Prelude to Eternity - Chapter Three

3:
Rabnas Xicanti awoke naked and alone, save his two friends who lay prone nearby. Lowie's illusion had apparently worn off, and it was now evident that he was a Wookiee. That must have happened after Rettar had us dumped here, the young thief decided. They probably would have killed him or shaved him - or both - otherwise. Rettar knows well enough how much Wookiee fur's worth on the black market down here slums.

With a catlike stretch to loosen his tense muscles, the boy rose unsteadily to his feet. Stupid me, he thought to himself. Who knows what's happened, and I get up just as if I were back in that boring old Palace o' Leia's! Despite his evidently troublesome predicament, Xicanti couldn't help but laugh at himself.

"Whazo funna?"

Startled, the boy whirled around, reaching for a knife that wasn't there. With a curse, he remembered leaving his precious throwing knives back at the Palace for Xepher to keep. Luckily, it did not look as though he'd need them. Standing behind him was a dirty old man garbed in something resembling scalps. The stranger, who couldn't have been much over five feet in height, grinned at his startled expression. "Toe my, der don sim nuttin' funna 'bout bein' 'umped own 'ear," he stated in an odd dialect Xicanti had trouble following. "I din luff en ey tuk my 'own 'ear," he added sadly. "Ya moost by crazaye. Too ba." He shook his head back and forth, expressing his regret at the young thief's predicament.

Xicanti scratched his head. This guy can't 'ave had much contact with the rest of the people of Coruscant, he decided. They would've shamed him into learning how to talk like them. The inhabitants of Coruscant weren't very tolerant when it came to such things as speech impediments and disabilities; a sad after-effect of Imperial rule.

"Ya dub, bay?" the odd man asked Xicanti, peering closely at the boy's face. "Dun lok it, boot c'neva tall wi' dis stoof."

Although he wasn't entirely sure, Xicanti interpreted the old man's speech as being a question, asking if he was dumb. He shook his head. "No, I can talk," he replied, wondering how much he should tell this stranger. "I'm just a little? confused."

The man nodded. "I can understand that perfectly," he replied, startling Xicanti with his change of dialect. It must be some sort of ruse he pulls, he decided, Probably a defense against people who'd try an' hurt 'im. I guess if they think he's stupid, they won't be as likely to see him as a threat. "When they first dumped me down here, I was a bit confused, too," the man went on cheerfully, "but I soon got used to it. It's actually a fairly good place to live. Once you get used to the idea of having to kill at least one person a day before they kill you, and discover a secure place to sleep, it's splendid. Wonderful exercise for the reflexes." He grinned once more. "You really learn how to defend yourself down here. The only problem is your chances of leaving are very small. In face, they're non-existent. But I don't think you'll want to go home too badly after you get used to it here. I don't really want to leave anymore, although I did for the first five years or so. But you don't know where 'here' is, do you? Well, that's most disappointing. For you to not know where you are, that is. Just so you know, it's the Emperor's personal jail level. High level of security. Only the people accused of the worst crimes get dumped here. You must have done something really bad to deserve it, didn't you?" He shook his head sadly. "It's terrible to see what our young people have degenerated to."

Xicanti was only becoming more and more confused by this odd man's explanations. "Who are you?" he asked him, directing the conversation away from the discouraging path it was taking.

The man pulled himself up to his full height, (only an inch or so over five feet), and replied, "Who am I, you ask? Well, the truth of the matter is that it depends entirely on how you think of things. If, for example, you think of whom I used to be, I could tell you that I am Rabnas Corgrumn, former Imperial Senator and Emperor's sometimes-advisor. Which means that I gave old Palp advice one in a while, but not too often. He was a bit temperamental, you see, and my advice wasn't always what he felt he needed." Rabnas screwed up his face. "In fact, most of the time he scorned my ideas. Thought they were terrible, he did! This made me quite mad most of the time, you know. In fact, his comments on my wonderful, brilliantly thought out ideas eventually pushed me over the edge. I decided that I no longer wanted to be an Imperial Senator, and so began to work with Mon Mothma to help the Rebellion. Wonderful bunch of people, they were. You happen to know any of them? How did things go for them? I haven't had a chance to talk to anyone intelligent since the Senate was disbanded and I was dumped down here by those stormtroopers. Did they win? The Rebels, that is, not the stormtroopers. I certainly hope so! I'd hate to think that they might have lost, but since you're here and all it seems quite possible. They didn't strike me as the sort of folk who would dump someone down here naked, but I guess anyone can change with time." He let out a forlorn sigh. "But how rude of me! I was asking you to answer, but then I went on talking before you had a chance. Terrible, certainly. I'm really quite sorry about it. Please, go on." His face assumed an interested look as he sat himself down upon a pile of refuse.

Xicanti looked at Rabnas with a mixture of awe and uncertainty. According to Leia, she was the only one of the Senators who had had anything unpleasant happen to them. Although I think she was understating a bit when she said that twelve hours of torture was 'unpleasant', Xicanti speculated to himself. As it was, the young thief didn't know whether he should tell this odd old man the truth or not.

Xicanti looked closer at the stranger who had called himself Rabnas Corgrumn. The man looked back at him, evidently waiting for an answer. Xicanti shrugged inwardly. I guess it can't hurt much, he decided. The worst that can happen is he'll kill me. "It's been nearly twelve years since the Rebellion ended-" he began.

"What!!!" Rabnas leaped up as if someone had jabbed his rear end with something sharp. "Twelve years, you say? I've been down here for twelve damned years???"

Xicanti nodded. "Twelve years. But as I was saying, the Rebellion ended then. Not because they lost," he added hastily as Rabnas seemed ready to speak, once more. "They won. Princess Leia, along with Han Solo and Luke Skywalker and Chewbacca the Wookiee, led them to victory. The Empire wasn't easy to kill, though. They built two huge deep space battle stations they called Death Stars before the Rebels took them out, and one of them destroyed this planet called Alderaan ? "

Here, Rabnas broke in once more, evidently shocked. "Destroyed Alderaan? You lie, boy! Not even Palpatine would have gone that far. The Alderaanians were the most peaceful people in the galaxy! Why did he go so far as to do that to them?"

"It wasn't the Emperor; it was Grand Moff Tarkin," the young thief replied. "He found out that Leia was in with the Rebels and that she had the plans to destroy the Death Stars. To try and make her tell him the location of the Rebel base, he destroyed her home planet."

Rabnas was evidently confused. "But how?" he wondered. "Alderaan isn't ? wasn't ? exactly a small place. What sort of bomb did he have that could do such a thing?"

"It wasn't a bomb. It was the first Death Star."

Rabnas was evidently shaken by this news. "Terrible," he murmured. "Terrible, terrible, terrible. How could such a powerful weapon be overcome? How did the Rebels defeat it?"

Here, Xicanti found that he had a very small source of pride. Although Luke seemed to hate him, he didn't think it could hurt to use the Jedi Master to gain a little respect for himself by using his brother's deeds. "It was my brother," he told the Senator. "He used the plans Leia got for the Rebels and flew in to destroy it. It worked, too. The whole thing blew up and sent debris flying everywhere! Tarkin was killed, but Darth Vader managed to escape, since he was out in a TIE trying to kill Luke." Realizing that he hadn't told Rabnas who exactly Luke was, Xicanti added, "that's my brother, Luke. I told you about him earlier, 'member?"

Rabnas nodded. "So the Rebels got the Imps for destroying Alderaan," he murmured, almost to himself. "But Vader got away."

Xicanti nodded. "Yup. But he ended up dead in the end." He then proceeded to give Rabnas the whole story, which he was pleased to discover he had learned remarkable well. Leia had told him all of what had happened from her point of view, (which Xicanti hadn't really been listening to), and Chewie had told his. Xicanti had vastly preferred the Wookiee Lord's story; it had been filled with in-depth accounts of the battles, and of exactly what had happened inside the Death Star. How Chewie had managed to get Luke to tell him all of it, Xicanti didn't know, but he enjoyed it anyways. It was the later story that he now told the odd old Senator, leaving out the more personal parts, such as Luke discovering that Vader was his father and Leia his sister.

By the end, the boy's story had Rabnas nodding thoughtfully. "So," the old man muttered to himself, "the Rebellion was successful, but there are still Imperials who fight against them." He looked up at Xicanti and grinned. "I guess you could say that the roles have been reversed. The Rebels are now as the Imperials were, and the Imps fight the Rebels for power. Only the Rebels are considerably nicer." He pulled himself up straight, re-adjusting his scalps. "Now boy," he went on, "you've told me of the Rebellion, and of the wonderful things this brother of yours has done, but now I'll be wanting to know who you are, and how you ended up with a young Wookiee and a little boy as jail mates." He leaned closer. "And why you look so much like that dancing girl of the Emperor's- what was her name? Mara Jade? You her son? It wouldn't surprise me. If you are, I'll bet I know why you're down here, too." He drew back once more and tsked. "I didn't know Mara very well, but from what I saw of her, you probably forgot to make her breakfast, or some such petty thing. Or perhaps you forgot to make your bed. No, it couldn't be that. Mara didn't strike me as the sort of person who would care about something like that. Oh, but you couldn't be Mara's son because your Luke's brother, and I don't think he's likely to be young enough to be her son too. Maybe he's your half brother? Yes, it could be that." Rabnas nodded to himself. "But I'm keeping you from answering, aren't I? Please, go on!" Rabnas's face once again assumed that interested expression.

Xicanti took a deep breath. How much should I tell him? he wondered to himself. Can he be trusted? The boy then realized that it didn't matter whether or not this strange old man was trustworthy. There was no one down here he could really betray them to. And even if he had wanted to, it wouldn't really have mattered. We would've died soon anyways, Xicanti decided. And so he began his story.