THREATS, REAL & IMAGINED
by Tom Davidson and Enrique Kermel

A soft buzzing at the hatch distracts Beddar from the scan, and he glances up as it slides open to reveal Nilessia. Grudgingly, he swings away from the console for a second and taps his fingers on the side of his chair.

"Oh, so you decided to make nice now, huh? Well, don't let anyone accuse you of a good sense of timing, babe -- but I guess it'll do. Out with it."

Nilessia shuffles her feet thoughtfully, and then, in a low voice, spreads her hands wide and begins.

"You are....You don't work for the Empire. I can trust you, can't I?"

Beddar chuckles grimly, glancing back out the viewscreen for a second, and swings back to her.

"No, you probably can't. I mean, you haven't paid me yet. But I definitely don't work for the Empire, and you've got my word that I won't keelhaul you or go selling you off somewhere if you at least tell me who you are. But to be honest, girl, I don't see that you have a choice. It's not just that I don't like secrets; see, you're weird enough that I wouldn't give you an Ewok's chance at sabacc on the streets without some help, and you're not going to get that by being all Little Miss I Know Something You Don't Know to everyone."

He grins.

"Besides, I've been known to shoot off the mouth of people who piss me off. It generally gets the rest of their head, too, because I'm not too good a shot, but hey."

Nilessia swallows nervously, and closes her hands into tight fists.

"Before I tell you who I am, I must ask you a question. I've been...err...away...err...for a long time -- years, indeed, I believe. I don't know what has happened all this time and...ah...I desperately need to know something, something very important."

Beddar rolls his eyes, but she continues -- looking slightly uneasy and nervous.

"Have you ever heard of an Imperial space station project called "Death Star?"

Beddar raises his eyebrows, laughing quietly.

"Which one? The one that took out Alderaan, or the one that made the Ewoks famous (and as an aside, babe, I don't know which was worse)?"

Halfway through the second sentence, Nilessia goes pale, her face stretching into an exaggerated parody of alarm.

"Oh, no! They did finish it! What happened then? Are we doomed?"

"Well, I'm still paying taxes to that damned New Alderaan relief organization, and you can't go anywhere in the Outer Rim without tripping over an Ewok anymore, and Councilor Leia has yet to shut up about it, but otherwise it's not much of an issue anymore."

Nilessia's eyes pop open a little wider, even skeptically, and her stance becomes slightly more adversarial -- almost as if she were offended.

"What? How? The Death Star was virtually invulnerable, and its power of destruction practically unlimited!"

Beddar sighs, looks down, and punches a few buttons on his console to continue the scan that was in progress before she came in.

"Look, babe, I'd be more than glad to discuss old war stories with you when I'm back at Kothliss and you're buying the drinks, but..."

Seeing her distraught expression, he shrugs and continues. "Okay. From what I understand, the first one they got finished had some kind of shielding problem on one of the exhaust ports. It wasn't much of a chance, really, but then I hear the guy who made the shot was, like, literally the son of Vader or something. As for the second one..."

Nilessia glows radiant, skipping in her joy and pumping a fist in the air, then buries her face in her hands -- laughing and sobbing at the same time.

"The exhaust vent! Oh, yes!"

Beddar leans back in his chair, sipping at a little klava from a wide-bottomed cup.

"Okay. Heart-warming show of support for the cause, you nutcase. Have a nice cry. Go on, get it all out. And then, babe, please tell me who the hell you are, 'k?"

She relaxes, then nods.

"Listen, Mister Beddar, for I'll tell you my story."

As she pauses, looking vaguely melancholic, Beddar groans.

"--Girl, most people I charge per trip because it's cheaper. You, darling, I'm going to start charging by the HOUR. And you know, it's actually 'Captain Queeb.'--"

"I remember nothing about my childhood; the Empire was my only family. I grew up and developed an unusual talent for mathematics, and was soon put to work in a laboratory, unaware of anything else."

"--I do pity you. Shame you had to miss all the starvation and battles and stuff.--"

"One day, we were given a very peculiar assignment: we had to design a gigantic spheroidal structure."

"--Let me guess. That would be Moff Cardohn, right?--"

She ignores him.

"Digging in the computer system, I casually found out that it would hold the ultimate weapon of destruction."

"--Yep. DEFINITELY Moff Cardohn. Never sit at a table with the man, let me tell you....--"

She sighs, slightly exasperated.

"It was the Death Star."

"--Oh.--"

"I had always thought that I was working to build peace, and I couldn't go on, so I simulated my death and miracleously fled hiding in a cargo hold; but before that, I sabotaged the design, making that exhaust vent vulnerable to an attack."

Beddar raises an eyebrow, about to cough -- either with shock or at some strange joke -- into his klava, but suppresses it long enough to let her continue.

"I escaped. But their procedures are very strict; the Empire knows absolutely everything about me, probably much more than I do. If they find out that I'm still alive, they'll..."

She swallows nervously. "...but that's not the worst. After fleeing, something happened to me."

Beddar interrupts, waving a hand.

"I know, I know! You just happened to be on Endor when they were building that shield generator, and...."

She doesn't even notice the sarcasm, an absent look of wonderment having supplanted the vague worry on her face.

"Something wonderful. I have been granted the key to the deepest secrets of the Universe. I cannot give you details, and even if I could, it wouldn't be wise. But bear this in mind, if they get me, it could mean the end of everything."

Beddar finally does cough, hiding his mouth -- somewhat unsuccessfully, given the size of his jowls -- with his cup. Nilessia finishes, looking sad and ghastly.

"The very end. We cannot afford that. I have trusted you, and now you must help me. If they get me, please, kill me. Don't hesitate. My life is not worth the risk. We cannot endanger so much."

Beddar eventually regains a measure of self-control and deportment and composes himself, leaning forward just a little. Nilessia looks down at him in hopeful expectation, and he pauses, obviously searching for the right words. Then they come to him.

"What a COMPLETE crock of shit. What do you think I am, a GAMMORREAN?"

Over her protests, he continues.

"Okay, okay. So you're kept in some dandy little Imperial college camp where they make you do math all day. I can believe that; I've been tortured by 'em myself. So you just conveniently happen to escape, well after all the hard stuff's over, and just CONVENIENTLY happen to be the one we're all supposed to thank for helping us win. Maybe it took five years for word of that reward they gave Solo to get out to the boonies, or maybe you've just been trying the same line on every captain in the system and I'm the first one damn fool enough to let you on the ship before you used it...?"

She tries to explain herself again, but he presses the control on the hatch -- sealing her in -- and calmly places his hand on his gun.

"Look, babe, I believe you were raised naive. You've got that too far down to be an act, I think. But don't you dare come in here on MY ship and start telling me that 'oh, sorry, I had NO idea I designed that HORRIBLE weapon, but isn't it a good thing I just happened to put in that integral design flaw?' And don't even get me STARTED on the secrets of the universe."

He leans forward, and then stands -- coming up to about her breasts, but still trying to look threatening.

"But you know what? I'll let you in on ONE of 'em. Secret #5, straight from the mouth of Beddar ap-Queeb, is that Sullustans have absolutely no patience with people who try to lie too ambitiously."

He sits back down. "So you've got about ten seconds to give me the real story, or then I start wondering if maybe there aren't enough consumables on board after all."

The cockpit of the Beddar Three fills with noise as the gravitational proximity alarms go off and the Ghtroc drops suddenly out of hyperspace.


BACK to Scene Two - Round Three


BACK to Unsubstantiated Rumors


“Listen, kid. I've been from one side of this galaxy to the other.
I've seen a lot of strange stuff . . .”
Han Solo - Star Wars: A New Hope