Chapter 21: Deserts and Manners
21 BBY, Tatooine
Jorin Dall was a survivor. He had to be to get where he was now. After all, it was not often that a slave managed to buy their own freedom. He had scraped and saved tirelessly from the moment that he had realised what he was, hoping to save enough to buy his freedom. It had taken years of constant exhaustion for him to finally save enough to do it, and it had been the happiest day of his life.
Truthfully, he had been lucky in that regard, despite being born a slave; things would have been very different if he had been forced to stay in the fields, or if he had been owned by Jabba. There were rumours that the Hutts did not even accept the idea of a slave buying their freedom, but no one knew for sure. Jabba’s slave certainly didn’t say anything, not that they would, should they be punished.
Even after earning his freedom, Jorin continued working, making connections, enough that he was able to buy his humble droid shop. Well, he liked to call it that. Truthfully, it was the unholy combination of a junk shop and droid repairs, where he kludged together the remains of old machines, hoping to make sellable droids out of them.
He liked to think that he was, in a way, opposing slavery. Droids replaced the need for sentients doing any work and thus decreased the need for slaves, if they were cheap enough, of course.
Jorin knew that he was not a strong man. If he could end slavery with a snap of his finger, he would, but he couldn’t. He wasn’t a fighter; in fact, his dream was to leave Tatooine and set up a droid shop somewhere else… somewhere better, maybe even one with an ocean.
To do that, he needed to grow his shop enough to buy a ship. He would rather have one of his own instead of buying passage. He spent enough time in the Cantina to know that this rarely ended well, and he’d rather not get enslaved… again.
Things had even looked up, once. The droids that he had repaired and sold had been popular for how cheap they were, and the profits were great enough that he had a fragment of hope. But as was common in Tatooine, hope rarely ever lasted.
It had been the Clone Wars that Kriffed him. The Trade Federation had increased the price of their droid parts to make up for the fact that they were burning through them in the pointless war with the Republic. Jorin had not been hit as hard as many others, a courtesy of spending much of his nights in the Cantina, listening to interesting information and having expected this to happen and arranged to buy enough of most parts before the prices spiked.
However, he was affected by it now. The war lasted too long, and the droids became too expensive a commodity for anyone to buy.
He would have weathered the storm, were it not for that damned Watto. The Toydarian took advantage of the fact that fewer parts made their way to Tatooine and thus were more expensive. He was cleverer than he looked, probably taking losses in his sales while buying every stock possible, and overcharging the prices for all other shops, buying them when they inevitably failed.
If there was one thing that Jorin wanted to do before he died, it was to wipe that smug smirk from the Toydarian’s face, especially whenever he saw him eying Jorin’s shop, as if already planning what he would do with it.
Sadly, it seemed that there was nothing that he could do to stop it. He had done what he could, but sometimes, the galaxy just wanted to Kriff him, and his shop was failing. Truth be told, he was just waiting for the inevitable for now, waiting for his dream to die, much like everything did on Tatooine, but he continued putting it off and drinking away what few Peggats of profits he made each month.
Just as he continued to reminisce, a man entered Jorin’s shop. He seemed well-dressed, his clothes far too clean for him to have stayed on Tatooine, and he wore a jacket that seemed to be made from a Krayt Dragon’s hide. He had heard of people doing it but never seen it; Krayt Dragons were extremely dangerous, and only a fool would attempt to fight one in the desert.
Still, the man was obviously an off-worlder, a rich one at that, and the fact that he was smiling without a care in the world made a faint tinge of hope stir in Jorin’s chest, a hope that a single large sale might keep his shop running for a few more months.
Of course, whatever he planned to say disappeared as a hulking droid entered behind the man, one that was obviously built for combat, even if one of its arms was missing. The model seemed familiar… Was this one of the old Hunter Killer droids? They were an amusing talking point for most robots, of a corporation that tried to actively sell assassin droids while calling them protocol droids.
Still, that would have made it thousands of years old, at the very least, and it would more belong in a museum than in a fight. Maybe someone was a fan and tried to build a droid that was inspired by them.
Whatever the answer, that didn’t change the fact that Jorin gulped as it started to speak, “Statement: Greetings, meatbag. Please do not panic. The probability of the immediate termination of your pathetic self is low. I will now examine your wares, merchant. With luck, I may find enough suitable parts to restore myself to optimal extermination capacity.”
The droid immediately walked to the back of his shop without permission, and any attempt to stop him disappeared as he saw the three blaster rifles on its person, and the ominous look in its eyes.
As Jorin inwardly lamented the fact that his shop would likely not survive this robbery, and it was exactly that, a robbery, the man turned to him and smiled, “I’m sorry about him. He’s a bit excited about resolving his ‘inefficiency at killing meatbags’, as he calls it; besides, he spent almost every moment since we landed complaining about the sand. I’m Harry, by the way. Oh, and please keep this for any trouble that he might cause.”
Jorin wanted to snarl and tell the off-worlder to Kriff off, only to realise that the man had put a coin on his counter, specifically an Aurodium coin. That coin alone was probably worth more than his entire shop five times over, and the man had given it to him as if it was nothing.
He quickly grabbed it, as if to ensure that it was real, and it was, and he gaped at the man, who had an amused glint in his eyes, “Wha…”
The man gave him an expectant look, “You know, this is the part where you tell me your name.”
“Jorin,” he answered, trying his best not to stutter.
“That’s a nice name. You know, Jorin, you have that look of a man that knows… things.”
The shopkeeper hesitated at that. “I’m sorry, but you’re probably better off in a Cantina if information is what you need.”
No matter how much the man paid him, Jorin just couldn’t afford to be mistaken for an information broker, especially with the Cantina nearby. Sure, he was relatively well-informed about the comings and goings of Tatooine, but if any information broker thought that he was trying to become a rival… well, he wouldn’t exactly live long enough to spend any of his credits.
Thankfully, the man did not get angry at his denial, “Oh, it’s nothing dangerous, I assure you. It’s only a couple of questions that I could ask anyone. After all, there’s no harm in hearing the questions, right?”
The man put another coin on his counter, and Jorin’s eyes widened as he looked at it. A part of him wanted to agree, to at least hear the man’s questions. They could be harmless after all, and it could be attributed to just being friendly to a good customer, could it not?
Just before he could answer, the doors of his shop slammed open, and a little less than a dozen men entered. Jorin tensed, realising that this would likely not end well, and immediately palmed the coins on the counter, just in case.
After all, he recognised a few of the men there, mostly from his frequent trips to the Cantina as of late. These were pirates, ones who were spending their winnings before they figured out their next target, leaving nothing but corpses and destroyed ships in their path. Jorin had done his best to avoid being in their path in any way, knowing that no good would come of interacting with them. He did not even know their names, and even now, he did not want to.
Unfortunately, their newest target happened to be Jorin’s latest customer, and the Shopkeeper already knew how this song and dance would end. The Captain, a large human, spoke up loudly, “You there!”
The man turned, looked up at Jorin and gave him a small smile. He didn’t seem bothered in the slightest, and the shopkeeper didn’t know if he liked that or not. “Please excuse me for a moment.”
The off-worlder turned towards the pirates with a wide smile on his face, “Oh, hello there. How may I help you, gentlemen?”
The pirate Captain laughed loudly at that, and as if they were waiting for this reaction in general, the rest of the crew took out their blasters and aimed them at him.
Jorin scrambled to take cover behind the counter, but the off-worlder barely seemed to react to the threat beyond tilting his head, “I don’t follow. Are you… robbing me?” Harry spoke these words with such incredulity, as if the mere idea was completely ridiculous, and his tone made the pirates stop in shock. He continued as if not noticing the reactions that he was getting, “Anyway, as you can probably see I’m quite busy at this moment. Do you mind if you wait until I’m done here before getting to… whatever it is that you’re planning to do here?”
The captain laughed at that, “How the Kriff did someone that stupid get such a big bounty on his head?”
Harry stopped at that and muttered something under his breath. Jorin didn’t know exactly what he said, but what he made out involved lightning, payback, and Coruscant for some reason. He decided that he didn’t want to know, if he were honest.
The off-worlder then looked at the pirate and asked again, “Are you really committed to this course of action? This is your last chance to leave.”
“Like Kriff, we're going to wait for some other crew to collect your bounty.”
The man looked at every member of the crew of pirates before slumping, “Very well, then.”
Suddenly, the doors of the shop closed themselves on their own, somehow. And while the pirates were distracted, Harry moved. It almost looked like the blink of an eye, where he took out a single blaster pistol and, in a single move, shot three pirates. The pistol must have been a custom model, given how quickly it fired without any of the usual heat restrictions. Of course, that display of accuracy was followed by Harry casually tilting his head to dodge the blaster bolts that they aimed at him blindly, before firing two shots, each taking out a pirate.
All of this took place in just a blink, where Harry took advantage of the initial distraction. He then threw something down on the ground, a smoke grenade, would be Jorin’s best guess. It did not take long for the shopkeeper to not be able to see any of the fighters, but he certainly heard them, especially the pirate Captain. “Guard the doors. He’s trying to escape.”
This was followed by the occasional noise of a blaster being fired, followed by a few thuds. Still, it did not take long for Jorin’s vent to clear out the smoke, showing that only three pirates remained, who looked around in terror at the sight of the rest of the dead crew. One of the remaining crewmates yelled out, “Where are you?”
A blaster bolt hit the man immediately in the chest, and he fell down dead, as the off-worlder’s dry voice answered, “Here.”
Both he and the remaining two pirates turned to the source of the blast, and Jorin’s eyes bugged as he saw the off-worlder casually sitting in the corner of the room in one of the few chairs that Jorin had left there. The last crewmates ran at Harry with a vibro-blade in hand, only to be hit casually with a bolt in the chest, and finally, the off-worlder calmly got up from his seat.
The blaster in the captain’s hands shook, his eyes filled with nothing but pure horror, as he was surrounded by his dead crew. None of the bolts he fired were remotely accurate, as the man calmly walked forward, actually took the blaster from the pirate’s hand, and threw it to the side. He then spoke casually, “I did try to be polite.”
Before he could finish him, the pirate Captain was hit by a bolt from Jorin’s backroom. He turned, and his eyes widened as he saw the droid from earlier that had gone in the backroom having fired a blaster bolt at the pirate captain.
The droid now had two arms, and Jorin recognised parts of a half-finished repair job now missing from his shelves. If he had not been terrified out of his mind, he would have mourned these parts, and perhaps tried to barter for them.
Thankfully, he had enough of his wits not to do that, especially as the droid looked around the many bodies littered around the shop, and spoke, “Disappointed Observation: I leave for a brief period of self-repair and return to find that all available meatbags have already been terminated.”
“I’m sorry, HK. I’ll make sure that next time, you won’t be left out. How’s the arm, by the way?”
“Statement: Disappointing, but it is functional enough to kill meatbags, though that is admittedly a low standard. Meatbags have a remarkable tendency to expire when shot, stabbed, struck, strangled, or exposed to almost any other form of violence. Unfortunately, the complete lack of surviving targets prevents further testing.”
The off-worlder rolled his eyes and said, “You know, if you're interested in improving your equipment, you're welcome to take some weapons from our… assailants.”
It must have been Jorin’s imagination, but the droid’s eyes lit up in excitement as it went to examine the corpses of the pirates.
Finally, Harry turned back towards his crouched form behind the counter and smiled at him, as if he had not committed a small massacre in his shop, “Sorry about that. I should have probably dealt with it a bit differently, but there’s something about a laser gun fight that’s strangely exciting.”
Jorin just wanted this cursed day to end so that he would get back home, and so he simply nodded silently, not wanting to end up dead like the pirates that littered his shop.
The off-worlder continued. “That’s nice of you. Oh, so where were we? Ah, yes. I was wondering if you could answer a few questions, if you don’t mind, my good man.”
Jorin shook as he answered, “Of course, whatever you want…”
He just wanted this… thing (no man could have done this) out of his shop.
Thankfully, Harry was not at all taken aback by his reaction and just took out a metallic necklace from his pocket. He showed Jorin the symbol on it and asked, “Have you seen this symbol before?”
Jorin froze at the question. He had, in fact, seen it before, a couple of years ago. He thought that it looked somewhat strange at the time, a triangle split in half with a circle in the middle. He answered without even thinking about it, “Jabba. I saw Jabba the Hutt wear an amulet with that symbol once during the Boonta Eve a long time ago. It was much larger, though, and looked like it was made of stone. It was a gift, I think. Jabba only wears gifts if he likes them or if he respects his giver. It’s considered an honour for most and a sign of his favour.”
And just like that, Jorin felt the world right itself, and he realised what exactly he had just said, and paled in panic.
He barely noticed the off-worlder giving him a small nod and a smile, “Thank you for your cooperation,” before he put a third coin on the counter, making Jorin’s eyes almost pop out of their sockets, “For your troubles.”
And just like that, the man turned and left, with the droid following behind him, with a few blasters at hand, the vibro-sword that the pirate had, and what seemed to be… grenades. Did the pirates even have grenades? Why did they even bring it with them?
Jorin shook his head; he did not want to know, especially as he finally found himself alone in his shop, with piles of bodies all over it, and he couldn’t help but wonder what the Kriff he was supposed to do. The only upside was the Aurodium coins that the off-worlder had given him.
It was then that the consequences of what he just did came to him. After all, Jorin had just pointed this off-worlder towards Jabba and given what he had just witnessed, which he still did not finish processing, it was unlikely that things would go quietly, and it would all be pointed towards Jorin.
Oh Force, he was Kriffed, wasn’t he?
He needed to get out of Tatooine as quickly as he could. The three Aurodium coins should be more than enough to set him up somewhere else, maybe even a nice little planet. He had always wanted to go to Alderaan, after all.
Anything would be better than having to deal with Watto’s greedy hands, and this was incentive enough to finally go through with it. As he looked at his coins, a plan began to take form in his mind. It was petty. It would probably cost him more than he would have ever considered, and he wouldn’t even stay on Tatooine to even see it unfold, but for the sake of all the people that Watto had Kriffed with his greed, he was prepared to do it.
And so, Jorin walked out of his shop, leaving it for the last time, unknowing of what he had set in motion with this small act of pettiness, and its grave consequences.
AN: I had a lot of fun writing this chapter. As I said before, I’m still getting the hang of writing a Star Wars story, so bear with me if anything feels off.
As for this chapter, I thought that it would be a fun way to introduce Harry to Tatooine and get things started. I had been tempted to do something else with Harry's POV, but I couldn't get it to work. Still, I rewrote it far too many times, one with Watto's POV, but it just didn't feel right. In the end, I decided on inventing Jorin and went with it. I'm not sure if it was the right call, so please let me know if it feels off or something.
Still, I'm very excited about the Tatooine arc. There's a lot that I have planned that I'm really looking forward to sharing with you, and we'll get back to Harry's POV in the next chapter.
As usual, I don’t mind rewriting this chapter depending on your feedback, so please let me know what you think and if you have any suggestions.