed a few steps on the evolutionary rungs to civilization. Peering angrily into my eyes with a feral, unhinged look, he practically barked at me,
“Where's the stash! WHERE IS IT! Tell me now, you hippie! I know you have it! You're the type to have it, you damned fucking liberal. I can SMELL it on you! WHERE'S THE STASH!!!”
“Sir, there's nothing. I don't have anything,” I protested weakly, trying to calm him down, and using all my mental strength to keep myself from smirking at how completely hysterical this guy was (curse these fucking giggles). Was this guy for real? Was he even legit? The guy didn't look like a stormtrooper or officer. Instead of the usual plasticky white, the weirdo's loose-fitting body armor was a dusty-green that had a make-shift, hand-made look to it that was accentuated by the rocket launcher strapped onto his back that probably didn't even work.
“DON'T YOU LIE TO ME!!!!” the grizzled whack-job shrilled, his acrid, booze-tinged breath blazing in my face, causing my nose hairs to shrivel. “I know you have it! I'll fucking BEAT the shit out of you! TELL ME WHERE YOU'RE HIDING IT! Where is it? Where is it!!!”
“That's enough, Mr. Fet!” a deep gravely voice boomed, bringing an end to the screaming. “I know this man. I will deal with him personally. You can inspect the shuttle.”
“Yes, my Lord,” the formerly screaming guy grumbled, reluctantly letting me go and turning away – but not without casting me the I'm-watching-you stink-eye.
As I unkinked my body from being shoved up against the shuttle, a mechanical sweep of dark foreboding movement came before me. Looking up, I froze.
“Hello, Tim. No noodles this time, I trust?”
“No, Lord Vadah,” I gasped, straightening myself for a chest-bong salute.
There was a raspy chuckle through his respirator, as Vadah responded with a lazy wave and answered, “No need to salute me, Tim. Since you've been discharged, you're free from doing that, aren't you? And, 'sir' is fine.”
“Yes, sir!” I said, ram-rod straight, not daring to look him in the eye.
“Sorry about Fet. The Empire has been short-staffed lately, so we've enlisted some of the local officials to help out on bounty-basis for the smugglers they find. They tend to get the job done, but they're a bit hard to control,” Vadah explained apologetically.
“Yes, sir,” I answered promptly, expecting my death any moment.
“Take it easy, Tim,” Vadah said gently, putting his heavy robotic hand on my shoulder. “I know you've been through a lot. I'm curious to know how you've been.”
And, as my shuttle was ransacked and mechanically violated and probed over and over again in an effort to determine if I should be executed (with an apparent preference for a “yes”), I had a rather pleasant conversation catching up with the dreaded Dorth Vadah. Initially, it was hard to match my image of the guy being a singular force of Terror and Evil in the galaxy to his being actually fairly friendly and a good conversationalist. I figured either this was a very clever trick or he was very bored, but the truth of it was that, at this point, I had nothing to lose.
So, I found myself freely chatting to him about my time after being “discharged” (thanks, Jim!) from the treatment center on Tattoo-ine and my new life (and my cover story) as a delivery man – obviously leaving out the parts about the Rebellion. Rather surprisingly, he was understanding about my leaving the Service, and even sympathetic,
“Yeah, I don't blame you for leaving, Tim,” Vadah exhaled a sonorous breath through his respirator. “The Service is in desperate need of reform. I've told the Emperor so many times
that you guys aren't just mindless clones and need to be treated as individuals. But, even he can only do so much with the Senate having a stranglehold on the budget. We can only hope that with the mid-term elections something will change, but I doubt it.”
“You can always quit too, I guess,” I joked weakly, imagining the Emperor's most feared enforcer deciding to check out and tell the galaxy to screw itself and start a solitary life farming on an isolated planet somewhere.
“Ha! If only I could. You have no idea what hold the Emperor has over me,” the dark lord grimaced, as he shook his head. “And now with the Rebellion getting worse and their drug-running expanding, it's just going to get more difficult and busier. No way I can retire any time soon.”
“The Rebellion runs drugs?” I said innocently, feeling my smirk lifting the corners of my mouth, but kept it down by manufacturing an appropriate amount of conservative, family-values shock and indignation. “That's shocking! Have they been running weed?”
“Yes, but if it were only that, it wouldn't be so bad. I'd be a hypocrite to claim that I didn't partake in a little harmless toking in my youth,” Vadah said rolling his eyes, as I nearly collapsed into peals of laughter at my image of a lounging Vadah, getting high off a bubbling hookah funneling into his blinking chest-panel. “A few years ago, they were harmless and were a minor weed-advocacy group. But now! They all but control the drug cartel in the Empire and have enough fire-power to take down the most powerful battlestation in the galaxy. With their newfound power, they've started dealing not only weed, but sythetic crystals, and all the opiates you can think of – all in the name of righteous “Rebellion.” Damned drug war will destroy us.”
“Oh,” I mumbled, though I was surprised to find that I wasn't surprised; the weed was probably numbing my reaction.
“Could you believe my son joined the Rebels? My own son!” Vadah said, his hand wapping his forehead in disbelief as he shook his head. “You know? I'll admit that a lot of it was my fault. I wasn't there much when he was growing up, but, after his mom died, I had work to do and an Empire to clean up.”
“I'm sorry to hear that, my Lord,” I empathized, feeling a massive sense of awkwardness as the conversation switched too quickly to Vadah's emotive sharing.
“The Service didn't have child-support then, so I had to leave him with his uncle to care for him on his farm,” Vadah continued with a sigh of regret. “I know it couldn't have been easy. His uncle is a stern man and wouldn't have given him much caring at a time he must have needed after his mother died. I'd told myself it would build character, and he'd appreciate it... But, I guess ultimately I didn't give him enough attention.”
Seeming to forget I was there, there was a silence as Vadah whispered to himself sadly, “When will you come back to me? When you will recognize me as your father again, Louke?”
Noooooooooooo! Holy shit! Vadah is Louke's dad? Now that's wild! In a strange, fucked up, possibly even poetic way, it made sense when I looked deep into my heart. Could this whole Rebellion thing be a complex expression of Louke's acting out and a lack of affection when he was young? Louke did say that he had been abused when he was young. Wow, and I thought I would benefit from therapy. These guys' issues have fucked up a whole galaxy!
“Sorry for mentioning that, Tim. I don't mean to unload my problems on you,” Vadah said, suppressing a mechanical sniffle.
“Not at all, my Lord. I do sincerely hope that you will speak to your son soon,” I replied. Did that just happen? Was I just the confidant of the most terrifying man in the Empire?
“Thanks, Tim. I appreciate the thought,” Vadah said, giving my shoulder a firm squeeze.
Thankfully, I was spared any further over-sharing, when a rush of aggressively over-compensating masculinity interrupted us with,
“Lord Vadah, sir!” Fet barked hoarsely. “We have completed the inspection, and I have reason to believe this man is a smuggler!”
Fet grinned maliciously, relishing my visible reaction as I widened my eyes in shock and visibly tensed my whole body – which also included my not as visible reaction of my balls shriveling into minuscule berries and attempting to re-ascend into the safety of my body. I wracked my brain for something sensible to say, but was hampered from constructive thought by the characteristic buzzing of Fet's blaster rifle charging up, as he pointed it into my chest and said, “I can shoot right now, my Lord.”
...ohshitohshitohshitohshit...
“Wait a minute, Fet,” Vadah said, mercifully stopping the madness, as he pushed down Fet's rifle. “What evidence did you find, exactly?”
“Well, my Lord Vadah... We didn't find any contraband,” Fet admitted reluctantly, but quickly added, “But we did find medical grade-opiates in his cargo...”
“And are his documents in order?” Vadah asked.
...ohpleaseLandoohpleaseLandotellmeyoudidyourjobtellmeyoudidyourjobohpleaseLando...
“Yes, my Lord, he is registered as a legal opiate transporter, but... but...” Fet struggled to find the words, as Vadah watched him patiently with an eyebrow cocked – and I suppressed the urge to hoot, 'In your face you gun-nut asshole!!!'
Unable to endure his unconsummated bloodlust, Fet exploded, glaring angrily: “But! I still suspect he may be associated with the Rebels. His flight log shows that he recently came from Hawth and the mining colony on Cloudy City, which are both suspected to be...”
“Yes, yes. I know the stories. I am scheduled to inspect those places in due course. Thank you, Fet. Good work,” Vadah cut, dismissing Fet with a wave, but noticing the weirdo was still there, staring at me, as if he were ready to pounce, Vadah raised an eyebrow, asking, “Anything else?”
“No, my Lord,” Fet replied, looking at me murderously. “These liberal hippies will be the destruction of our family values. I know this one is in on it, if you'll let me...”
“Enough. enough, Fet,” Vadah groaned tiredly at the conservative propaganda he'd proabably heard a million times, and might even had had a hand in approving them. “I'll find something for you to hunt soon.”
“Yes, Lord Vadah,” Fet said leaving grudgingly, but not before jabbing an index in my face that screamed 'J'accuse!!!'
Watching the glorified bounty-hunter leave, Vadah shook his head, “I swear, the reforms can't come soon enough to the Service.” Handing me my approved datapad, Vadah smiled, “If you ever feel ready, Tim. We could use a good man like you back in the Service.”
“Uh... I...” I stammered.
“Not now. Just think about it, Tim,” Vadah said, pausing my words with a patient, understanding hand. “I see you're headed to make a medical shipment.”
“Yes, my Lord,” I answered, walking to the shuttle as quickly as could, eager to be on my way and to end this strange encounter. “My next stop is Daggobah.”
“I've been there once, long ago. Swampy place. Don't get stung. The bugs there are huge.”
CHAPTER 17