Star Wars_ Tales From the Mos Eisley Cantina - Kevin J. Anderson [65]
As he considered the possibilities, Nadon felt a strange rush of hope. Perhaps his suffering would be worth something after all. Perhaps he could end this seclusion, return to his wife and his son and the vast forests of Ithor.
And as Nadon considered the possibilities, he realized that his loneliness and suffering here as an outcast on Tatooine did not hurt so much. His deepest regret, he found, was not the pain he had endured, but that his work here—his plant samples—would be destroyed. On Ithor, the people had a saying: “A man is his work.” Never had the saying felt more true. By destroying the results of Nadon’s labor here on Tatooine, Alima would destroy a part of Nadon.
Nadon stood gazing down at his little plants sitting in the sunlight outside the door, decided to carry them across the street, give them a better chance of survival.
The muted explosions of blaster fire punctured the air and began echoing from buildings. Nadon looked up from his labors. Down the street, stormtroopers that had been guarding his house all began running toward the spaceport. Nadon looked up in time to see Han Solo’s old junker, the Millennium Falcon, blasting into the sky.
So, Nadon realized, old Ben Kenobi’s droids made it off Tatooine. He watched the ship for several moments to make sure that none of the planetary artillery fired on the Falcon. When he was certain that the ship had gotten away, he found himself running behind the stormtroopers toward the docking bays.
Outside the bays, some Imperial captain stood before dozens of stormtroopers and port authorities, shouting in a frantic rage: “How could this happen? How could you let all four of them get away? Someone must be held accountable, and it won’t be me!”
There at the back of the crowd, Nadon saw Lieutenant Alima standing nervously, staring toward the ground. No one was stepping forward to claim responsibility for Solo’s breakout, and the frantic look in the captain’s eye suggested that he needed a scapegoat.
The evil of the Empire will turn against itself. A man is his work. You cannot break the Law of Life.
Nadon realized what he must do. He could never kill a man, but he could stop Alima. He could sabotage the man’s career, get him demoted even further.
Nadon called out to the Imperial captain: “Sir, last night I informed Lieutenant Alima that a freighter owned by Han Solo would be blasting out of here with two droids as its primary cargo. I suspect that your lieutenant’s negligence in letting Solo escape goes beyond ineptitude, and should be considered criminal in nature.”
Nadon looked at Alima, wondering if he could make such charges stick. Nadon had a perfect memory. He would never get tangled in a snare of his own lies, so long as he chose those lies carefully.
“No!” Alima shouted, giving Nadon a pleading look that betrayed profound horror. The Imperial captain was already fixing Alima with a dark stare. Storm-troopers stepped aside, clearing a path between the two men.
The captain glanced back at Nadon. “Would you swear to this under oath, Citizen?”
“Gladly,” Nadon said, seeing ways that he could make his false testimony stand up in a military tribunal. The two had met alone in Nadon’s house. Surely Alima had listed his meeting with Nadon in his personal logs. Nadon knew that as Ithorians—a race of peaceful cowards—his people were known as easy targets for intimidation. Nadon could claim that Alima had tortured the information from him. Certainly, with the bruises and bloody eyestalks, he could show that he’d been tortured. There was a good chance that Alima would be demoted—perhaps even imprisoned.
The captain glanced back at Alima and said, “You know what Lord Vader would do if he were here.