by Dick Stewart

Created on: February 28, 2009

A space smuggler, having just barely escaped an encounter with an Imperial patrol, found himself in need of fuel before he could deliver his cargo of Dilexian Probalt to a fence on Kowtania 3. He checked his charts and found he was near Tatooine, and decided to check out an obscure space port there that he had heard about.

He swung his Carellian freighter expertly around the surrounding peaks, wondering at the stream of spacecraft that seemed to be shouldering each other out of the way in an attempt to leave the port, and gently nestled onto a spacepad near the center of town. He strolled down the ramp just as a kid ran by, shedding his fueling gloves as he ran.

"Hey, kid!" he called. "How about a little juice?"

"No time!" called the kid without breaking stride. "If you're desperate, fill 'er up yourself and leave the credits on the counter. I gotta get outa here. If you got any sense, you will too. Big Jahwn is coming!" With that, he climbed into a beat up old Nantech 5 speeder and sputtered away in a cloud of dust and ozone.

'Big Jahwn?' thought the smuggler. 'What the hell is Big Jahwn?'

The smuggler had not made his tough reputation by being frightened off by rumors, so he put on the gloves the kid had dropped and hooked up the transfer lines. As he refueled, more people of all kinds buzzed, scampered, ran, scuttled and oozed there way past, all headed out of town by one means or another. He hailed a tall, heavily built Enefellian, a member of a warrior race noted for its combativeness, and asked what the commotion was about.

"No time to talk!" called the hulking creature, waving him off with one of his four hands. "I gotta get outa here. If you got any sense, you will too. Big Jahwn is coming!" He strode off toward a ship bristling with armament.

'I got a bad feeling about this,' thought the smuggler as he detached the transfer lines and threw a handful of credits on the counter of the port office.

'If an Enefellian thinks it's a good idea to get out of here, I don't suppose I ought to hang around.' But first he needed a drink, and a strong one. He looked across the dusty street and saw a cantina just opposite the spaceport. Salivating at the thought of something cool and wet, he walked across the street to the little saloon. He walked in, just in time for a bald Tooloosian with walrus jowls and an apron to nearly run him over in her haste to vacate the premises.

Before the Tooloosian could utter a word, the smuggler said, "Don't tell me. You gotta get outta town.

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