-
The Queendom, The Wild
Failure made bravery look dumb. Yes, valiant explorations into the wild could give answers but also starvation and sickness. Hikes with beasts may pacify a predator to pet. O, yet the chances were anorexic. Animals did not change often. And, the bold would be bit by the wild. Like the branches with leaves, which grew to the sun and made forest canopy, a hunter’s strike was simply survival instincts.
The bellows roared through the quiet from beneath that canopy’s gloom. Barks hid under the feral hollers. Chirps mixed with crawling crinkles across grass. Hedges woosh at the swoosh of fleeing prey. A nearby creek gurgled against rocks in a splashing heap over a cliff into a lake. Vines crumpled. Twisted wood zig-zag along paths. Plants stalked high and thick to restrain runs. Nature bustled with flounders as critters roamed.
None but one was foreign.
His head had too many little horns, no hair, and the taste of his self was not sweet. Under the sunset blue, he hunched in the forest shade. Blood burbled from a nostril. Black tattoos circled his tanned face. Fuzz peppered his chin. Binoculars dangled from his utility belt. Travel-worn shoulders hunkered under the weight of his dark tunic. High boots marked him in the soil under the fallen leaves. Both his hearts thumped like a nightclub jam. His body wanted to run, and his eyes knew another punch was near. If only the two would tell his mouth. Disdain sent mucus flying at the nearing shadowy figures.
“Kark you!” Out croaked the gruff cry. Up turned the explorer’s mouth. The upper lip a knot on one side. His canines shimmered as his hand grabbed for his blaster. All the shadows clamored. A crunch cut the Iridonian short; the bone crush echoed in his skull as a fist shattered his senses into a closed-eyed topple. All went ghost-quiet.
His tunic flapped. His knees bucked. He fell to one knee. His head sunk. Only his knuckles kept him propped up. Redden spit drooped from his slack jaw gape. Dribbles thrummed the soil. Mud was stained crimson. Around him those shadows circled in wait. Above him the forest’s thick layers parted to offer light. He hoisted his eyes in the glint. The glister gave his stalkers a contour. All his molars bit down. From his clenched-teeth bile sneered: “Women?”
What skulked from the blackness was crow-colored demon mask without eyes shrouded in a hood. Clothed in obsidian, form fitted to the breastplate, she stalked in sleek gear. It hid her whole body to the boots. The masked maiden tugged at her glove. Electric sparks rippled over the gloved knuckles. Crunched vines and leaves echoed under her tread. Others circled about the man prowled from their darkness adorned in similar gear.
Clear skies welcomed the soar of a humming red & white metal vessel. Above the open canopy darted the wedge-shaped A-wing interceptor starfighter in all it’s glory, casting more dimness on those below. Under the ship’s shadow and the engine’s purr jolted a blustering cacophony of cracked pitched cries. Inside the starfighter the pilot was happily oblivious, floating off to the outpost more than 3 thousand kilometers away. Sparkle-bop jams kept the helmet headed pilot bobbing to the beats and eyes on the skylanes.
When the A-wing drifted from above the opening below the sky’s shined on what remained; blood blotted a trail on the grass and dirt. The Iridonian feet dangled behind as he was dragged into the forest shadows. Daylight waned and the sunray’s twinkle only flashed for moments in the brush to reveal him. A bruise tighten his swollen left eye shut. Another contusion ringed around his other eye. Cuts lined his forehead between his spiked crown. Slits slipped atop his nose and brow. A gash marred his chin.
Each wound cried scarlet.
Lugged by his arms like a sled, he was limp. A blip at his waist came abuzz and alit. It was his comm unit. A woman dragging turned back. The eyeless mask gestured at the transmitter. From under the hood, her silvery voiced breathed an unusual dialect. Her companions nodded in response. One swiped the communication device before returning in line with the others. The women trotted through the dense forest. Although nightfall was not far, the shade became suspiciously darker as they furthered. None marveled.
Above, between the layers, branches, vines, and leaves peered down a massive dome mountain. Brown and green mangled to form a top to the bunched ridges. The peak kissed at the clouds. Blankets of white forever missed the kiss, but not by much. A wonder for the eye, the mountain was blemished only by the pristine pus popping from it’s side. Circled domes topped each other along the side as trans-tracks extended from the dome levels to mountains afar.
This was the city the crumbling Zabrak saw in his binoculars.
He could not look up to see it up close as they neared. All the explorer could do was breath. And, he barely did that. More scarlet drooled from his busted lip while his dazed eyes captures shots of the dirt his sunken head look to. Blinks were long and delayed. Each second he fought sleep. The pitter-patter of his hearts was all that gave him hope. Every beat thud a strike in his deafen ears. A strike must have rattled his hearing.
Amidst the haze a thunk pierced the dull drone within his head. An ache bolted in his side. He was no longer dragged, but upright with his bottom to the floor. Durasteel kept his back aligned. Weakness stopped his neck from keeping his head up straight. Slobber drenched his chin. The warmth of surrounding figures bathed him as the familiar door closing hiss located him somewhere inside. A buzzing vroom and bleep rooted his senses as gravity pushed him down.
They were in an elevator.
The shaft rocketed to the heavens. Verdant hues blurred into lavender & dying orange, his drooping lids cutting his adrift gaze. Murky mirages matched muffled murmurs around him. Garbled breathes wheezed out his lungs and lifted his bosom. Heavy arms reached in defiance at the air weakly. There was nobody or nothing to grasp. But, he tried to fight. His captors glanced at him. They were unfazed.
A final jerk shudder the collective. The prey pushed to pry his eyes ajar as the door hissed again. Smudged obsidian circled him once more. Wrenched from his seat, he bumbled in their strong grasp. Arms flapped to the weight of the tug, flailing down as his shoulders sagged like water jugs. His powerless body was dragged once more to the Galactic Basic orders his deafened ears could decipher.
“Put him out.”
Rough cloth cut across his wounded face and all went black. A bag was over his head. Before protest could drizzle from his jaws, he was forced into a lurch. Wobbled by a sharp hurt, he could only hear the hook slosh into his guts. His belly swallowed her fist in a concave. He gasped a forced spit. His weakened spine waned. His head fell completely. The only thing that stayed put was the bag over his head. His feet swayed. His hands swayed. His body rot. Even his eye shut in the bag’s darkness. The sleep he fought finally won as his ears pricked to hear the parting words.
“Take him to her. She will dec---” And, so, he was gone to the beyond. There he hovered on the shoulders of the all-black adorn predators, showered by their masked stares, dead to the world.
------------
The planet Jeddesh floated in the center of the atrium above a pyramid. Its two moons hovered close by. Bright indigo poured in through the glass dome illuminating the globes and spilled across the marble floors. The sun languish and nightshade filled the hall. Both moons were at work to keep the chambers bright. Plants flourished from garden plots along the walls of the circled hall, blooming pink and stretching for the heavens. Vaulted arches forged entrances as collectives of baroness and dames saunter in. Grunts sung out in the rotunda atrium.
A fist flew. A knee bent. Balance was found on the left foot. The other was up and in the air, close to the chest. Loose pants flapped as the body posed. Air flowed along the exposed feet and gushed the cloth into whirl up the strong calves. However, the air could go no further. The thighs were big and fit the trousers to a stretch. For a moment, the knee stayed risen.
But, in a flash, it changed.
The lethal dance continued.
The knee straightened. The right foot planted. The left graced the marble with only the balls of its feet for a pivot to stand sideways. That foot lifted from the ground. The knee rose sharply like a knife. It came bosom level. An arm followed along like a choir and stabbed out at the air. At the end the hand was open like a bird’s claw. At the woman’s other side balled a fist, prepared to strike in another pivotal turn. Once more the pose relied on a single leg. This time it was the right one.
“Leni Am-la-Kuh!” A breathy, hoarse, feminine timbre exclaimed.
The woman’s head turned to the east to see who called. Around her dozens of young brown women & men continued to practice. Swings turned into craned poses about her as those wide & deep set almond eyes surveyed. Most around her were hickory, chocolate or ginger, but she had cinnamon skin. Her faced curved like a diamond, shining amongst the bunch; the jawline high, cheekbones wide. Fluffy lips that’d called the kiss of many and tended to smile quietly was only slightly agape as she searched. All the long jet black, dreaded locks toppling from her head, pass her shoulders and chest made her an easy find but not an easy locator. Her height didn’t help either. Only being 1.6 meters made her short for her kind.
She pushed a loose lock from her eye and peered some more. She knew the voice. It was a worn-out by constant commands and orders. Those coarse cords strained from incessant barks at troops, youngling and annoyances alike throughout the Ma’at Clan. It was a resonance which revealed the lady’s age.
“Amlaka,” that voice whispered.
The cinnamon gal spun to the voice. Her eyes gleamed with the friendly oval face & dreadlock mohawk. While out squawked a voice like old wood, the woman’s face was chocolate cake smooth; not a blemish, not a bruise, despite the fact she was garbed in all black assassin wear with an armored breastplate. Her hood hung back, letting her smile shine back at Amlaka. The two hugged and grinned. Amlaka began with her well-known sweet tone & soft pitch. She spoke words like they were delicate and mink. “Sehum, Pe’ta”
“Sehum, my Leni.” Pe’ta croaked Galactic Basic and bowed her head some, but none of the bystanders cared to gander over as she referred to her ruler. They simply continued in their training.
“No need for formalities,” Amlaka smiled. “But, why are you here?”
“An invasion”
--------
The Zabrak’s one working eye was useless. It was all black. Only the cold floor touched him. The bag was snatched from his head. He jerked. Water splashed his fast. It was hot. It stung the tears on his face. A yelp leapt from his depth but his body could only muster a moan. The muffled shriek jerked his body and he clawed at the ground. He coiled. When the eye opened, he was welcomed by more darkness. There he bathed in the emptiness, accompanied by the heavy breaths of whomever snatched the bag.
Nearby slithered an artificial yellow glimmer.
He recognized as a door crack. Dark figures swept by the crack in clusters. He could hear the footsteps. He could see the crack’s glint flash and seclude him to the absolute blackness momentarily. There he bathed in the emptiness until the door croaked wide. Behind the figure blinded a light. The shadow stood at the doorway. The Iridonian squinted his eyes and made out little.
It was another woman.
She was short.
Others trailed behind. She must be the leader. Her followers were tall with wider shoulders. Her hand lifted to halt their steps. She stepped down into his pit of darkness. The tap of her soft steps down the pair of stairs left a chill in his wrecked body. He did not move.
She stopped steps from him. Most of her was a silhouette. Merely her upper face and hair was revealed by the incoming light from the entrance. Over the two stalking figures, the yellow shone in and showed the gal’s long locks and cinnamon silk skin with the chesnut gaze. Without the dinginess she was a beauty, and her profile did not betray her.
She knelt at his side and looked upon his battered, frail body as a mechanic would inspect a broken part. “I am sorry for this,” the words were carefully plucked and delivered gingerly. She reached to touch him. He wrenched back. Her hand stopped mid-air. It twitched and eased back at her side. “Yes,” she muttered - to herself in a faint affirmation.
A sigh befell her. “I am Amlaka, and can you tell me why you’ve come to my land?”
The Zabrak’s eye stared back and groans grumbled groggily from his gut. Words couldn’t come. One of the figures at the door stepped forward. More light beamed in. From the shadow, an ortund toneless recount blared. “M’lady Leni, the communications detained from his person indicates the being comes to these regions on specific business funded by Anjiliac clan Hutts. Our investigation leads us to believe this is apart of the Diversity Confederacy”
The Confederation was born in abhorrence of the humanocentrism of the Pre-Cold War Galactic Empire. Aliens united in the Alien Combine on Coruscanti unified with Outer Rim and Corporate Sector planet alliances in a campaign for non-human rights in both the Galactic Empire & Alliance of Free Planets. Their political affairs intertwined with their business conglomerate. Both acted as one, roaming the hyper-lanes and funding their crusade with non-human lobbyist, trade guild members and the like. Although they publically forbade terrorist acts against humanoids, their rhetoric seemed evident in recent terrorist attacks on human outpost in several planets.
Neither the Galactic Empire nor the Alliance were certain, however the Zabrak knew the truth. He was mum. Pain took any voice he may have offered.
Amlaka head turned from the voice and gazed down on the prisoner. “I see,” she muttered. “And, how do we know the Confederacy or the Hutt are involved.”
Down came the last shadow from the entrance. In the darkness his voice was a roar and like gravel. “Leni, I looked into the matter personally. His equiptment serial codes lead back to credit purchases by a prominent Confederate figures name. Khoawan Tarbea. Apparently, the man is formerly an agent of the Galactic Empire. Identifications match with the subject, there.”
Amlaka cocked her head back. Her chin lifted. Those full lips opening for a mute “ah” as they were modeled under the entrance light. “And, the connection to the slug people of Nal Hutta?”
The man spoke once more, flatly. “The ship. Identification of the ship he landed in connected last with Anjiliac ports of Ylesia. Also, it is a TL-1200 transport was scribed with the Vizze Anjiliac trade organization.”
Amlaka shook her head while the man talked. She stood up and sighed once more. In the light pitched by the hall, cutting into the darkness, she caught a glimpse of the man’s working eye. The Zabrak looked back at her with scrunched squint and wetness in his eye the shine did not cause. She look and took in those wounds cut across his face, gashed on his chin, and sliced along & above his brow. Bloodstains dried across his visage, turning his marks and most his face a crimson. Even his beard was filled with the color.
She whispered a foreign dialect and whirled like wisp in a swivel. Her turn slipped her to the door, pass her two operatives. The soft-toed saunter split the duo, but halted at the steps to her exit. Above the man’s dual heart-beat quiet, and through the wheeze of his breaths he could hear the lulled lullaby of her voice ring.
“Goodbye, sir.”
A familiar cartridge loading clunk clicked like a chorus from the choir of shadowy figures while the doorway light dissipated. The entrance woosh shut behind her as her shadow went distant. The Zabrak closed his only useful eye shut. And, so did Amlaka as she stood afront the shut door. She listened quietly as the choir sung behind her.
-
Scorched flesh shouldn’t smell good a week later, but business called. Last week’s spoils peppered her small straight nose still like a harlot’s perfume. A ding echoed and the elevator doors closed. Her eyes closed too. Glass walls caged her in. The reflection of her face shined. Golden hoops and clear studs pierced her choice spots. Along both ears and nostrils the jewelry shimmered. The elevator came down with hushed bleeps at every floor. A faint vroom danced in the air. She was finally alone. Bright white elevator lights lit her to like a star. Systems away on her homeworld her victim rotted in flames. She still saw the charred hole in it’s skull. She still heard the blood splattering cries and screams. Flashes of the agony made her shut lids spasm. Invaders were dealt with in any form. The memory left a unpleasant tug lightly at the ends of her lips as she stood in the lift.
Her people were remained safe. For now.
Beyond the glass revealed a bustling ship bridge. Hordes of servicewomen and men flashed about as figures housed the blips of a control panels. Black was everywhere. The floors, walls, and out the starship screens lay the dark sea of space. She did not see it all (eyes still closed) but she heard the hum. Freshly painted white stripes, symbols of high class, crowned the side of her eyes. Faces darted her way as she zoomed by the bridge level in astonishment. All the well-groomed hair she handled in the wake of the ship’s arrival was kept mostly at bay while strands of her braided black locks collapsed to down far pass her shoulders. Glimmering beads pieced from her homeland’s jewels banded locks as they sat atop her head like a crown.
The gears hushed to a silence as the lift halted and doors whooshed open. Her eyelids rose like her ancestors spirits into the afterlife for her peer to capture the destination: the exit ramp. At the ramp’s end stared back two of her clanspeople and a man marked with an Alliance crested tunic.
“Tensentell…”*
[*] Phrase in the Emerė native Amhuric tongue meaning May they bless you. it's a greeting.
-
Bothawui was the hub of Alliance's disorder. Or, so it appeared to foreign eyes from a haven of naturalistic aesthetics. Jeddesh's hidden villages and cities were as one with nature as it's inhabitants, outside of the Alliance of Free Planet's outpost population of course. Therefore, Amlaka detached gaze upon the bustle as she stepped down onto the lamp was one of restraint. Surveys of holo-feeds, dossiers and her studies prepped her mind for the disarray. Speeder engines blasted and beeped in the distance in a cacophony of droid-speak muddled under the demands of strange languages. It was a garble clamor of life; she appreciated the busy bodying - it meant resolutions could be found amidst the crazy, hopefully. First, she'd have to remain diplomatic with her greeter: a Bothan man of short stature and long chin fur with bidy black eyes but soft stare. .
"Tensentell. You must be Elep Bwua'tu."
The man confirmed with a nod. Amlaka bowed and her personal escorts pressed their fist to their hearts. Salutations finished, representative Amlaka walked to Bwua'tu side, welcomed by a curtsy. The two trailed a beaten path into the spaceport, their hushed voices filled with pleasantries, as the guards tailed behind. They filled an elevator lift, and went down. More exchange was given, lifting the Bwua'tu's spirits and giving him a smile.
After a spaceport exit, the four stepped into the back of a black, luxurious, limo-speeder with the help of chauffeur. In a repulsor lift hum, the limo shot into the lanes, speeding to the Senate chambers. Business awaited.
-
Large would be considered an understatement. The Senate Building was enormous. The chambers within were wide, open and vast. She'd yet to step inside the building, but all was in her dossier. Images floated above the datapad in her lap. Her escort was quite helpful. Her guards made sure to stare upon him to add a sense of urgency to her polite request. Where she spoke soft, they stared harder.
They were the big stick.
Tucked away in the plush limousine, she sat center as the others positioned themselves at her sides. She folded her legs. Her finger ran across the screen, moving and zooming into the details. The personal escort watched intently. It was his job. Designs, decorations, cultural expectations, regulations, clearances and daily galactic news reports questions were within his jurisdiction to answer. Any cross-examinations of the files within the dossier, he'd have the information on. Often, protocol droids were sent in escort services for representatives and senators. Yet, Jeddesh's people were categorize and naturalistic. Little info was in their files. All the settlers knew were the people weren't primitive, simply bound - earthly. Bound by the plains, trees, and unearthed from the bushes, these people appeared spiritual and ethereal. Assumptions were made that droid-like creatures would be cultural faux pas to send.
Of course, they were wrong.
However, Amlaka was not concerned.
"I see," she murmured. She looked down on a report. What floated above the pad was a holo of a shattered freight ship. Open cargo holds hovered around the carnage. Photographed for the article titled "PIRATES PLUNDER THE NEBULA", she read recent attacks hit the along Hydian Way. Travelers were fearful. Planets lost goods. All these troubles spelled problems for neighboring planets and sectors. People lived on the rations destroyed, plunder, and the shipments carried. Continued piracy strangled those resources; lost resources turned settlers into nomads. Nomadic folks could either come to Jeddesh, or worst - be used as helpless faces in this cause if they were alien.
She shook her head, struck by the slideshow of all those hurt in the attack. She continued pushing her finger along, to see more of the victims in these strikes. Yes, she saw their eyes, their pain, but she also saw their strong brows, inhuman features and extra limbs: they were alien. A sigh escaped her.
"What ashame."
Up front, the driver turned back.
"Madame, we draw near."
