Episode X Dark Hunter

A Memory

 Videsse lowered Slave-1's caudal ramp. Steam vents exhaled and puffed billows of smoke to each side, which lingered in Takodana's cool humid environment like a billowed sheet that fell and veiled the ground, not vanishing away, but rather spreading thinner and thinner. Videsse cut through it, disrupting the smooth veil into miniature cyclones, each with their own well-defined center eye. She ascended the ramp and closed it, another steam eruption reinvigorating the dispersing fog.

Slave-1 was quiet and lifeless, lying, as was normal, on its broad flat stern so that the cockpit faced upward. Dust particles, the only moving element, glided in the light that came through the cockpit window above. Videsse's dark form climbed the laddered floor up to the pilot's seat, where another bottle rested. She lifted the bottle and watched the contents undulated as she rocked it, and then tilted herself into the pilot's seat, lying back and facing the open starship canopy, the light blue sky of Takodana's late afternoon shining on her. She rested the whiskey bottle on her chest and removed her helmet, placing it under her seat, then fell back to look at the clear sky again. She closed her eyes and tried to remember something; something distant. The ship slept in a torpor, while Videsse took a few slow breaths. She wiped something from her cheek.

"Intersecting lines," Videsse whispered. "What a joke." She could not understand why Maz's comment bothered her, or rather, she would not allow herself to consider why the comment bothered her. She went to uncork the whiskey bottle but stopped. "I don't need this," she muttered, not admitting to herself that they were Maz's words. "I don't need anything." It was the same sentiment she had believed about herself previously, only now, instead of anybody, she expanded it to anything. It was a lie, as you know, but for the moment, it did her some good. The bottle found a place beneath her seat, a sufficient partner for her helmet.

Videsse inspired another few deep breaths, then she kicked the console with her left foot hitting the ignition. The flight panel came to life with an electronic hum, and along with it, Raider, the droid-brain mimic of Boba Fett.

"You going to turn me off again," Raider began. "You aren't hard to predict."

Videsse ignored the comment, strapped the safety straps on, and gripped the control arm, raising the ship, aiming for the blue sky, and kicking the engines into full activation for exit velocity.

"Shut up, Raider, and calculate a path for lightspeed to Arkania," Videsse ordered.

"As you wish," the droid brain replied. Could it have been sarcasm? Could a droid brain be capable of such a thing? Still, the calculations were made.

The cerulean atmosphere faded into the black star-studded cosmos as the ship escaped the Takodana atmosphere; a moment later, the same studded stars transformed into white streaks, and then into the nebulous blue undulations of hyperspace.

Videsse crossed her arms. "Why did you do it?"

"What?" Raider replied from the console speakers.

"Why did you make me love you before you died?" Videsse asked.

"Dess, I ain't Boba Fett," Raider's voice replied, poor grammar making the already Boba-like voice seem even more similar.

Videsse, as usual, ignored the comment since it did not follow her direction for the conversation. "You had no right to become my father. No right! I would have been fine if you just stayed drunk and distant. Then, it wouldn't have mattered. Mom wouldn't have come back. Life wouldn't have... I would have been fine. Better off, even. But now--" She closed her eyes and covered her face with her hands.

If a memory had come to her, the memory that she was attempting to remember, it would have been a memory of an eleven-year-old girl.

Her hand was on the control arm of the hover plow, the lurching plow jolting her feeble arms. Boba's hand came to rest on top of hers, giving her strength to stabilize the machine.

"Always keep the tension up," he instructed from the seat next to her. "You drive the plow, don't let it drive you."

The young girl bit her lip and tensed her arm and shoulder. The plow shook as the air blade cut through the dry and cracked earth, yellow waves of sand flowing past her.

"That's it," Boba replied, leaning back. "Now keep a straight line for twenty more meters."

The novice furrowed her brow and concentrated, frustrated with her ability and with Boba's expectation. "This is a waste. When are we gonna go on a hunt?"

Boba nodded. "When we need to find something. 'Til then, fifteen more meters." His hand covered hers again to give her his strength. This was something new. It was when the harvesting began, and Boba's bounty hunts ceased. His drinking ended, and his presence grew. It marked the beginning of a changed life; a life altered because of the rescuing of an eleven-year-old girl from the Keeper.

The memory, if she was remembering it, would have ended there.

Videsse kicked the console again, the dull metallic thud ringing in the cramped ship. "You had no right!" Her fists crashed onto the armrests. "Why did you do it!"

Did Raider actually make an aggravated exhale? Had Terrah actually programed the droid to mimic that humanism? "What do you want me to say?" Raider replied. "'Cause, I ain't going to say it."

Videsse's fiery anger spread like a wildfire over her face. "I want you to say you're sorry! Sorry, that you made me feel like I had a father." Her voice choked, and she pretended to cough to hide the pain in her throat.

What she had said was enough, and somehow, maybe, it satisfied a younger version of Videsse inside, a child that sought a voice; as if the eleven-year-old had found an advocate in her nineteen-year-old self. One could even picture the two in her mind, an angry and despairing child with clenched fists standing alone on an orange deserted wasteland, a blowing sandstorm penetrating her hair and eyes and mouth. She would be crying with spasmodic coughs when an older sister stepped out of the storm and put an arm around her; the punctuated sobs of this child's storm becoming less frequent. Calm breaths returned like a gentle breeze.

None of this could be seen, if you simply looked at Videsse, only imagined, and assumed. Its truth would simply be speculative.

Raider did not reply for a few seconds, waiting to see if Videsse had finished her diatribe. When it was evident that she was finished, he broke the silence.

"Now, if you're done, I'm shutting off. And have fun with that stow-away." The droid brain shut down and there was silence.

Videsse straightened up in confusion. "Stow-away? What do you mean?"

There was no answer. Raider was gone.

Videsse erupted in an aggravated growl after a second thought. She leapt from the cockpit and to the rear vestibule where her supply cabinets were. She pulled down one of the passenger seats that folded into the wall on either side of the caudal ramp and fell upon it, crossing her legs. She stared at the supply cabinet where she stored her rations. Her heart churned within her chest as another set of words that Maz had said came to her mind-- "Lines running parallel." Somehow, the inner workings of her forebrain overpowered another storm in her heart.

"Boots, you can come out now. I know you're in there," Videsse commanded.

Nothing moved or stirred; no sound, no bump.

"Come on, stop wasting my time," Videsse said with a groan.

A moment of silence passed again; then a sliding sound, like an arm moving to the inside latch of the cabinet. A click followed and the door opened slowly, and even more slowly the sheepish blue face of the stow-away appeared.

"You gonna kill me?" The voice was almost a whisper.