Star Wars: Legacy

Legacy

 Few things were more beautiful than a Coruscant sunset. The expansive cityscape dominated the dusk skies with hundreds of dazzling skyscrapers, multicolored traffic towers, and the steady array of tractor-beam lights above the capital planet's starport.

Kaine Paulsen was a simple man with simple tastes. Despite the grandeur of the Imperial city, he preferred the uncluttered horizon of his homeworld Socorro. But then, he would have preferred any sunset on any planet, so long as the woman resting her head on his shoulder was with him, holding his hand.

"There's nothing quite like it, is there?" Tayri Cordova whispered nostalgically.

"Nope." He took a bite of their remaining Rishi honeystick and offered the rest of the sugary treat to her. "Unless I'm staring into your eyes." He grinned at her as she chewed the last morsel.

"Kaine Paulsen, are all Socorrans such hopeless romantics? Or just silver-tongued rogues?"

He kissed her forehead. "A little bit of both, darling." Kaine glanced down at the R2 unit sitting beside them. The agitated droid lurched from side to side on its leg stabilizers. Chirping and beeping, its insistence aggravated a sprung compressor coil. A staccato pit-pit-pit noise rattled from its heat exhaust.

"Calm down, Pit-Pit. We're way ahead of schedule. Ancher won't be mad at you." He listened intently to the fretful droid and shook his head. "No, he won't wipe your memory. He'll have to shoot me first."

"You're the best slicer in the Outer Rim," Tayri added. "He wouldn't dare."

When the droid persisted, Kaine stood up, offering his arm to Tayri. "Alright, alright, we're going."

A strange man staggered between them, knocking Kaine into the droid and Tayri back onto the bench behind them.

"Watch where you're going!" The Socorran popped the restraint over his heavy blaster and rested his palm on the heel.

"Kaine," Tayri said. She put her hand over his to keep him from drawing. "He's drunk."

Dressed in a gray medical smock, the inebriated man turned to them. His wire-framed glasses were askew across his sweaty face. He held out a datarod to them while clutching a small glowing object against his chest.

Kaine snatched the blaster from its holster. "Drop it or I drop you!"

With a groan, the stranger collapsed. Kaine grabbed him before he could hit the ground and injure himself.

"Lousy Imp can't hold his booze." He looked up at Tayri, alarmed by the solemn expression shadowing her face. "What's wrong?"

"He's not drunk. He's dead," she whispered. "I felt his passing and his terror." Taking the datarod from his hand, she pressed the playback.

"My name is Dr. Mirvin Oscato," said a meek, frightened voice from the recording device. "I am no traitor to the Empire, but I'm not a genocidal murderer either." The recording was interrupted by blaster fire and a desperate gasp before breaking off into static.

"This is what killed him." Tayri knelt down and pulled the bounty hunter dart from the man's back. "Must have punctured a lung."

"A dead Imp? In the middle of Coruscant?" Kaine said, anxiously looking around. "Time to go." He took her hand, but she resisted.

Rolling the dead man on his back, she retrieved the glowing object from his hand. With a smile, she cupped the orb in her palm and stared into the pulsing light.

"What is it?"

"I'm not sure, but it's alive." Tayri handed it to him.

"A portable stasis field? But it's failing," Kaine said. "That's why it's glowing like that. Whatever's inside is destabilizing the containment field."