Legend of the Harp
By Hemaccabe
Episode I: Birth of a Jedi
Chapter 8: Sherriff
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
***Jedi Knight Jors Zaemon, Dandoran, Doran City***
The transport put me down at what passed for a space port in Doran City, the largest settlement on Dandoran. They had modestly safe looking lockers, so I locked up my pack and my case and went for a walk.
Around the spaceport, I found it was the typical slimy Hutt-space den of thieves and smugglers. The place had few paved streets, some roads were gravel, some were just hard dirt. When it rained, they probably turned to mud. It was a cosmopolitan place in that there were many different species represented.
I walked out of the port around the city. Outside the port, the place was mostly working-class people, doing their best to earn a living. One could see the hills around the city. The planet was beautiful. Lots of water. Lots of tree covered hills. As a city rat, this was completely different than what I had grown up with. Still, it looked like the kind of place all the happy holovids had been set.
As I walked, I realized I was hungry. I hadn't eaten in a day and a half. It was then that I discovered that my Republic Credits wouldn't work.
"I'll take one of those," I said to the street merchant selling some sort of small smoked amphibian.
"Five Wupiupi for Gorg, one for bottle of water." Said the street merchant, who was a species I had never met before.
"How much in Republic Credits?" I asked.
"No take Republic Credits. Only Wupiupi." The merchant creature said.
I asked around and got the same answer from several stall holders. They apparently all only used a local currency, the "Wupiupi."
I found a local moneychanger. He was set up in a half finished wooden shed with a cloth awning. He had some very serious looking safes in the back and a heavily armed, very serious looking Trandoshan guard in front.
"The rate of exchange for Republic Credits is ten for each Wupiupi." The moneychanger declared.
"Can I buy ten Republic Credits for one Wupiupi?" I asked, feeling some snark.
"Of course not! What kind of fool are you?" The money trader answered, clearly feeling rankled by my response.
"Thank-you so much. When my cousin on Spano sends me my Credits I will come straight to you, so they can be exchanged properly." I responded bowing obsequiously.
It was particularly galling that I had gotten the bowing obsequiously move from the Classic, "The Merchant of Aldreen."
I was able to quietly excuse myself and move on.
Relying, as I had not for many years, on my childhood hoodlummage, and a bit on the Force, I was able to find a black-market money changer in a back alley. He must have been quite the daring sort, as he was defying the will of the Hutt who ruled this planet. But I got a still terrible two Wupiupis for each Republic Credit.
With a few dozen Wupiupis in my pocket I went back to the street vendor selling smoked gorgs and bought one with a bottle of water. Six Wupiupis later, I was eating. It was salty and not my normal thing, but it filled me up and I kept looking around.
The next thing I was looking for was where the humans congregated. In places like this, I knew there wouldn't be imposed uniform districts, not because they were so forward thinking, but because nobody would care enough to impose them. But like tended to settle with like. Maybe a space port bar would be a mix of everything. The neighborhoods where most working-class people lived? There would be neighborhoods with a single species predominating. One of them would be humans.
YOU ARE READING
Legend of the Harp Episode I: Birth of a Jedi
Science FictionThe story of a Jedi who is Knighted just before the Clone Wars begin who must face this turbulent era and how he handles the many difficult challenges that lie ahead.
