Episode X Dark Hunter

Street Ranat

"Stop!" a gruff voice called out into the crowded alleys of Nar Shaddaa. "Thief!"

No one cared. A hunched reptilian Anx emerged from a side shop, his tail sweeping debris in the alley. His squinting eyes strained to see as he swung his elongated head from side to side. He turned his long nose upward and sniffed the air, looking for the sour smell of the culprit, his sense of smell compensating for his nearsightedness. Though the crowd's stench rose to the edge of the galaxy, he thought he could just barely perceive the thief's acrid fragrance nearby. The stocky alien shoved a few travelers as he headed toward a shop two doors down. One traveler hit his head on the corner of a fruit stand.

"I can smell you, street ranat!" He threw a short and unsuspecting Sullustan out of the way. The Sullustan tripped over his own feet and into a trinket stand which added a resounding crash of metal pings and clangs to the symphony of chaos. A boisterous ruckus ensued between the trinket owner and the poor Sullustan. Fists were thrown, and perhaps a blaster was brandished.

As if materializing from another dimension, a child emerged from under the long robe of a distracted Twi'lek. In a flash, the brown-haired, blue-skinned kid cut through the crowd as if he had wings. If the Anx could, he would have seen the boy's unkempt hair darting between travelers. However, instead, he caught the scent and pursued the fleeing child. The Anx barreled through the crowd throwing people to the left and right with his mighty arms.

"Stop that thief!" He called out. Again, the shout was wasted, since, again, no one cared.

The alley was so crowded that the child had to zig-zag among the throng-a throng that the Anx could just throw aside. It was a race between the swift and the strong. Yet still, the Anx was slowly gaining.

The child glanced back, but he was too short to get a good look. At that moment, the Rodian behind him fell forward like a toppling wall. The sniffing Anx materialized. He stepped on the back of the Rodian and reached for the boy.

"There you are." He snarled, his sharp fingers approaching the boy's neck.

The child dropped to his hands and knees and scurried under another alien lifeform-one with four legs, whatever it was. He rushed to the other side, stood up, and ran. Looking behind him, he crashed into a fruit stand. The massive Besalisk owner exchanged a few credits with a patron. The boy quickly grabbed a honey melon from the table and turned, throwing it into the hands of a Jawa that was behind him. Then the child took off.

The movement was so quick, that from the time that he crashed into the stand and placed the melon in the Jawa's hands, the Besalisk had only enough time to look up and see the Jawa throwing the melon in the direction of the fleeing boy.

"You gonna pay for that!" the Besalisk roared; and before anyone could see how it happened, the Besalisk was in the middle of the alley on top of the Jawa and throwing bystanders like mud sods.

The Anx ran straight into the mess of bodies, with one of the Besalisk's four elbows clipping him in the jaw. He fell back into the dust and mire of the street.

The child rushed into an open door about ten meters farther and bent over to catch his breath.

"What do you get yourself into, Cam H'darr?" he asked himself under his breath. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and stood up. He was a handsome boy, about the age of eleven. His brown hair and almost black eyes contrasted with his slightly blue skin. A row of three tattooed lines ornamented his lower jaw on each side, distinguishing him from other near-humans his age. A near-human, that is what he was. He did not even know exactly what he was. Somewhere in the blend of the galaxy gene pool, he was conceived.