taloranfiles

[taloranfiles]

Old Mirshe

The whine of repulsorlifts caused the young girl to pause in her game. She watched wide-eyed as the large red freighter flew over the small cabin before coming in to land in a clearing a hundred yards away.

A cough in front of her drew her attention back to the older man sitting on the steps in front of her. He didn’t speak, but looked at her expectantly. She refocused, and jumped from the wooden post she was standing on to another adjacent and slightly higher. She dutifully answered the man’s previous question.

“300 meters.” she replied shakily as she paused on top of the post and wiped her sweating brow. A soft breeze blew across her skin, and she closed her eyes in bliss, trying to calm the tremors of her muscles. 

“Difference in atmospheric speed between a T-65B and TIE/LN?”

The girl gathered herself and leaped to the next post, this one even higher.

“Shielded or not?” The man grinned at her question. “Good catch. Not shielded.” His eyes flicked over her shoulder toward where the freighter had landed. 

She thought for a moment. “One hundred and....fifty,” she said uncertainly, “kilometers per hour?”

He raises an eyebrow. “You sounded uncertain. But yes, good.” His eyes went behind her again. “How many people approaching?” he said, his voice low. “And don’t turn around.”

She strained her ears and focused on the sound of crunching gravel behind her. Her eyes wandered as she tried to discern the pattern of footsteps, but couldn’t. Just as she was about to give up, she noticed a faint reflection in the window. Two bipeds approached the house, heavily armed and armored. Their ugly snarling visages and visible claws marked them clearly even in the distorted reflection as Trandoshans. Dumb, but ferocious fighters and naturally mean. Behind them trailed a shorter Rodian, clearly struggling to keep up with his companion’s longer strides.

“Trandoshans. Two of them, armed and armored. One Rodian, lightly armed, no armor.” She turned back to Old Man Mirshe who was looking at her, frowning, but with a smile in his eyes. “And you could tell all that just by listening?” 

She grinned back confidently. “No sir, you just said not to turn around. I just used all the tools at my disposal.” He nodded, and waved her down. “That’s all the lessons for today Ka’ra. Run to your buir and tell him I’ve found a ship for him. It’s a nice red YT ready for hunting.”

She nodded and dropped to the ground. obediently. She turned and ran toward the village where she knew her father would be helping her mother at the shop while he was grounded. She frowned as she heard the Trandoshans reach the old man’s house and speak in their harsh hissing voices. She hoped they didn’t try to cause any trouble. Mirshe was a good neighbor and teacher, even if he was aruetii, not-Mandalorian. If he was a warrior like her grandfather, she wouldn’t worry, but Mirshe was thin, not big and strong, and moved like some of the old farm animals, slow and careful, leaning on his walking stick. As she turned onto the main road leading into town, she forced herself to run a little faster. 

Back at the cabin, Mirshe looked up at the two Trandoshans who had come to a stop in front of him. “Good morning, gentlemen. I’m afraid I wasn’t expecting visitors. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

The taller one, a lighter green with a ridiculously large blaster pistol on his belt, leaned forward and snarled. “No games, human. You run bounty board. We are great hunters, want best bounties.” The second, darker with a massive sniper rifle on his back merely sat with teeth bared, leering behind his friend.

Mirshe nodded. “Well of course. Please come inside, I can show you the board and we can discuss rates as well as the different packages I offer.” He picked up the walking stick that sat next to him and with a sigh used it to slowly stand to his feet. Still slightly hunched, he shuffled past the three bounty hunters, ignoring the growling of the impatient reptilians. He lead them into the dark cabin, where once inside, automatic lights began to flick on, illuminating the cozy cabin, rather spartan except for one desk in the corner where a high end computer system sat on a desk with a series of screens covering the wall in front of it. 

Rather than approach the screen and the rapidly scrolling images of bounties posters on it. Instead he stepped over to a small stove where he pulled a pot off and began to pour steaming liquid into a set of small cups. “Could I interest you in a bit of tea? It’s a lovely leaf from Alderaan that one of my neighbors was thoughtful enough to bring back from a recent business trip.”

He turned around with the four cups on a tray in one hand and his walking stick in the other. He was inturrupted when Big Lizard surged forward and slapped the tray out of his hand. The porcelain cups and tray flew across the room and shattered against the wall, spilling the tea all over the floor. “No tea. Bounties. Now, old man, before I break your fingers.” The room was silent except for the tea dripping from the wall, and Big Lizard’s heavy breathing. Behind him, Small Lizard slowly let out a choking hiss that might have been some kind of laugh. The Rodian was frozen at the action and his huge eyes darted from Big to Mirshe, who was frozen, unmoving. Slowly, Mirshe spoke.

“That tea set, was a housewarming gift when I moved into this village. It was rather cheap, but holds deep sentimental value to me. And sentiments are all I have left in my old age.” His eyes slowly raised to meet Big Lizard’s, who was standing there, angrily glaring.

“Done talking.” snarled Big, and stepped forward, claw outstretched to grab Mirshe. He was distracted by another object flying across the room to hit the wall with a wet slap. He watched in confusion as a reptilian arm landed next to the broken pieces of the tea set. Shrugging he turned back to Mirshe only to poke him in the chest with a stump. He only had a moment for his tiny brain to be confused before the old man was gone.

A lightness at his waist has his head turning down to see his blaster gone. A cold feeling began to spread throughout his body. A pair of blasts behind him has him spinning around to see his Trandoshan friend falling to the ground with a smoking hole where his upper jaw used to be, and another in his stomach where the armor was flexible and weak. The fading sound of footsteps was the only sign that the Rodian had ever been there. In the doorway facing away and standing tall was the old man, but suddenly he didn’t look so old.

He was standing slightly crouched, legs spread in a predatory stance. It reminded him of a Nexu he once saw in a holovid. Like the Nexu, the old man didn’t walk as he turned from the door, rather he prowled as he walked over to the opposite side of the room where the tea set had shattered. “Well Trassk, I’m afraid you’ve had your last hunt.” He reached down and gingerly picked up the arm on the ground and walked toward a small incinerator in the wall of the kitchenette. Trassk tried to take a step toward him to stop him, but was stopped instantly by massive waves of pain wracking his body centered on his chest. 

“Ah, I wouldn’t try to move too much. That vibroblade is lodged between your 4th and 5th vertebrae. And it’s active. If you do, you’ll -” Trassk tried once more to move forward, this time pushing through the pain. Instead there was a pop and he was unable to stop himself as he collapsed bonelessly to the floor. Mirshe paused and blinked before continuing, “-sever your spinal cord. You really are an incredibly dumb animal.” he said with exasperation.

“You know, I’ve been trying to get away from my past out here. One aspect of that has been my slightly xenophobic tendencies.” he said conversationally as he continued to move about the room. He pulled the sniper rifle from the body of Trassk’s brother Jassk and began to drag the body toward the kitchen and incinerator. “The Mandalorians have actually been great for that. Did you know that Mandalorian culture doesn’t discriminate based on species? It’s completely merit based, and any species can become Mandalorian.”

Trassk watched in horror as the Nexu man managed to cram Jassk’s body into the incinerator. “Unfortunately, it hasn’t quite managed to stick. At the end of the day, I’m still near-Human, and you’re a great stupid lizard.” He stepped in and gestured at Trassk with the blaster. “And I really don’t appreciate you ruining all of the progress I’ve made. So I’ll do it halfway. I’m not going to shoot you right now.” He tossed the blaster onto the counter in the kitchen and picked up the sniper rifle, an E-11s. “Oh, lovely. I haven’t seen one of these in years.” He walked across the room and kicked open a dresser and placed the rifle behind several sets of clothing that were hanging inside. “But I won’t save you either. Also, did I mention that by severing your spine, you’ve disabled your regeneration factor?” 

As Trassk died slowly and painfully on the floor behind him, Dansil Taloran, known around this community as Mirshe, sat down at the desk and began tapping on the screen. “Let’s see, access ship systems. That’s your systems start up cancelled, can’t have you leaving, can we?” He pulled up the freighter’s internal security cams. He watched as the Rodian ran frantically through the corridors of the ship trying to restart the launch procedures. “Let’s see, increasing the door pressure....Safety protocols? On a hunter’s ship?.” He watched on one screen as the Rodian ran toward the engines. “Oh, turning on the internal gravity while planetside? Oops.” As he pressed a button, the Rodian suddenly staggered and collapsed to his knees as gravity suddenly doubled. The alien slowly began to drag itself across the floor toward the engine bay. Another keystroke and suddenly the bay door slammed shut on the Rodian, neatly severing him into two twitching halves. “Oh. I guess that’s why there are safety protocols.”

A few hours later, Ka’ra and her father pulled up outside the cabin on an old speeder bike. Worriedly, Ka’ra called out “Mirshe? Mirshe?!?” She ran past her father only to stop short as Mirshe shuffled out of his house with a smile on his weathered face, and a broom in hand. “Ah, you’re back earlier than I expected. Well, no matter. Come in, come in, I just put some tea on. Now this ship, it’s a YT-2400, nicely modified, and a pleasant shade of bright red.” he nattered as he lead them into the house. “I obtained it from the previous owner as compensation for a bit of an inconvenience they caused me. Don’t worry, they’ve been gone for a bit now and there are no hard feelings. Now it’s got two torpedo tubes on the front, modified to...”