Deep Blue

Chapter One: I Don't Like Sand

The sand felt familiar underneath his webbed feet, although he couldn't help but feel like the sun had gotten more aggressive, reflecting the current state of the galaxy. A republic fell and in its place an Empire rose, seizing power in the absence of clarity and leadership and in doing so impressing a regime that rewarded the cold and unfeeling while taking away even more from those who had little to begin with.

Tatooine was where it all began, coincidentally. No, poodoo, there is no such thing as coincidence. He believed that now. From such humble beginnings did a bright boy of promise and hope become the right hand of a dictator, an enforcer of the sort of system that put more children like he was into a prison of fear. Why didn't they come back for the boy's mother?

A scorched planet like Tatooine was the last place anyone would look, especially for a member of a species that spent most of its life near if not submerged in water. Sparsely populated, particularly after the rise and consolidation of the Hutt's criminal empire, the planet played host to the dregs of the galaxy. At worst you were a slave, at best a criminal. Maybe that's why a former politician and military commander stood out so much amongst the regulars in the Cantina. Tatooine wasn't just empty, or devoid, it was oppressive. The slaves stayed slaves, the farmers could only farm and the musicians played the same song over and over like their lives depended on it. There was freedom but only if you were prepared to accept that you'd enjoy it for a day before ending up on the business end of a blaster.

Water was one of the most expensive things anyone could order at the bar, being that it's uses were many fold and it was much more scarce than Bantha milk or rum. You could run quite a tab with just water but this was a desperate time. His lanky body slunk onto a stool, rarely lifting his head only to exchange currency with the bartender and spending most of it looking into the water. A little taste of home in a dirty glass. It was no real comfort but as he threw back the glass into his fleshy beaked lips and soaked every drop with his elongated tongue he could lose himself for a brief moment and just...remember. Swimming through Naboo. The phosphorescent lights of the city. Qui-Go-no. It was too much. He had to stop this train of thought, lest it take him right up until the senate meeting. He drank the water to remember but it wouldn't be long until he started on the rum for the opposite reason. Of course, there were those who were keen to help him remember. He was joined by something, he wasn't sure, maybe a...well, a T'wilek only has two fins and there was that man who came in every week to collect some money who only had one but this one had four and empty glassy eyes, like a fish. His breath was about as pleasant as the catch of the day father talked of but never seemed to find which you could of course tell by the way he leaned in and said, "You're trash. Maybe not everybody here knows who you are, but I do. How does it feel? Knowing you caused the death of no less than a planet of innocent people? We have guys here wanted in over nine systems but you. You have the biggest body count of them all, don't you?"

"Pfft."

He knew he was responsible for all of those things but after a certain point, he had disconnected. He had to, otherwise he couldn't live, or whatever it was he was calling it. He'd heard it all. Only a few ever brought the correct accusation, that indeed, he had been the one to grant the Chancellor emergency powers and pave the way for the Empire, but at the time, it seemed like the right thing to do. At least that was true though. It wasn't as ludicrous as that rumor that he was a Sith Lord. After all, who could fear someone called Darth Jar Jar?