Rafe Shot First
Regarding STAR WARS, a reader with the alphanumeric yet chesslike name of Pawn4King says:
“And Han did shoot first.”
My comment:
I wrote this scene with you in mind, and readers like you. It is from Chapter Six of Book Two of my upcoming novel STARQUEST: SECRET AGENTS OF THE GALAXY.
My version of Han Solo is a pirate-hunter, privateer, and Imperial aristocrat named Raphean Lone. Years ago, he fell for the Pirate Queen, Jade. Instead of arresting her, he married her, and together they joined the rebellion to overthrow the Empire.
The lance pistol mentioned is one of a matched set, a special heirloom of the family, which shoots an armor-piercing ray. This scene is from the memory of their third boy, Athos Lone.
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Athos had heard the story at the dinner table often enough. In a seedy bar on a backwater planet, a stranger dressed as a black-cloak had approached the Rafe Lone, gun drawn, to take him in the name of the Empire. The stranger’s face and voice had been blurred and shadowed by a bubble of force hooding his head like a dark halo.
The man in cold, curt words explained that the arrest of Duke Raphean required no warrant, as there would be no charges, no press, no attorneys, no trial, no records. There would be a lingering interrogation session, a summary execution, and an anonymous cremation.
The destination? A tone of sadistic relish was audible even through the man’s electronically distorted voice. Duke Raphean would be brought to a place whose name it was illegal to whisper: Cafalnasir, the Imperial torture planet.
Rafe Lone had talked nonchalantly, invited the man to share a final drink, held up a bottle and waved it, while he drew his weapon under the table, and shot first. The thin, well-aimed bolt drilled through the tabletop, through the man’s gunhand, his black cloak and his energy-proof vest, his heart, and the back of his chair with the same lefthanded lance pistol he later passed down to Ozymandias.
(When still very young, their first nanny, eager to teach the young Lone children that is was never right to kill except in case of self-defense, edited the story slightly, telling them that the nameless agent had fired and missed, before the duke had fired back. When Mother heard of this, furious, she sacked the nanny on the spot. Then Lady Jade took her little sons and daughters to the firing range, teaching them how to handle light and heavy voltage sidearms, longarms, and thermal grenades. She did not want any of her babies to grow up willing to hesitate when threatened.)
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.
