Hopes

Chapter 17.

"This one costs how much?" Obi-Wan's eyes nearly fell out of his head. He was so shocked that his projected accent slipped, and his arms almost unfolded from their tight hold across his chest.

"You 'eard me," the dealer drawled, chewing a thin stick. "This wee girl is thir'y thousand credi's. She's a quick ship."

"Thank you." He started to bow but stopped when I whacked his arm lightly. He left the stall, then pulled his brown hood down lower. "I'm sorry about that. I'm just so accustomed to using manners."

I shrugged, then pointed to another seller in the crowded, dirty street. People bustled along the edges, keeping eyes averted and hands tucked in. A pair of white Corellian hounds snuffled loudly as they strutted past, their owner casting us a suspicious look. Houses and buildings in various shades of black or grey were crammed in too small a space, their irregular heights and probably illegal proximity giving the idea that one was being suffocated. 

Set up all along the street, with fluttering rags as roofs and unsteady twigs as supports, were the stalls with shouting vendors and displayed products. This was typical for a poorer part of the city; no one wanted to show their ships in plain sight as they could be too easily damaged or pinched. Instead, they opted to present holographic figures and holoboards showing the vessels they had for sale.

We approached the stall I had pointed out, dodging past foot traffic and the occasional low-slung speeder. The seller – an older Rodian with characteristic knobbly, green skin and bulbous blue eyes – straightened up at our arrival. A man with scruffy stubble, dressed in a tatty jacket and probably ten years older than me, crouched behind him, expertly tinkering around with a chunky piece of technology I recognized to be part of a ship's compressor. He didn't look up when we stopped in front of the stall.

"Hello and welcome," the Rodian greeted us in choppy Basic, his croaky voice again characteristic of his species. "What can I interest you in?"

"Hello, we're looking for a ship between the price of seven and eleven thousand credits, preferably on the cheaper end of the scale," Obi-Wan started courteously, then coughed and added gruffly, "What do you got?"

I could see the seller eyeing us up, noticing Obi-Wan's manners and his mannerisms but also taking in our ripped clothing. One thing I had learned while growing up on a poor planet was that you were often judged according to your bearing: clothing, posture, and speech. "Outlanders," or outsiders, were targeted as usually being rich and therefore able to afford ridiculous prices. The Rodian was running his mental checklist, and it wasn't adding up. Clothes were tatty and dirty, speech was thickly accented but polished, and posture was upright. He couldn't decide if we were outlanders or not.

He seemed to make up his mind, then offered us a small disk with the rotating image of a ship floating above it. "This has only been flown once and is in prime condition. It is thirteen thousand credits."

Obi-Wan fidgeted, but I had to rib him to remind him not to be overly polite. "No," he said shortly, though his shoulders were tense. "I want a cheaper ship."

The Rodian peered at us a moment longer, then presented a holoboard with the blueprints of a ship. I took one look at it and shook my head. The chassis would never hold more than one person, the engine was likely to explode, and it lacked thrusters.

"This is four thousand credits." He watched Obi-Wan closely.

Again, he hesitated before saying timidly, "That's too cheap." Then he added under his breath, "Thanks for trying, though."

The Rodian smiled broadly, then turned to the human hunched in the corner. He rattled off a few sentences to him in the alien dialect, Rodese. Years of my childhood spent with a young Rodian friend automatically translated his words in my mind, though I knew Obi-Wan didn't understand this language.