There is also a game I am playing, which my best friend Mark is running. Yes, it is a STAR WARS EDGE OF THE EMPIRE game.

What is it like to have a published and professional science fiction author as a player? It’s really annoying, because when inspiration strikes, I write an entire 10,000 word short story to describe my character’s background!

Are you curious? Do you have too much time on your hands? Here it is!!

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Rurra Lya’lya, Lady Scoundrel

Something Wrong with Life

Rurra was raised in the lap of luxury on the vast estates of clan Ilya on planet Kothlis, where acres of the legendary singing grasses emit eerie serenades from their crystal flowers beneath the mingled lights of the seven gem-bright geode moons.

The five thousand year old mansion house was acre upon acre in extent, a massive pile of intricately carved ivory, shining silverwood, polished teak and cherry, a blaze of stained glass windows, and each chimney adorned the air with the many perfumes and incense wafts to which the Bothan nose is particularly sensitive.

Beneath the mansion was an older dwelling place, and endless warren of tunnels and buried museums, domiciles, strongrooms and workshops were the vassal clans beholden to Ilya were dormitoried, the lesser clans of Swy and Vwyl, Lal and Llorl and the hereditary assassins beholden to Ilya, the cunning Yroon.

Beyond the groves of singing trees stretch the pampas which Rurra in her youth loved to ride on her pet human, a tall and athletic steeplechaser named Arno, who would carry her on his shoulders as he loped across the plains of this light and low-gravity world.

The pampas were scarred by deep and narrow arroyos in which the lowest class of Bothans made their homes in the fashion of the beastlike burrowing ancestors: half-buried huts whose thatched roofs were flush with the ground, with tunnels leading through soil and roots. Such huts blended into the soil, and the scent of their owners masked by fragrant grasses and herbs, so that one could ride with a stone’s throw of a village of them and suspect nothing.

In these tall grasses the low-caste Bothan nerfherders would herd their nerfs, lumbering beasts like walking whales from whose ambergris and sweetbreads the perfumers of Ilya extracted essences, and the assassins brewed poisons. Of course, being Bothans, the nerfherders spent their time gambling and smuggling and plying each other with tricks and multilayered deceptions, and trying to get someone else to do their chores.

Only infrequently would the nerfherders trample a rival village under the bellies of their wallowing nerfs, or to celebrate those special holidays commemorating ancestral battles and successful acts of treachery.

It was when she was still a kitten of the Third Season, at the age that in a human would be equivalent to a sixteen year old, just at the dawn of womanhood, when Rurra first became aware of something amiss in the galaxy.

She was out riding, as was her wont, on the shoulders of Arno across the pampas, watching the nerfs wallow and spout in the distance, and speaking of her dreams.

“I’ve decided I shall be famous!” she announced.

Arno grunted. He was not as young as he once was, and she was getting heavier as she grew. Also, Rurra had recently adopted the ladylike fashion of riding sidesaddle, which made his job all the more awkward.

“A famous spy, mistress?” he said. “The only famous spies are dead ones.”

She pouted. “I do not HAVE to be a spy, just because I am a Bothan!”

“Sure. You could go into intelligence analysis, or politics, or be a courtier, or a courtesan.”

“I could be a famous singer! I could be an exotic dancer!”

“The most famous Bothan dancer of all time was Mata Hra’yi, who used her beauty to become the mistress of two generals on opposite sides of the Great Sith War.”

She said, “By feeding information to both sides, Mata was helping to end the conflict!”

Arno coughed. “You Bothans always say that, mistress.”

“What’s your point?” she said crossly.

“If you were a famous singer, even if you were not a spy, everyone would assume you were.”

“And what if I never sold anyone any information?”

“Then everyone would assume you are an incompetent spy.”

Rurra scowled. “Why is every race in the galaxy only known for one trait?”

Arno shrugged, which made Rurra bounce. “I dunno. Why does every planet in the galaxy only have one environment? How come this world is grassland from pole to pole, and Hoth is nothing but ice, Tantooine is nothing but sand, and Coruscant is nothing but city?”

She said, “I could be a famous warrior! Then no one would think I was a spy!”

Arno snorted, trying to smother a laugh. “Surely, mistress. Great idea.”

“I am serious! I’m pretty handy with a vibro blade …  And I am taller than my sisters!”

“Even as Bothans go, mistress, you are dinky. And you are exactly the same size as your sisters.”

“Not in heels!”

“Dismount for a moment. You’re, what? Four feet? What are you going to, stab my kneecap?”

“That doesn’t count. You’re a giant.”

“I am a human, and we are average as far as bipedal races go. If you wanted to be a fighter, you should have been born a Wookie. They are seven feet tall. Bothans are the dinkiest race in the galaxy. You are dinky and fuzzy and cute and helpless, and you need someone tougher than you to look after you.”

She took out her pocket mirror and primped her fur, of which she was inordinately proud. “So you think I am cute, eh? I could order you to become my lover!”

Arno rolled his eyes. “What is it about girls and horses?!” He said to her, his voice becoming tense “Listen: we are in danger if you talk like that, even as a joke. Your family would have me killed if anyone heard us, or have me sent to the spice mines of Kessel.”

“Well, who is the helpless one now, eh? Don’t worry, I’ll look after you,” she smirked.

“Time to mount me!” He shouted, and put his arm about her legs and threw her over his shoulder so her tail was high in the air and her head hung down his back. He started jogging back toward the mansion grounds.

“Hey! HEY! This is undignified!” she shouted, pounding on his upper legs ineffectually with her dainty fists.

“Please don’t unleash your legendary warrior prowess against me, mistress!” he said in a high pitched voice. “Oh NO! Spare me from your mighty battering! Thrash me not! Eek! Eek! I think you have raised a small but painful bruise!”

“I could have you whipped, you brute.” She said sullenly. Rurra tried to make this sound as menacing as she could, but her face was bouncing against his buttocks at the time, and her hair combs were falling out.

“Your family has a beefy Trandoshan to do your whippings for you,” he said, halting and letting her down. “You see my point? Bothans are a dinky race and a sneaky race. Sneakiest race in the galaxy.”

“We are NOT the sneakiest race in the galaxy! What about Twi’leks?”

Arno said sardonically, “Where is your real mother?”

Rurra said, “Among clans of my rank, it is completely reasonable that we are each raised in someone else’s family. It produces cooperation. And if the heir to the large estates were known, they would be kidnapped or assassinated.”

“What is your stepmother’s name?”

“I am not cleared to know that. Don’t laugh! That does not necessarily mean we are sneaky! A lot of people don’t give their real names to people they don’t trust! Bothans just like privacy!”

“Mistress, you need to be useful to the strong, so then they will protect you. Don’t let any foolish ideals about freedom and happiness get in your way. Side with the strongest.”

She picked up her dropped hair combs and he knelt. She stepped on his knee and gracefully settled herself on the shoulder saddle again.

“Now you sound like one of us,” Rurra said.

“I am one of you, mistress,” he said darkly. “Don’t be fooled by my race.” They started trotting back home.

“How did you come to be a riding beast?”

“It is better than being a spice miner, I can tell you. Carry around rich little furry girls on your shoulders, listen to them chatter nonsense, then go get drunk after sunset. Not a bad life. If I save my tips and stay away from betting on nerf racing, I should be able to buy my freedom in a few years. Then I head out to the edge of the empire, the globular clusters, where there is not so much law and order, and no one cares about your past! I’ll get myself a mail order bride and a dozen orphans, find an empty planet, set up a tavern and a brewery, make the wife and the rugrats do all the work, and be the only one there drinking unless a customer lands. I’ll call it Beerworld!”

“A noble dream,” she said, “But I was asking about your past, not your future.”

His voice grew flat. “I am from planet Melia. The whole world is wrapped in clouds, except at the poles.”

“I’ve never heard of it.”

“We committed a crime against the Republic. Treason, they called it. The planet was put on trial and condemned as a whole. The sentence was decolonization for the world and penal servitude for three generations. The call went out across the galaxy that any Melian found on the world was fair game, free of charge. The police ships orbited and the slave ships landed, and everybody on the world was carted off.”

“All? All of them?”

“You would think a planet has a lot of people? Millions? Do the math. That means if ten thousand planets where the slave trade is brisk sent only one ship each, each ship would only need to carry a hundred people. So our cities and temples and towers are all empty beneath the blue-black sky of Melia.”

“Did you have any family?”

“Scattered to the winds like thistledown. There is no chance of finding them again. Do you know how man planets there are?”

“Slavery should be illegal,” she said.

“It is better than being a droid,” he shrugged, and made her bounce, and she giggled.

Master Mak Kas’yla  and a Most Unladylike Hobby

From that day forward, she was resolved to be ferocious warrior so that she could end the slave trade, and it was not hard to find a Bothan from one of the ancient families whose traditions still included martial training from the days before plasma weapons, or even from before gunpowder. He was a Bothan white as snow from crown to whiskers, and more the half blind, named Mak Kas’yla, Strongguard of Illya, and he swore her to secrecy, and made her his disciple.

On the one night of the year when all the moons were dark or down, she was made blood-sister of the secret and half legendary Ancient and Honorable Military Order of the White Rose Thorn, whom some say are paladins of virtue, other assassins for hire.

Now, the Bothans are an ancient people, among the earliest to join in the Republic and spread through the Galaxy, so there are many very archaic laws and customs appear in books that were old when most planets were still in their Stone Ages. The Bothans are not precisely a law abiding people, so no one is very clear on which laws are still in force and which are not, and the rules seem to change depending on whether your patrons are powerful or weak, your clients many or few. Everything depends on who owes a favor to whom.

It so happened that Rurra had nineteen sisters in her litter who were identical twins to her. It was five times the size of the average litter of four, which were normally fraternal twins. This gave her two advantages: by taking their place where there were irksome chores or dances or clan functions to attend, Rurra could collect a large number of markers from her sisters, for small favors or large, which she could then swap to her advantage. Markers are the one currency Bothans never counterfeit.

Second, being from such a large litter, it was easy to slip away from her nurses to go practice with her antique vibrosword. Of course, there were retainers and vassals watching the doors or grounds who had to be bribed or cajoled, but Rurra had grown into a busty and attractive young vixen with a smile white and sharp, and menfolk both young and old were inclined to give her discounts on their bribe money, just because everyone likes being friendly to cute girls with bright smiles, big busts, and bushy tails.  She always made sure to undo her top button or two when talking to the creepy old white-furred men-at-arms at the front door.

And yet, despite lavish bribes and undone buttons, the day came when her stepmother discovered her unladylike hobby.

The Stepmother

Rurra was called into her stepmother’s presence chamber. The room was dark with wall screens painted over seventy generations ago; overhead, the gold frescoes of the impossibly tall ceiling were held up by shining and richly scented silverwood columns transported at vast expense from the homeworld of Bothawui eighty generations ago. The images of ancient retreats, escapes, migrations and regicides adorning the walls were a stern reminder of the Ilya dignity.

It was true that the Bothans were an ancient people, among the first incorporated into the Galactic Republic, and they had colonized planets and abandoned planets for many cycles of time before the newer races arose. Nonetheless, the ancient planet Kothlis still regarded her mother world Bothawui with envious eyes, and the clans of Kothlis were known to be sensitive to the claim that they were upstarts, and so they were more careful of matters of protocol and hiding evidence than their brothers on the mother world.

The two exchanged meaningless courtesies for the benefit of any secret microphones, and pretended, like stepmothers and stepdaughters are wont to do, to dress and adorn each other’s fur and mane and tail.

But the real conversation took place in the secret Bothan language formed by twitches and ripples of fur. The matriarch of Ilya brought forth brushes and combs, hairpins and perfumes, and they sent the servants away. Both and disrobed to expose more fur surface so that they could speak more freely.

“It is ridiculous that you should be practicing swordsmanship,” said her stepmother with a curt and cold flourish of neck hairs. “Do not humiliate the clan!”

“The Way of Bothan, our sacred book, says we must revere the customs of our ancestors.”

“The actual quote from our sacred book is that we must revere the customs of our ancestors when it is advantageous to do so, or when we need a handy excuse to fool the Suckers.” (Suckers was the Bothan word for all non-Bothans).

“Nevertheless, by the letter of the law, since there are no male heirs in the Lya family of the Ylya Clan, I am the direct heir to the Clan Hereditary Leadership. Hence, I have the ancestral duty to lead the vassal families loyal to our clan to war. It says so in the Analects of Absurdly Ancient Days.”

“I believe that passage refers to warring against the saber-toothed dinosaur land-sharks that were hunted to extinction back on the home world two Ice Ages ago.”

“Of course, stepmother, that is what the passage MEANS, but it is not what it SAYS. Remember the Book of the Way also tells us ‘When the spirit law is on your side, argue the spirit; when the letter of the law are on your side, argue the letter; when neither is on your side, bribe the judge’. ”

“In this case,” said her stepmother with a sardonic droop of her tail hairs, “I am your judge, and, sweetie, you got nothing I want.”

“Oh, but I think I do!”  Rurra said with a perk of her ear hairs.

“Raise or fold, child, but do not weary your elders with cub tricks.”

“I know from my sources that you have been arranging a marriage for me with our rivals, clan Askar of Planet Dressel, to strengthen our bonds with them and get into a position to force them out of power.  Well, an attractive young bride like me could do much either to lull suspicions in my husband’s eyes, or enflame them! You need my cooperation!”

A silent laugh of scorn rippled down the stepmother’s back. “Ah! I remember being your age! A girl thinks all she needs is a deep cleavage and a well turned tail to spin the galaxy to her will! Well, it is not so simple. Your sources are bantha poop, girly. Clan Askar is a feint; they are merely arranging the marriage for a more powerful clan too highly ranked to come out openly seeking a bride. I mean clan Yg back on the homeworld. Prince Wassup Dawg D’yg is willing to raise you from being a noblewoman to being royalty.”

“Royalty! I will be a space princess! Like Padme of Naboo! But—wait. Which prince was this? Isn’t Wassup the one with patchy fur and wet hands who smell like pickles?”

“He smells like power.”

“I don’t love him. What if I say I will never agree?”

“Whom do you love, then? Your riding beast, Arno? What is it about girls and horses? It is better not to love, foolish child. Once your enemies discover you have an emotional attachment to something they can control or threaten, you are at their mercy. You do not want me as an enemy. A merchant from Kessel was here just the other day, asking if we had any spare livestock to sell. Slaves in the spice mine do not last long, once the pepper of Kessel get in their nose and eyes!”

Rurra quailed, her fur going limp. “Not the pepper! Not the pepper!”

With a ripple of silky-smooth fur, the older woman lightly whispered, “Well? Do I need to drop a more obvious hint, and say what I mean, or can we handle this like true Bothans?”

“Like true Bothans,” snarled Rurra with a snarl in her hair. “I will never say what I truly mean. And I truly mean that!”

“So! No more swordfighting for you! You will learn what all well groomed Bothan ladies of high rank learn; dancing, singing, laser-needlepoint, poison-detection, electronic intelligence analysis, and Black Tech for making droids secretly loyal to you.”

Something in the lay of the stepmother’s fur caused of ripple of suspicion in Rurra.  “What about learning the Back Tech arts of cloning? It is forbidden throughout the galaxy, but there are rumors … ”

“Ah … no. What do the Bothans of Kothlis know of cloning? Ha ha! Now then! You are to be wed to Prince Pickles or whatever his name is once you enter the Fourth Season and your fur changes. That is two of our local years from now. You are brainless and weak, and your only real asset is your enormous yet perky mammalian rack of cleavage. If you start to sag or grow ill-groomed, you can be replaced by any one of nineteen other sisters. So let there be no slip-ups! Stay pretty! Stay cheerful! This is the chance to ally the clan to royalty! And remember what the Sacred Book of the Way says about obeying the hereditary clan leadership.”

“Yes, stepmother,” said Rurra with a defeated droop of her ears. “Every kitten and cub owes the clan hereditary leadership absolute obedience, unless no one is looking.”

“Word to live by! Keep them in your heart. You must never see your teacher, Strongguard, again!”

She never did see the old man again.

White Rose Thorn

But the next day Arno carried her across the pampa farther than she had ever traveled before, to one of the many hidden villages half buried in a dry riverbed. Here was a hut swept and clean with mats and foils and all the equipment needed for fencing lessons.

“For you,” said Arno. “No one bothers to watch you ride out into the wilderness. There is no one to scheme with, here. Or so they think.”

“But why?”

“The thorn of the White Rose is hidden, though it is sharp.” This was the secret watchword of the White Rose Thorn society.

“But Strongguard is surely being watched! Who shall be my teacher?”

For an answer, the aging steed slipped off his shoulder saddle and took up a practice blade. “Guard yourself. You need to learn to face bipeds of my size if you are serious.”

It was a nightmare for two years, while Rurra had to stay cheerful and pretty. From time to time the Black Prince, Wassup of Yg, would arrange to see her allegedly by coincidence during some hunt or ball or dance, and touch her with wet paws. And he did indeed smell of pickles. But, trapped as she was, she assumed her most flirtatious manner, used every art of seduction and deception, and even — in desperation — ate the dread and disgusting pickles herself to please him.

Pickles, of course, are highly addictive to Bothans, and more than once she woke up with no memory of the night before, but more deeply in debt to her second cousin Ashk, the local pickle-pusher.

(Not until years later did she discover him to be the famous Ashk Ak’skar, chieftain of the black market smugglers of Dressel.)

Alas, soon she found some of her nineteen identical twin sisters jealous, conspiring against her, and to sooth their jealousy she let two or three of her sisters Prisk, Riskyr or Ralk take her place once or twice with the Black Prince at a dance or nerf race.

The visits to the training gymnasium hidden in the grass of the pampas was her only consolation.

Uncle and Father

So matters went until the Fourth Season. Rurra blossomed into a woman attractive by human, Bothan and Twi’lek standards, who are all mammals, because she smelled good to Bothans, and looked alluring to those troubled humans known as Furry-fans.

A time came when she adorned as a bride and escorted through the buried labyrinth to the Innermost of the Inner Chambers of the ancient clanhold. There stood two tall (for Bothans) and stern figures, their fur black as midnight, wearing dark cusps over their eyes.

“Call me Hojo’lya,” said the first. “And call him Asami’lya. Not our real names, of course. One of us is your father, and the other is your uncle. We have watched you grow for many years now, and received reports from spies among your nurses and servants, and of course your childhood friends we hired to play with you. We love you and we are proud of you.”

The one called Asami said, “Any father, or, for that matter, any uncle, would be proud to have a daughter, or for that matter, a niece, as accomplished and talented as you. We both love you very much, and you should not be suspicious of us or fear any treachery.”

Rurra said, “What exactly have I done that you are proud of?”

The one called Hojo said, “You are very buxom.”

Asami said, “Having a big chest is an asset for the clan. In this case, it allows the clan to arrange to marry you to a royal Prince. He probably would call it off if you looked like a dog.”

“I am glad to finally meet my real father, and that you love me so much. Which one of you is my father, and which is the uncle?”

Asami said, “Whoa, there! We don’t love you THAT much. What do we look like, idiots?”

Rurra said, “Wearing sunglasses in a dark, underground room does not make you look like rocket scientists.”

Hojo said, “The Clan is in a delicate position. One of us is a Senator of Coruscant, the other is a Crime boss from the criminal planet Dressel, the center of the alliance of crime triads throughout the galaxy. We are working with each other behind the scenes to produce a massive change in history, one which will make the galaxy a safer and a better place for Bothans. But the plan has already demanded many steep sacrifices from our people.”

Asami said solemnly, “Many Bothans have died making the galaxy safe for Bothans.”

Hojo said, “Neither the forces of law nor the forces of crime must discover what we have set in motion.”

Asami said, “Our rivals from crime-planet Dressel, the Askar, and the Ilya of Kothlis have spent over a century establishing a reputation with us that we hate each other. On every possible occasion, we have arranged violent fights and duels and feuds between us.”

Hojo said solemnly, “Many Bothans have died to arrange this deception.”

“No biped in the galaxy,” said Asami, “And especially no Bothan, would ever suspect that this is all a set-up. Askar and Ilya are actually close allies, working in concert on a cunning scheme that has been long in the making. In fact, my brother and I are actually of different clans. One of us has an Askar mother and an Ilya father, and the other has an Ilya father and an Askar mother.”

“Don’t tell me, let me guess: Many Bothans have died to arrange these marriages.” Rurra said. “But how does the clan plan to make the galaxy safer for us?”

Asami said, “By starting a Civil War.”

Rurra said, “Oh. Good plan.”

“There are deeper and darker forces at work here,” said Hojo. “A separatist movement has gained ground recently, and many worlds wish to break away from Coruscant control. Naturally, an opposite faction has arisen among the Patrician families to create an army and an imperial leader, one man with absolute power, one man who can stop the separatists and restore peace.”

“The Senate, and Clan Ilya,” intoned Asami, “Will side with the Imperial party. The Crime lords, and Clan Askar, will side with the Separatist party.”

Hojo said, “That way, whoever wins or loses, the Bothans win.”

Asami said, “Before the Jedi, the Republic relied on Bothan spymasters and secret police to enforce peace and safety. But who needs spies if you can prophecy the future? Neither the Separatists nor the Imperials are likely to rely on the Jedi, no matter which one prevails, and so they will turn to the Bothans. And, in this case, the Bothans means the Ilya and Askar alliance, and NOT the Royal Family. They will be reduced to meaningless figureheads.”

Hojo said, “We will use our position to funnel information secretly from one side of the war to another, and this will bring about the peace all that much more rapidly.”

Rurra said, “We always say that, don’t we?”

Hojo ruffled his fur. “Because it is always true!”

Rurra said, “Which side is right? The imperials or the separatists?”

Hojo said, “In the last three generations of time, many new planets have been colonized ever farther from the core stars. As the sphere of the frontier expands, you can see how the edge stars are both farther from the Core and farther from each other, and this makes policing the trade routes more expensive — piracy, once a minor problem, is now a major headache. To make things worse, some colonies, taxed and controlled by their mother planets, want to break away and become full citizens, paying tribute directly to Coruscant as free charter worlds represented in the Senate.

“We happen to know,” Hojo continued, “That these worlds are aiding and funding privateers to force the Republic to take more forceful steps. But no one trusts the Republic to maintain a standing army to police the outer worlds, and the Jedi Knights are too few.”

“You happen to know because Kothlis is one of those worlds.” Rurra nodded.  “We want to sever ties with our mother world of Bothawui, and so we are secretly building warships for pirates in preparation for an insurrection — and we are doing this to create an artificial crisis to force the Senate into giving absolute power to one dictatorial leader?”

Hojo said, “You make that sound like it is a bad thing.”

Rurra said, with a little impatience. “So, I ask again, what does that have to do with who is right?”

Asami said, “I will explain the situation: the recent colonization of many outer worlds has made their legal status unclear. Some say they are client planets with no rights but what their mother planets grant, and some say they are full citizens answering directly to Coriscant, whose warships patrol these now-longer trade routes so far from the core. The taxation of trade routes to outlaying star systems is in dispute.  Hoping to resolve the matter with a blockade of deadly battleships, the greedy Trade Federation has stopped all shipping to the small planet of Naboo. While the congress of the Republic endlessly debates this alarming chain of events…”

Rurra clutched her ears, “Wait, wait. You are boring the spit out of me. Just tell me which side is actually, you know, in the right?”

Hojo and Asami looked at each other blankly, clearly not understanding the question.

Asami shook like a wet dog shaking from head to tail and said, “For the plan to work, the Ilya Clan must to form closer ties to the Royal Family on the home world of Bothawui, so we can betray their trust and force them into insignificance. To this end, you will be married to Prince Wussap. However, you are not to consummate the marriage, as the presence of a litter of heirs would lead to difficulties at this time.”

“I must admit I LIKE that part of the plan,” sighed Rurra with relief.

“You will be spirited away on your wedding night, but it will look like a kidnapping and a murder, because false evidence will be planted pointing to the crime planet Dressel. The outraged public opinion of Kothlis will force Kothlis to declare war on Dressel, and no one will doubt that clan Ilya hates clan Askar. The Separatists will have no choice but to come to the aid of Dressel, because the crime lords there are secretly funding the creation of their battle fleet and droid army. This will frighten the bovine nerfs in the Senate to act, and will therefore force a newly-formed Imperial party to come to the aid of Kothlis — we are backing Chancellor Palpatine to become Supreme Leader during an emergency he is preparing to create on his planet of Naboo.”

“You see the beauty of the plan,” chimed in Hojo. “Once Palpatine is Emperor, Kothlis will be the world that first supported him and first turned to him for aid. This might end up being his throne world and center of his power! He might set up his Summer Palace here! We need someone strong to protect us, after all.”

“We always say that, too,” muttered Rurra.

Asami said, “The main fact is that we are luckily a fox-faced clan rather than a horse-face or dog-faced clan, so we are thought attractive by the humans, who are rapidly becoming the dominant race in the galaxy these days as the Gands dwindle in numbers. No one is sure why the humans are so successful, but legend has it that their home world has several different climates on it, allowing them to adapt to ice worlds and forest worlds and desert worlds with equal ease.  In any case, humans, or at least the disturbed ones who like furries, will be outraged when they see your dead body, pretty as you are.”

“My what?” said Rurra, perking up an ear.

“I mean the completely fake holo-pictures that will look like your dead body, of course.”

Royal Wedding

It was that same night that the whole planet watched through holovision or heard over radio the grand and royal wedding. It was held in the ancient mansion of the Ilya, with the royal flagship of the Black Prince in orbit overhead. Many Bothans got drunk during the ceremonies. Even Rurra had a snifter or six of Askalan Ale to help kill the smell in her nose of her bridegroom. But finally the ceremony was done, and the ancient clan shaman placed the coronet of wedlock atop her head.

Rurra was relieved when, in the royal bridal suit, before she had taken off her elaborate wedding dress, a hurried knock at the door called the lusty and pickle-drunk Prince away. Allegedly a privateer ship had opened fire on the royal flagship, and then landed in the sea of grass to the West. The royal flagship was landing a surface-to-orbit landing boat to the East: the Prince commanded Rurra to travel quickly and in secret to meet the landing boat, while he organized ground troops to hunt down the privateers at their landing zone. But Rurra believed not a word of this, but was secretly impressed that her father and uncle had arranged such a good excuse to prevent her from consummating her marriage to the Prince.

Quickly she saddled up Arno and rode away into the night, outdistancing the household escorts and ladies in waiting sent with her. In the distance she saw the landing boat like a white spire, flying the royal crest of Yg, when three shadowy figures stepped out of the grass in the colored light of the seven moons.

One was immensely tall, almost five feet, with the head of a horse, showing that he was from the old stock of planet Bothawui. The second was four feet, the average height, with the head of a dog, as is often seen on the colony planet Dressel, and he was armed with a long, strait sword of strange design; and the third was no bigger than a child, some three feet tall, with the catlike features of a native of Kothlis.

“Pardon me, your highness,” came the soft voice of the smallest of the three. “But as you can see, we are three poor, humble traveling circus performers looking for work. Is there is village nearby?”

“There is nothing nearby,” she replied.

“Good!” the small one intoned, his voice taking on a depth and tone of menace. “Then there will be no one to hear you scream!”

With this, the huge, huge, five foot tall one reached for her.

Quite unexpectedly, Arno the riding human, who was over six feet, stepped forward and punched the giant (well, relatively) Bothan in the gut and folded him up like a cheap suit. In the next moment, Arno shrugged himself out of the shoulder saddle, picked up Rurra, and threw her bodily into the tall grasses by the path side. Being catlike, she landed on her feet.

“What are you doing?” Demanded Rurra. “This is all part of a well-crafted plan!  They are going to create the fake evidence of my murder to provoke a war between planet Kothlis and planet Dressel!”

“No, you stupid girl!” roared the human, clubbing the so-called giant to the ground with the saddle. “You ARE the fake evidence! Your uncle the crimelord means to have you really killed, because no Bothan would be fooled by fake evidence! It is a double feint within a double cross! Your evil twin Ralk the Charming will be offered in your place after the dust settles, so she arranged to have these assassins sent here — they are your own vassals! These are the Three Devil Goons of Yroon! ”

So saying, he picked up the so-called giant one by the ankles, and clubbed the short catlike one to the ground with him, and the small man’s hold out blaster (which he was fumbling to draw and aim) went spinning off into the grass; but at the same moment the doglike one ran Arno through his valiant heart. Rurra, showing more fury than sense, came out of the bushes, brandishing her ancient vibroblade, and pierced the dog-faced assassin through his wrist.

Perhaps alarmed by the sudden reverse of fortunes, or unwilling to kill a cute girl, or worried that he might not get paid, the thin and doglike Bothan of Dressel saluted her with his sword, activated his rocket belt, and rose into the air. His two companions rose with him, either because they had regained consciousness, or because their belts were remotely controlled by his.

Rurra rushed, picked up the dropped hold out blaster, and squinted overhead, seeing nothing but clouds and gloom.

Down came the voice of the thin assassin, faint with distance, chuckling: “I am Yblis Yroon, milady. These are my cousins Ygli and Vassini. Remember our names! We are not accustomed to failure, and dare not let our reputation wane. Rest assured, we shall work our revenge on you for this night’s work.”   And like shadows the three were gone.

But Rurra was cradling her beloved steed’s head on her arms. “You said you were one of us. You meant you were a spy. A human spy. Who’d have thought it?”

He nodded weakly. “Your mother, your real mother, bought me and sent me here to keep an eye on you. She was paying me enough so that I could buy my freedom. But…” (now he coughed weakly, and blood was in his mouth) “… I meant it for my wife and children, if any be still alive. No idea what planets they are on. Buy them. Free them. Take the money—it is hidden behind the medallion of Yvor the Clever—I keep it in a slop jar with pictures, mementos and records of them …”

“Who is my real mother?”

“Jastra Lya’lya. Jastra the Celestial. She is living on Dressel, raising your twenty cousins, disguised as an Askar, under the name Caer Sei’skar. Your step mother is your aunt, her sister. Her real name is Fiarr Fla’skar.”

“Wait. I think I need to make a chart… Who is Fiarr married to? Hojo or Asami?”

But it was too late. The noble human breathed his last and died.

Fall of the House of Ilya

Rurra feared to approach the landing boat, so she returned after many weary hours of tramping to the mansion house, avoiding the escorts and guards searching for her.

A lurid red light beat against the billowing clouds of black smoke that rose over the singing grasses. The reports of a privateer attack had not been a feint, after all.

As she topped the rise, Rurra saw many black torpedo-shaped ships hanging above the wreckage of her ancestral home. Burning rays like the beams of searchlights came from the ships and swept across the area, igniting all flammable substances.

Gigantic figures in the strange armor of some bipedal race far taller than any Bothan waded through the cracked walls and shattered glass, firing energy weapons. In the distance, Rurra could see through the dead grass and burnt pillars escape hatches far from the main mansion where vixens and cubs were emerging from the old warrens and tunnels beneath and escaping silently into the gloom. Rurra wondered why the alien soldiers did not fire on them, but then remembered how dull the senses of the Suckers were known to be.

Into one of those secret tunnels she went, and found her way through unlit halls past many corpses and heartbreaking scenes of ruin where the ceilings had collapsed under bombardment. In the lower underhall was a hole in the wall where the ancestral medallion of Yvor the Clever once hung. It was shattered in pieces on the floor. In the hiding space behind it was the pictures and mementoes of Arno’s lost family, but the jar of money was missing.

But the underhall was not empty, for Rurra heard a soft footfall behind her, and turned, seeing her twin sister Riskyr standing many yards away, and with her was a killer driod holding a sniper rifle, which was aimed at Rurra like a deadly eye.

Rurra said, “Are you wearing my boots? Those are my favorite boots.”

Riskyr said softly, “Soon, all you possess shall be mine! Including the husband and royal family connections you were too foolish to want. Don’t you realize that under Bothan law, the Prince can declare the marriage null and void if it is not consummated?”

Rurra said, “The Prince conspired with the Askar of Dressel to have me murdered, just to have an excuse to start a war between Dressel and Kothlis! Our father and our uncle, Hojo and Asami are behind it!”

Riskyr said, “You are such a fool! First, Hojo’s real name is Rashk; and our father’s real name is not Asami but is Drashk—don’t you do any research? Don’t you have any triple agents among our family’s double agents? Second, the Prince is not behind any of this. It is our sister Ralk who sent the Three Devil Goons of Yroon. The Royal family has assassins of their own.”

“Ralk meant to kill me and take my place as the royal consort.”

“Of course.  But I have evidence. Once Ralk is exposed as a murderess, and condemned for having killed you, I shall take her place, and the royal power will be mine, not hers, and not yours.”

“But I am not dead!”

“And for that you should be killed!”

“Uh. I am not following the logic here.”

Riskyr snarled, “And if you had died on schedule, we would not have needed to improvise another atrocity. Look at what happened to our thousand-year-old house and grounds! Our museums and ancient fanes! This is all your fault! It is YOUR fault our beautiful house is burning. So I am going to burn you! In the middle of a battleground, who will notice one more corpse?”

Just then, a small overlooked com link sitting amid Arno’s pathetic pile of mementos lit up, and a holographic image of a beautiful Bothan lady in the formal dress of a high ranking Ilya Aristocrat lady filled the whole space of the underhall between Riskyr and Rurra.  “The thorn of the White Rose is hidden, though it is sharp. Daughter, if you are seeing this message, then my human agent among the household has fallen. He and I are members of a secret society devoted to the abolition of the slave trade and the restoration of peace and justice in the Galaxy.

“Know this, my daughter: the Bothans are a very ancient race, ancient enough to preserve records on an interstellar evil, an evil that warps and distorts and darkens the Force itself, and blinds even the Jedi Knights to their danger.

“That evil has arisen again, and so has an order following the teachings of a long-extinct race called the Sith. A phantom menace looms over the galaxy, and seeks to create war and turmoil for its own purposes. Many of the menfolk in our clan have been seduced and deceived by this evil, and seek to aid the warmongering for purposes allegedly to aid the clan and race, but in reality it will lead to nothing but woe. We are the pawns, not the chessmasters.

“Because of these great events, the Bothans must not become involved in the pointless war about to erupt, since both sides, the Republic and the Separatists, are being manipulated to their own destruction.  The ancient race of the Sith are manipulating destiny and darkening the life energy of the entire galaxy! Already the use of Black Technology is on the rise, including the creation of droid armies and the cloning of intelligent beings by the hidden world of Kamino. Do not be deceived: all things of evil means work for evil ends!”

“Blasphemy!” shouted Riskyr, shocked. “That directly contradicts what is written in the Bothan Book of the Way!”

The recorded message was still speaking: “…  There can be no marriage between Clan Ilya and the Royal Clan of Yg. Nor is it safe for you to stay. You must flee at once from Kothlis and keep yourself safe, until I can arrange …”

“I think we’ve heard enough of this,” sneered Riskyr, and ordered her droid to shoot the commlink into a puff of sparks.

But when the giant holographic image of their mother winked out, Riskyr now saw what that image had blocked: unseen, Rurra had drawn her hold out blaster, and now had Riskyr covered. Riskyr’s droid rifle was pointed at the floor, where the commlink still burned, and it was not clear if the droid could raise and aim and fire before Rurra could pull the trigger.

The problem was that the sniper rifle had much longer range than the dinky little blaster, so that if Rurra backed away to find an escape from the underhall, Riskyr could simply wait and open fire.

“Looks like a stalemate,” said Rurra. “Time to make a deal.”

Just at that moment, cracks opened in the ceiling, dust drifted down, and the floor shook.

Riskyr said, “All I have to do is wait until someone loyal to me finds us. YOU are the one which the clan wants dead.”

“Not anymore; burning the house did that,” said Rurra. “And the card trick our father was trying to pull off just shot all his cards up into the air in a flurrious mess. Events have spun out of control. Those are real pirates attacking us up there, not some staged atrocity for the newshounds. As soon as the roof collapses, we both die.”

“Cleverly reasoned, sister,” vaunted Riskyr. “But one thing you have not taken into account. I heard footsteps coming and smell the ozone of recently-fired energy weapons. And they are Bothan feet, not the heavy clump of Suckers.”

It was true. Into the underhall came Prince Wassup Dawg of Yg, rapier in one hand and gem studded target pistol in the other. At his back was a squad of Bothan cavaliers and retainers in their ridiculously over-decorated hard point armor, complete with plumes and heraldic holograms, both looking frazzled and bedraggled.

“What, ho!” called out the Prince gaily. “Which way to the wine cellar? Where is the pickle barrel?”

The Black Prince of Yg

Rurra said, “Majesty, there is something you should know…”

Riskyr said, “Don’t listen to her!”

He holstered his pistol and screwed his monocle into his eye. “What’s all this? Looks like a Wookie stand-off. Two buxom identical twin sisters holding dangerous weapons at each other? I think I had a dream about this once, eh?  Maybe I am force-sensitive, and could see the future! But you two were wearing swimsuits, and there was banana-oil wrestling involved, so maybe not.”

Rurra, “Majesty, there is a conspiracy…”

He interrupted her, his voice suddenly growing cold and hard, a tone she had never heard from him before, nor imagined.

“Of course there is a conspiracy, you vixen. There is always a conspiracy. We’re Bothans.

“You are about to tell me that the Three Devil Goons whom your father, your uncle, and I bribed to fake up evidence of the murder of my bride instead were bribed to murder my bride and fake up evidence to show that one of your evil twin sisters had done it, eh? Well, all this is known to me. What you don’t know is that I bribed the Three Devil Goons to fake evidence that they had tried and failed to commit the murder, and let the prey go free.

“You see, your father and uncle think they are fooling me by arranging an alliance with clan Ilya to weaken clan Yg, but what they do not know is that I am fooling them, because this exact alliance will weaken clan Ilya, who has gotten entirely too big for its space-britches. Yg has already made a deal with a certain Count Dooku, who looks like Saruman, and this has assured me of a shift in the balance of power. The concessions written into the marriage contract will not be enforced, once Dooku explains the situation to the Council of Clans!

“Your mother is wise enough to have figured all this out, and she has forbidden you to return to my bed, but I am telling you that you will disobey your mother and obey me!”

Rurra and Riskyr looked at each other blankly. Neither seemed very pleased with this turn of events.

“What do you get out of this?” asked Rurra.

“Why should I obey you?” asked Riskyr.

The Black Prince of Yg ordered his mean to shut off the microphones in their helmets, making them effectively deaf, and he explained: “You will obey me because I have leverage. I happen to have evidence that clan Ilya was attempting to clone the cells of a certain long-dead ancestral heroine from the first Sith War.”

“You speak of Irys Ar’dra of Ar!”exclaimed Riskyr. “The legendary Silver Specter, queen of spies!”

“And founder of the Shaman order. Yes. Your mother, Jastra, was the most recent and most successful attempt to reproduce someone with the genetic talents and force-powers of Irys. She had one and only one daughter: the other nineteen were grown in vats on a storm-planet in a hidden location. Those nineteen were born simply for target practice, so that assassins seeking to prevent the coming of the ancient heroine’s bloodline again would have too many candidates to know who was who. It is black technology of the blackest sort, which uses intelligent beings merely as tools.

“You realize what all this means if I go public with this information? Your clan disgraced, perhaps disbanded; your mother reduced to the same legal status as a droid, having less rights than a slave, because she is an artificial being; your father answering to a Board of Inquiry of the Shamans, because it is still against our laws to couple with an artificial being. Nineteen pretty little vixen reduced to being mere possessions, and the remaining pretty little vixen a sideshow freak living the rest of her life in a laboratory for the study of unnatural abominations: to be the daughter of a clone is worse than being a clone!”

Rurra took a deep breath, about to ask him why he agreed to the marriage if he knew she was a freak, but his monocle jumped out of his eye socket (and his eyes tried) to when his gaze was yanked as if by a high-voltage tractor beam to the heave of her cleavage during that deep breath, so she realized there was no need to ask the question.

Rurra holstered her blaster and took off her coronet and sent it spinning like a discus across the underhall to land near Riskyr’s feet.

“That is she,” said Rurra. “That is Rurra Lya’lya, or, excuse me, its Rurra Lya’yg now, right?”

Prince Wassup looked back and forth. “Ah … ”

Rurra said, “Don’t be silly. That one is wearing Rurra’s favorite boots. She’s Rurra.”

Riskyr said, “Wait. Are you kidding? She’s wearing the wedding dress! The one she was married in! She’s Rurra!”

Rurra snapped, “Don’t be an idiot, sister! You were about to shoot me in order to marry the Prince and now, NOW when he is blackmailing you to force your lifelong dream into reality, now is when you get cold feet?”

Riskyr said softly, “Hey. Maybe … Hmph. Is there a downside to this?” And she raised her voice. “My Prince, I cannot tell a lie. I am Rurra, your bride. I was trying to run away, and, as you can see, I just forced my sister into my wedding dress at gunpoint; but now that you are blackmailing me, I have learned to respect and admire your cunning.”

Prince Wassup said drily, “Wow. Totally convincing. When did Clan Ilya stop giving its daughters acting lessons?”

Rurra stamped her foot. “Oh, come on! Even if you can’t tell the difference, Prince, she and I have the same cup size and tail size, right? And the same genetic heritage if you want to be the father of the next Silver Specter. And to think! Everyone underestimates you as a pickle-drunk … ”

The Prince smirked. “Of course they underestimate me. I am a Bothan and a Prince of Bothans. Now then, since this one actually wants the marriage, you come with me. You in the boots. You, the other one, in the wedding dress, whatever your name is, you go back to the landing ship and wait.”

“Oh, no, I do not want to be a bother. Your Majesty is busy with this invasion and all….” Started Rurra.

“You know too much about Chancellor Palpatine to be allowed to run around loose!” snapped the Prince. “I may have use for you as a concubine or mistress or something, or as a figurehead to give orders to Clan Ilya, which is going to be strangely and unexpectedly cooperative with Clan Yg from now on. As long as I have the evidence in a safe place as to your clone nature, you would not dare disobey me, am I correct?”

Rurra rolled her eyes upward and said thoughtfully, “That depends on three things. First, how lonely are you for female companionship? The Shaman will have you in front of a board of Inquiry if you consummate anything with my sister, and you only have a one-in-twenty chance of it being a lawful sexual act. Second, how much of a lie are you telling about this clone business? We will take it for granted you are lying, Your Majesty. The only question is how much? What if there is no evidence? What if we are not clones at all? A quintuplet-sized litter is unlikely, but not impossible. Third…”

The Prince waited, baring his sharp teeth, and lashing his tail in a ever more angry fashion, waiting for her to continue, but she said no more.

Finally, he barked, “Yes, little girl, and what is the third thing that makes you think you can escape my blackmail? I have you in checkmate!”

“Third, it depends on how carefully our burrowing ancestors were wont to build load bearing structures …”

For Rurra had been watching a particularly large chunk of ceiling rubble tilting ever so slowly out of its place overhead. When it fell, there was an immense noise and a cloud of dust even sharp Bothan senses could penetrate, and everyone on the far side of the underhall was hidden from sight.

Before the cavaliers of Yg could turn on their ear phones, and hear their Prince, and obey his order, and come wading through the dust and rubble to find her, she was long gone.

Rurra took a riding human from the stable and made her way at a mad sprint to the waiting landing boat. There she manumitted the human, giving him her wedding jewels and telling him were her secret gymnasium lay; it was not much, but it was all she could do for the man.

Once aboard the boat, the girl in the wedding dress simply ordered the boatswain in her husband’s name to lift off, and maintain radio silence while he did; and she gave the same orders to the flagship’s Captain, telling him the Prince would make his way off Kothlis by another route — she did not say she hoped it would be in the hold of a Sucker slaveship.

The Ghost of Irys Ar’dra of Ar

She slept in the luxurious cabin appointed for the Prince that night, and it was the last time she was to be surrounded by comfort, or luxury, fine china, fine wine, soft pillows, and everything clean, decorated, tasteful, expensive, and elegant.

Because, of course, frantic radio message from the Prince did eventually overtake the ship, and by some channel Rurra did not find in time to order shut off.

But by then she had stolen a side-boat, and fled into space, eventually landing in some dismal back-water spaceport called Mos Eisley.

It was the most wretched hive of scum and villainy in the sector, and she disappeared from the sight of Republican police officers seeking her as easily as a rat submerging in a sewer.

But the underworld was no haven for her either, because Ashk and the other crimelords of Dressel had dark secrets to protect.

But what did she have to live on? She was a pretty young Bothan with no talents useful outside court intrigue and formal dances, and no skills except a few years training with a vibrosword, and the sharp eyes of a Bothan.

Prostitution was out of the question without some primp to protect her, but she was afraid that even a routine check for disease might reveal her to be a clone, and any customer suddenly find himself on the wrong side of the miscegenation laws.

Besides, despite the fact that the Way of Bothan allowed for prostitution provided no one got caught, she who had been, if only for an hour, married to a Prince could not imagine demeaning herself in such a way. The thought put a knot in her stomach. For the first time, she wondered if there were something wrong with the Bothan Way.

Could it be? Perhaps, just perhaps, living by an honor code would be somehow better than living by a dishonor code.

In one sense, she was the daughter of the Silver Specter, the legendary Queen of Spies from the romantic golden days of Bothan supremacy, now long lost: she might not live up to the Jedi Code, but she should be able to maintain her reputation as a she-thug who gave fair value for a fair wage, and always finished the job, and always honored her marker, and never returned an escaped slave to his owner.

And so began her life on the streets and bad docks of a dozen planets as a hired gun. She pulled up stakes frequently, rarely sleeping in the same burrowed hole in the soil twice, and each time she found a star farther from the core than the last.

It is a Dark Time

Sometime she found it was cheaper to have herself frozen in carbonite than to rent a sleazy hotel room, or have herself shipped as cargo rather than pay for passage on a tramp steamer, but this plan backfired once when the fly-by-night sleep-freeze company went out of business, or got busted up by the local police, as she ended up for a decade or so as a hookah table in a smoke bar on a world where death sticks were legal.

The ten year gap blew her reputation in the underworld to oblivion, and she had to start working all over again, this time as a twenty-six year old rather than a young cub.

Dark and huge events overtook the galaxy: Palpatine was Emperor, the Jedi were extinct, and the Bothans had been spared the horrors of war by maintaining a precarious neutrality.

Hatred of clones, now identified in the public minds with the Jedi-murdering Stormtroopers of the Emperor, had risen.

The crime syndicates, even those run by Bothans, a race not know for any addiction to violence, were more organized and more bloodthirsty than ever. With the breakdown of law and order there were rumors of Hutts merely throwing victims to the Sarlaac in broad daylight with no one to stop it.

These were not the friendly rumrunners and smut-peddlers and smugglers of death-sticks she recalled from her youth. Strange as it sounded, Rurra believed the crooks had been corrupted. The Dark Side cast a long shadow.

The Senate had been in placed in recess, with no plans to reconvene it. There was no need for written laws any more: the Proconsuls, Military Governors and Imperial bureaucrats would each issue commands as he saw fit, unhindered by the corrupt inefficiencies of voting and discussing; and the people would obey.

There was a rebellion resisting the Empire, but it seemed to be an honest attempt, very unlike the political situation that obtained years ago. The Separatists had been crushed when their leadership was assassinated with a deadly and surgical precision. Through the word-fog of the official account, Rurra could see that the so-called Separatists had been betrayed by the very people who had lured them into attempting violent separation in the first place. It has all been a set up from the first. It was as clever as something a Bothan would do, but far more violent: and it was the kind of thing only men who could influence the minds of other men could accomplish without detection. That meant Sith.

The Jedi dead; and the Sith in charge of the Empire.

Who would believe her if she spoke up? It would be like saying that mummies and ghosts from ten thousand year old pyramids and mausoleums had risen from the dead and conquered the galaxy while invisible, while insubstantial, leaving no trace. The younger races probably would not even recognize the name.

The galaxy seemed to be at peace: perhaps more peaceful than the turbulent Republican times. At least that is what the official sources said.

It was true that the great armored battle station Death Star had been destroyed. The official newspapers reported that the rebels had destroyed the planet Aldaran, and the Death Star fell gallantly in combat trying to defend that peaceful and unarmed world. As for the rebels, they had abandoned their last known base, and were nowhere to be found.

The Imperial spokesdroid said the filthy murderous rebels were smashed, and would never be a threat again.

But, of course, Rurra knew that spokesdriods only said what they were programmed to say.

“It is a whole new era,” said Rurra placing the newspaper back in the trash can from which she had filched it, and watched the wind blow some litter down the dusty road of some poverty-ravaged spaceport of some small planet whose name she had not even bothered to learn.  The world had five small suns no brighter than flashlights, and the natives had eyes like lanterns. She fought down an unseemly craving for pickles.

“And a Bothan is supposed to find someone strong to rely on for protection,” she muttered. “Someone to be useful to.

“The Emperor seems like the strongest of all. But I will suck the Mortura Nebula up my nose before I help those vermin. And he needs no hired gun! The strongest opposition to law and order are the crimelords and pirates, but they must still be out to get me, knowing what I know.

“So who does that leave? Some crook who is a rebel who plays by his own rules? Someone as cunning as a Bothan? Someone with a ship who can get me off this rock?”

She donned her long buff coat and walked softly down the silent street. Haunted by these thoughts, it was then and there she saw, posted in a prominent place beneath a bright street lamp, a poster for the most wanted thief in the galaxy, the dashing and remarkable Eli Monpress.

Looking closer, she saw where someone had posted a note a little below the poster, correcting the errors in the police description of Monpress’ crimes, listing the errors and foolish mistake made by the officers on the case, speculating on the next crime to be committed, and double-dog daring the police investigators by name to come and try to stop him. The note was signed ELI, with an enormous flourish.

She decided on the spot to seek him out and join his crew, which she imagined (for some reason) to be a large and efficient gang. Why else such a large bounty on his head?

Perhaps he could be useful for her long term dream of returning one day in vengeance to Kothlis and settle the hash of the Prince, her clan leaders, her stepmother, her evil twin sister, or other evil twin sister, not to mention Chancellor Palpatine, whoever he was. And if Monpress was NOT useful, she could turn him in for the reward money.

A girl always needs money.

Street Samurai ©2011-2014 RJBartrop

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 Other questions?

How has role playing influenced my writing?

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About John C Wright

John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.

April 17, 2014 @ 8:00 am

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