Jameson Edwards

[Ser Yorick]

Jim; call me Jim.

I don't remember my parents. Maybe they were neglectful, but then again maybe they were model parents who really cared for me. I wouldn't know. My childhood was robbed from me. I actually don't even know what planet I'm from. Mostly I just remember flashes; a woman's warm smile, wide open fields, and the taste of citrus. Nothing too concrete. The world I'm most familiar with, since I sort of half grew up on it, is Nar Shaddaa, which I guess is technically a moon, but you get the point. It's not exactly the safest environment for children, so you should have already figured out the kind of person I turned out to be, which is to say, a criminal. Sometimes. Side jobs mostly, because I'm smart enough not to get involved in any of the major syndicates. Usually, you get in bed with any of them, especially the Hutts, and you're in deep until you die. And dying young seems to be a popular choice among their employees. But I digress.

At some young age, probably before I was five, I was kidnapped by Nikto thugs. At the time it was really popular amongst their clan to take on children for use as slave labor aboard their freighters. They used children because they were easy to stow away when the law came knocking. Really they just needed kids to move their cargo, which was usually some form of contraband the Niktos were transporting for their Hutt overlords. I was one of those kids. At least I got to visit a lot of the galaxy. I mean, I got to visit the ports. And by visit I mean sneak peeks out the cargo bay door whenever we set aground. It was a tough life, but one gets used to any manner of living if given no other alternative.

The system went like this: the Niktos would pick up these kids wherever they could and distribute them amongst the ships within their fleet. Depending on the size of the vessel, you could have anywhere from six to maybe twenty kids running around doing the red scaly bastards' dirty work, carrying crates or stowing away goods. Sometimes, if you were "lucky" enough to get noticed by one of the ship's captains, you got to go planetside and peddle spice on street corners or seedy dive bars. If you were really lucky, you were assigned to work in the kitchen, where you could steal extra food if you had deft hands and lots of pockets. After a few seasons I got put on spice duty. It was both a blessing, and a curse. It was nice to get away from the usual hard labor, but there were risks in venturing out into whatever world we were currently docked. There was always a chance of being killed, kidnapped again by a rival gang, or worse yet, getting robbed. The worst thing you could do was return empty-handed. I'd literally seen some kids chucked out the airlock after returning with nothing.

The boat I lived on was called The Barbarian. It was one of the largest vessels in the fleet, and as such two red Niktos acted as captains each. They were twins, one called Grog, and the other Nak. Grog was the one who took a liking to me and gave me the spice job. He said I showed initiative. At the time I was one of the older kids in the group. At a certain age, usually thirteen or so, the Niktos would sell you off, or just outright kill you if they couldn't find a good enough price. I was nine. I was accustomed to how things worked, but knew that I that only had a few good years left before they cut me loose, literally or figuratively, and I knew which one I wanted. So I started trying to prove myself. First I began by mentoring the new kids, or recruits, as Grog would call them. Nak called us what we were, slaves. I'm still not sure which term I liked better, but soon I had a flock that would listen to me and follow my lead in the cargo bay. Together we found ways to make things run more efficiently, at least on our end of things. The thugs that would watch us would typically just tell us to move this to here or there and leave us to it. I would assign jobs, keep the other kids in pairs, divvy up responsibilities and the like to get things done faster. After a month or so of that, that's when Grog gave me the opportunity to be his runner. And by gave me the opportunity, I mean forced me to be his drug mule. He thought it was a kindness, a reward for doing a good job. It wasn't.

I realised immediately that if I didn't make this new gig work, I was going to end up like the others; Nak would toss me out the airlock.

My first day, I got mugged. I knew if I went back without the required credits, I would be screwed. So, I thought it over and decided I was going to have to steal that money. For three hours I scoped out the cantina I was told to work, looking for marks, marks that would have the kind of credits I was looking for, but wouldn't be too difficult to pinch their wallet. And at the end of those three hours, I saw her. I know now that she was a Jedi, and I was a lucky fool not to get caught, but at the time she just looked like a rich lady wearing robes. What an idiot.

The Jedi Knight was scoping the cantina out, just like me. She seemed to be looking for someone, so I followed not too far behind, trying to ascertain where she kept her credit chip. Maybe it was on her hip? I knew some were keen to keep theirs strapped to their chest, beneath their clothes, and I hoped that wasn't the case. That would almost certainly lead to a difficult grab, one impossible not to get caught at. As the different scenarios raced through my mind, I saw the woman stop by the bar. She had found her target. I briefly glanced over at who it was. Just some Duros. Whatever. The Jedi walked right up to him... or her... it. Some words were exchanged and the Duros shot up out of its stool. I saw it reach for its side, when the lady flipped open her robe. There it is! Her credit chip! No sooner had she drawn her weapon and I heard a snap-hiss than I snatched up the Jedi's chip. She didn't even notice. I don't think anyone did, because nobody followed me as I ran out the front door. I heard screaming so I didn't look back all the way to The Barbarian. When I looked down at my prize, out of breath outside of the bay doors, I couldn't believe my eyes. A full thousand credits! Over double what I needed to get back in good with Grog and Nak.

After that, Grog really began to take me under his wing. I kept running drugs for him until I was twelve. I got good at it too. I learned to steer clear of certain zones on the regular planets we visited, and even sort of developed a sense of where to go for port towns on new worlds too. Eventually Grog let me work in the kitchens. A year at that and I was head chef. It felt sort of like retirement. Like I had lived a full adult life, and now I didn't have to risk my neck anymore. I could live comfortably, taking my pick from the pantry, even handing out scraps to some of the kids I knew needed a little something extra to get by. And when I was caught, which happened once or twice, Grog would just make the issue go away. This would of course infuriate Nak, the other captain, but Grog would always manage to calm him down, arguing that I had made them more money than all the runners in the last five years combined, and that my work ethic was to be rewarded, not punished. But at thirteen, I knew Grog's protection would be coming to an end. I would be cut loose, just like all the other children that grew up.

Only, I wasn't. Nak was transferred to another freighter, and Grog was put in full command of The Barbarian. After his brother left, Grog promoted me, to a member of his crew. He started having me trained to pilot shuttles, which would carry spice, death sticks, or whatever else, from freighter to freighter, or ship to ground on the planets that were too hot to land on. This is how I got to be the hotshot pilot I am today. I owe a lot to Grog. My survival being the biggest, but he was only fond of the money I brought in, not of me. I knew that. I was still a slave, even though he said I was part of the crew. I wasn't given any of the freedoms the other Nikto received. I couldn't come and go as I pleased between jobs. I was confined to The Barbarian unless on a shuttle run.

On my eighteenth name day, I was sent on another rendezvous. I figured it would be a run of the mill job, like the dozens I had already gone on that season. I was wrong. The ship I was to meet up with was one of the freighters from our fleet. I was to head to the far side of this world, away from the hustle and bustle of the backwater dust bowl's one major city. The shuttle I was flying carried supplies, and a few extra kids we had picked up and had no use for. When I got to the rendezvous point, I did the usual, wait for the contact to show, transmit the code, then wait for confirmation. After being given the all clear, I got out and began unpacking the shuttle. A couple Nikto and some kids of their own came down from their cargo bay doors with a lift jack and grabbed the heavy stuff. I finished the last of the supplies myself, and set down a crate of bottles. As I looked up, I saw Nak. His eyes seemed to bulge out of his skull when he saw me. If you ever see a red Nikto's head flap ruffle up like a peacock, you better kriffing run. I didn't.

I woke up in the airlock, my head pounding. That rat bastard had knocked me unconscious, and I realised, he meant to jettison me. His twin brother Grog had gone on to run one of the most successful ships in the fleet, and here was Nak, captain of a much smaller vessel than he was used to, probably only a crew of a dozen or so, tasked with running odd jobs instead of major smuggling runs. And then I came along, reminding him of what he had lost, not to mention the affront that was a human doing shuttle runs.

I looked through the glass into the cargo area to see him standing on the other side. Nak's face was all fury. He looked even redder than usual. All he did was wave, and press the button.

As soon as the doors opened, I knew I was dead. I just knew it. They say your life flashes before your eyes right before you die. Nope. I was sucked out the airlock, but not into space. The freighter had still been in atmo. We were high up, maybe twenty thousand feet. I had a long way to fall. But somehow, I didn't fall for very long. In fact, I felt the whoosh of the air as I was ripped out, and then... nothing. As it turns out, another ship was flying just beneath us, and I smacked down on its viewscreen. I'm not sure if you've ever seen anything like that, but I was stuck. Scared the crap out of the pilot too, who managed to slow the vessel before my limp body slipped off, right before being hit with a heart attack and dropping dead. After that, I became the ship's new pilot.

And that's where I'll end. Eight years later I've saved up enough from odd jobs to buy my own ship. Nothing too fancy, just my own piece of the sky. Starburn is her name, a real speed boat. Pilot-able by one, with sleeping quarters for a max crew of six. Very small cargo hold.

RPs:
Basic Rocket Science