Short Story: Falin's Parents

Lighter. Faster. Smaller. Watchwords for a freighter pilot who didn't particularly fall in line with the reigning system government. Shrav Dorn had always played by these rules, which he had laid down for himself. While he was still relatively new to the freight hauling business, he was damned good at it, and he knew it. His ship, a modified YT-2400 he had affectionately dubbed the Stargazer, was fast and small. While he couldn't haul as much freight, he could still turn a considerable profit by hauling expensive freight. Unfortunately, that meant illegal substances. This run was to be no different than his usual: he was to pick up the cargo, a crate of glitterstim, from a smuggler's outpost, and then deliver it to his contacts on Duros, where he would be paid. It was by no means glamorous, fun, or terribly exciting, but it turned a profit and allowed him to support his wife, Adeena.

Picking idly at the material of the jacket he wore on his shoulder, Shrav seemed not to notice the infinite blue tunnel of hyperspace that stretched in front of him. He sighed, lightspeed's monotony getting the better of him, and folded his arms over his stomach, his booted feet resting atop the console and crossed over each other. As he heard the soft footsteps he knew belonged to his wife approaching behind him, his face lit up and he darted to his feet, turning to face the cockpit's entrance, through which he knew his angel would step. Not even waiting for her to arrive, he blurted "Hello, Adeena".

Met with giggles from a delicate voice he knew all too well, Shrav smiled brightly as Adeena entered the cockpit. Letting his eyes roam across her, from the bottoms of her booted feet to the top of her head, Shrav felt passion's heat coursing through his veins.

"Hello, Shrav, my dear." she said as she gingerly stepped forward to face him and wrap him in her small arms. The sight was almost laughable: her head barely came up to his broad chest. Despite their obvious physical differences, Shrav dearly loved his wife, who had stuck by him through everything he had done since he had met her, and been his reason for continuing to go on, and the one he intended to support by entering the freight business.

Ever since they had locked eyes in a crowded starport on his home planet of Brentaal, Shrav Dorn knew that Adeena Haisla was the woman for him, and she had done nothing but prove him right at every turn. She broke the embrace to put her hands on either side of his head, pullinh it down to a reasonable level for her to get to her tiptoes and kiss him. Feeling his face turn red, Shrav smiled and pulled away from her "Did you sleep well, darling?" he asked, putting his arms around her and pulling her close to embrace her once more.

She nodded, the side of her face pressed to his chest, "Always."

Shrav rubbed the small of her back with his fingertips, and pulled away again "We'll be there soon, my love. Only a few minutes yet."

Adeena nodded, her hands placed squarely on Shrav's hips, her gaze waxing determined as she spoke "Shrav, I don't want you running any more glitterstim. You know how the Imperials react to smugglers. They...kill them." It almost hurt her to say it, her husband's risks almost becoming too much to bear.

Shrav knew this was the truth, but simply stared into her eyes for a few seconds before sighing and closing his eyes to think for a few moments. There were other ways to bring in an income, he knew, but this one was the fastest, the most appealing, especially with a son on the way. Then again, what good would a dead father do? But no, he knew the benefits outweighed the risks.

Shrav opened his eyes again and gazed into Adeena's piercing blue eyes. She had folded her arms over her chest and was staring up at him expectantly. Sighing once more before he spoke, he relented "I understand. No more glitterstim."

At this, Adeena's features lit up and she grabbed his head once again, pulling him down for a passionate lip-lock before turning and leaving the cockpit, intentionally swiveling her hips from side to side because she knew he was looking. Or at least that's what he thought. Shrav smiled a few seconds more before taking the pilot's seat once again and glancing at the chronometer reading for their estimated time of arrival. He cursed outwardly and craned his neck to turn and yell through the door "Fasten your crash webbing, less than a minute!"

After a few colorful strings of curses from the rear section of the ship, a shouted "All strapped in!" reached Shrav's ears. Fastening his own crash webbing, he watched the last few seconds tick off the chronometer, and the elongated blue tunnel of hyperspace revert to the distant pinpricks of the local map of starfield, with the large, rusty sphere of Duros directly in the center of the forward viewport. Unable to refrain from smiling as he sent the landing codes to the local spaceport authority, Shrav brought the ship on a course for the CorDuro spaceport where he was supposed to meet his contact.

Kicking in the repulsorlifts as he cut the thrusters, Shrav let the Stargazer drift downward, its landing struts extending at the last possible moment and allowing the ship to settle gently on the duracrete landing platform. He unbuckled his crash webbing and moved to the rear cargo compartment to inspect the cargo, where he found Adeena already standing, staring at the crate.

"I don't want you to do this, Shrav. I've got a bad feeling." she said, her arms crossed once more, her eyes affixed on the blue crate in which several hundred thousand credits worth of glitterstim sat. The sudden change of heart had come to her for reasons she couldn't explain, but could no less deny.

"This is the last time, Adeena. Please, just this last haul...this is the last one, and then I'm going straight. You have my word."

Adeena's gaze broke from the crate, and met his own, tears welling up in her eyes "Shrav, don't do it. Just leave the crate and get out. For me." Her chest continued tightening in fear, an ethereal hand clenching her heart.

As he grew more and more frustrated with his wife, Shrav shook his head "No. This is guaranteeing our future, and I refuse to throw this out on some silly whim, even from you."

His response met with quiet sobbing as Adeena buried her face in her hands and walked out, going back to the bunk room and leaving Shrav alone with the crate that could make or break their futures. His mind was already made up, and he palmed the activation switch for the landing ramp next to the crate, letting the durasteel ramp descend to the duracrete ground with a hiss. As he checked the power charge of his blaster, Shrav strode out of the Stargazer and took a look around. It was a pretty simple landing berth: hexagonal with only a single walkway for access to the main hub of the starport. His boot heels clicked against the platform as he strode over and presented his identichip to the reader attached to the door.

Shrav palmed the activation switch once his clearance had been confirmed, and the door opened with a snap-hiss...to reveal a squad of Imperial stormtroopers taking cover to either side as one crossed wires in an obvious attempt at hotwiring the door. Beating them to the draw, Shrav managed to draw and fire a shot into the lead stormtrooper's chest as the luckless man screamed "Halt!"

As the death of their leader sunk in, the remaining soldiers yelled at him to stop or be fired upon, and informed him that he was suspected to be carrying illicit substances in his cargo bay. Shrav cursed and fired twice more as he retreated toward the ship, catching the first stormtrooper to come through the door full in the face and in the center of his stomach, sending him to the ground without so much as a whimper of pain. The other four brought their blasters to bear on Shrav and opened fire, sending burning-hot lances of light darting through the air, carrying with them the smell of ozone.

Cursing his luck and whomever had told the authorities of his cargo, Shrav turned and ran toward the ship, not even bothering to keep a grip on his blaster. The weapon clattered to the deck, and was crushed beneath the feet of the stormtroopers charging after him. He continued putting one foot in front of the other as fast and in as long of strides as he could manage, but the ship still seemed to be practically an eternity away.

A burning lance of pain shot through his lower back, and Shrav screamed, knowing he was hit. The duracrete surface of the platform rushed up to meet him as he lost his footing, and his head bounced as it made impact. His thoughts immediately turned to his beloved, and he screamed "Adeena, go!" using the last reserves of strength he had. Shrav stared at the landing ramp, hoping with all he had left that Adeena had heard his scream and was already preparing to leave. He saw her standing at the top of the ramp, and heard her scream a warning...or perhaps simply out of terror. And then all Shrav Dorn knew was blackness.

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As she sobbed uncontrollably, fearing for the life of her lover, Adeena heard a panicked scream from outside, and was gripped with terror as she recognized the voice. As she ran to one of the viewports she saw her love, Shrav, lying face-down on the landing platform with a smoking blaster wound in his back. Imperial stormtroopers were closing in on his prostrate form, and she saw his gaze locked on the landing ramp. Despite every instinct in her body screaming at her to the contrary, Adeena ran to the cargo compartment and stood at the top of the landing ramp and met Shrav's gaze. An armor-clad stormtrooper finally caught up with him, and leveled his blaster at Shrav's head. Adeena screamed, knowing what would happen next, and the stormtrooper fired at point-blank range, sending superheated plasma through his head and lighting his hair ablaze. Fighting a mix of shock, terror, and grief, she palmed the landing ramp activation switch and ran to the cockpit, not even bothering with the preflight checked as she kicked on the repulsorlifts and thrusters, sending the Stargazer shooting up into the arid Duros atmosphere.

After keying in a random set of hyperspace coordinates into the navicomputer, Adeena sat in Shrav's oversized pilot's chair and watched the tunnel of hyperspace through eyes welled up with tears as the shock wore off, and her grief set in. Shrav was really dead, and he'd never be coming back...never again would Adeena feel his loving touch, feel secure in the strength of his embrace, meet his loving gaze, or bear another of his children. Children...Shrav would never be able to be the father for their unborn son. She buried her face in her hands and wept, not wanting to believe what she had just in fact witnessed, and not wanting to face the trying times ahead on her own...

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A woman sat on a small folding cot in the center of a spartan apartment in Coruscant's lower city. Her eyes tired and empty betrayed no sign of the empty soul within, and were surrounded by bags that suggested that she had not seen sleep in a great amount of time. In front of her was a table, on which sat a small pile of white powder. Taking her time and ensuring that every last speck of it was accounted for, she used the sharp edge of her vibroblade to line all of it up into a nice straight pile, and rolled a small piece of flimsiplast into a tube. Putting one of the ends of the tube to her nostril, she lowered her head to bring the other end just over the powder and inhaled, bringing the finely granulated substance up and into her nostril. Immediately she felt the effects as the world around her seemed to suddenly become distant and unimportant.

Adeena Dorn looked straight up at the ceiling, her fried brain too intoxicated by the glitterstim she had just inhaled to do anything else. A young boy of five at the most returned to the apartment and set down a bag he had carried slung over his shoulder all the way from the upper levels.

"Mama?" the little boy asked, completely indifferent to the fact that she was now experiencing the harshest of the effects of the illicit substances she had just taken "Mama, I found us some more food." The little boy, Falin, opened the bag and held its open end toward Adeena, expecting praise of some kind. All he received was silence as she continued gazing up at the ceiling. He quietly and gently nudged her shoulder, hoping to get her attention and praise for managing to find enough food to keep the two of them alive a few days longer, but she continued staring up at the ceiling.

Finally giving up all hope of recognition for his impressive accomplishment, Falin sighed and put the bag of food in the corner of their apartment, plopping down to the durasteel flooring and sitting cross-legged, staring down at his own legs. None of this was out of the ordinary for him: he'd seen this same situation dozens of times with his mother, and he'd learned to simply wait it out...

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