The People’s Mining Consortium was formed by the Whippid to keep her workers, basically slaves, happy as they mined Platinum and other heavy metals from the barren planet. The operation wouldn’t have been worth the cost if it weren’t for the Kira Run that passed through the system, a relatively new trading route. Jodo Naroon was the representative for the Gamooreans, Nikto, Wookiees and a dozen other species that toiled to scrape a profit from the planets barren, yet habitable system.

He neared the quarry and started his rounds. Glancing to his left, he nodded at the Foreman of the miners, a large Wookiee called Noorawagarr, or Waggy. The Wookiee nodded back and tilted his head back, letting out a deafening roar. All the workers looked up and downed their tools as the Union rep walked past.

Jowanda, the Whippid head guard and one of the Ladies lovers walked up to the Union man and pooked him in the chest. “What the hell going on here, Naroon? Why workers stop?”

“It’s a strike, Jowanda. We’re not going to work any more.” said the Sullustan, staring up at his adversary. He had never been so scared in his life. “You go and tell Lady Valarian that no worker here is going to mine any more rocks until we have a meeting.” There was a chorus of “yeah” in various languages.

Jowanda looked around, confused. The workers had never stood up for themselves before, they were weak and sniveling. “What youse think youse is doing? Lady not going to like this!”

*The Lady can stick it up her big snout* roared the Wookiee. The few aliens who spook Shirriwook in the crowd agreed, and were followed immediately after by their colleagues, who had no idea what they were yeah-ing at.

“That right?” said Jowanda, before reaching to his belt for his shock stick. Before he could shock the Union leader and get the workers back to business he found himself on the wrong end of a Wookiee charge.

Whippids, by no means small, are no match for an enraged Wook. Waggy charged into the boar-like alien and sent him flying the length of the quarry. When the dust settled the Whippid picked himself up, saw the angry look on the miners faces and scampered away towards Lady Valarians office.

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“Lady, Lady, workers not working. They striking!” half panted Jowanda. He was covered in dust from the quarry and his fur sparkled with small fragments of precious metals.

Lady Valarian looked up from her desk, her snout twitching. She had black lines running from her eyes and various other smears of make up here and there. On one of her tusks she wore a jeweled golden ring. “STRIKING!” she bellowed, enraged at her lead guard. She stood up, swiping all the papers from her desk before picking it up and hurling it at the guard. “I’LL SHOW THEM STRIKING!” she charged through the door, leaping over the pile of wood that was her desk and treading on the unconscious guard.

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Lady Valarian charged towards the quarry, her make up smudging and her carefully pampered fur in disarray. She cleared the lip of the quarry and came to a grinding halt in a cloud of dust. In front of her she saw dozens of miners, all holding pick axes and with a determined look on their faces. She surveyed the crowd, nose twitching, before deciding against it and taking off in the opposite direction. The guards, who had finally worked out what was going on, dropped their weapons and ran after their leader.

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A short while later the miners stood in a semi circle around Jodo. “What now boss?” asked Bib Lorok, a Twi’lek who had suffered more than most in the mines harsh conditions. A roar went up around the landscape, drowning out all the other workers questions, and a YT- 800 freighter rocketed over the groups head and off towards space.

“I don’t know, Bib, I really don’t know” said Jodo Naroon, looking into the distance after the disappearing gangster...

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“I don’t know about you, but I’m sure glad to be getting off that dustbowl. I’ll have sand in my boots for weeks!” Joran Dorff pulled his left boot off, taking half a sock with it, and poured what seemed like half the Dune Sea on the deck of the Rusty Bantha.

“Hey, do you mind! I just cleaned this place up you stinking ne...” His wife, Lucinda was cut off as the entire ship was rocked and a blur passed the view screen.

“What the hell was that!” screamed Joran as he pulled himself off the floor and scrabbled to the scanners. “Why I ought a.......oh. Never mind then.”

“Who is it?” asked Lucinda, before stopping short at the sight of the ship feared through out the galaxy. Slave I continued towards Tatooine, it’s pilot not giving a single thought to the near miss.

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Jodo Naroon sat at his desk thinking of the past. It had been his desk for five years now. ever since Lady Valarian packed up her snout and left. He liked it. It was a nice desk. Every nook and cranny had a story. Pretty dull stories, but stories all the same. He looked up as the door to his office opened.

“Yes Bib, what can I do for you?” he asked his Twi’lek accountant. Bib Loran had come a long way from the scrawny miner he used to be. But he shared the same scared look of that man of the past today. “What’s wrong?”

“I... you’d better read this,” he said, handing a data card to his Sulustan friend. Jodo brushed the dust off it and pressed a button on the side. “What’s wrong, profits down or...oh”

“Yeah, oh is right. What are we going to do?”

The little man slowly put the data card down and sighed. He stared at the desk, thinking of a few of the stories the nooks and crannies had to tell. He patted a particularly nice story and stood up, pulling the front of his jerkin. “We aren’t doing anything friend, but I am” he said, poking his chest for emphasis. “We all knew this day would come, and it’s only me she’s after.

“You can’t be serious! Stay here, we’ll all protect you. We beat her the last time” said the accountant, starting to get more confident with every word.

“Last time it was the Lady and a few thugs. You read the data card, you see who she has hired. There is no way we can stand against Boba Fett. No, you take over the operation and I’ll run,” Jodo handed the data card back to his assistant and went for the door. “It’s not like I’ve never had to hide from danger before...”

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It smelled. Bad. Most of the inhabitants of the room didn’t seem to notice but a few humans in the corner occasionally cringed when a particularly smelly being walked past. Everyone cringed when a new figure entered The Lucky Despot.

The smell didn’t bother Boba Fett. He had been in worse places and even without the filters on his mask he could have stood it. However, there is no sense in suffering needlessly so the filters were working full blast. Glancing at a display on the bottom left of his visor he noticed they would need replaced when he returned to his ship.

He walked up to the bar and leaned towards the droid tending it. “I’m here to see the Lady,” he said, his voice closer to the droids than any being in the room. Except the droids had more emotion.

“Certainly sir,” it said. “I will alert her immediately. Oh, she’s here”

Ignoring the last of the droids ramblings, the bounty hunter turned around and saw a monstrosity come through the beaded curtains at the back of the room.

“BOBA MY DEAR!” she boomed as she plowed through the room. Lady Valarian was like a glacier on steroids. If her bulk didn’t get you, her perfume would. Aliens and humans alike were tossed aside as she moved to the armor suited man. “Come, lets talk business,” she said as she grabbed his hand and took him back through the corridor she had made. Fett noticed that the filters had burned out entirely. He sighed internally.

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“...and the Wookiee roared at me. So I turned around and made my way to my ship before leaving the planet. All because of that damned double crossing dust eater! I’ll have his ears on a plate!” she fumed, popping another minted Klorr into her mouth. “Which is why you are here...”

“How much for him?”

“100,000 credits, Imperial. That’s for alive. I’ll take dead of course, but it’s only 70,000.”

“It’s only a Sullustan, I can get him alive. I should be back within a month. If you have a location it would help me a lot.”

“The great Boba Fett asking for some help? HAHAHAHAH” she laughed, snorted, then laughed a little more. Lady was obviously a title she gave herself. Fett whipped some Klorr from his visor. “Of course. Last place I knew where he was was Kira 6. I assume he is still there.”

“Okay, I’ll leave tomorrow. I have some other business today.” and with that Boba Fett left to see the other major player on Tatooine...

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Boba Fett walked in to Docking Bay 97 and went over to the other hunters Jabba had hired. It was an easy job, stand and looking menacing and be ready if the smuggler tried anything. Not even worth his time really, but it was a simple 100 credits and Boba was here anyway.

{SOLO! COME OUT OF THERE, SOLO!} scrolled across his visor. He had never bothered to learn Huttese. The slug like gangster was yelling up the boarding ramp of the Millennium Falcon as her pilot walked through the docking bays entrance, his Wookiee co-pilot by his side. Fett noticed all the others tense. He didn’t move a muscle.

“Right here, Jabba. I’ve been waiting for you.” *Waiting?! I never noticed him. This guy is good* the bounty hunter thought to himself.

{Have you know?}

“You didn’t think I was gonna run, did you?” said the cocky young smuggler. He continued towards the Hutt, who oozed in the Corellian's direction. In a few years time even that amount of movement would be beyond the Hutt.

*Han, ma boogie, you disappoint me. Why haven’t you paid me...Why did you have to crispo Greedo?* Boba tapped the side of his helmet. {looks like the perfume effected more than the air filters. I’m starting to like this guy though. Greedo was an idiot.}

“Look, Jabba, next time you want to talk to me, come see me yourself. Don’t send one of these twerps.” The smuggler gestured towards the hunters. Fett frowned. Maybe he didn’t like him after all. The Hutt put his arm around the young smuggler and he didn’t flinch at all. Not many humans can stand the smell, or feel, of a Hutt that close.

*Han, I can’t make exceptions. What if everyone who smuggled for me dropped their cargo at the first sign of an Imperial starship? It’s not good for business.”

“Look, Jabba. Even I get boarded sometimes.” said the young smuggler, walking behind the Hutt. He moved up into the air and Jabba yelped, his eyes bugging out. The hunters suppressed a chuckle. “You think I had a choice? I got a nice easy charter now. Pay you back plus a little extra. I just need a little more time.”

*Han, ma boogie, you’re the best. So, for an extra twenty percent...”

“Fifteen, Jabba.” said Han, pointing at the Hutt “Don’t push it.”

“Okay, fifteen percent. But if you fail me again, I’ll put a price on your head so big, you won’t be able to go near a civilized system.” All of the hunters eyes lit up at the mention of a large bounty. Fett had a feeling he would be collecting that in the future.

The young human walked away from the Hutt and said, half over his shoulder, “Jabba, you’re a wonderful human being.”

Jabba turned and waved his arm at the hunters, *come on!* and started to slither out. Boba Fett started walking and stopped. {what the?!} A feeling. Something he hadn’t felt in a long time. A familiar presence on Tatooine. To small to be sure who it was, or if it was even real, he walked after the Hutt to get his money.

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The next morning, Slave I blasted away from the Mos Eisley space port. It left as quietly as it came, and certainly more quietly than the Millennium Falcon had. So much for Solo’s easy charter...

Fett had been busy the night before. After talking to a few of the local information merchants he had learned of a story that someone heard from a friend of there’s who knew someone. A Sullustan from the Kira system had stopped off at Bespin before moving on. His registered course was to Montu Codru. Registered courses were generally fake, but after a little checking the hunter found a report of the same ship passing an Imperial listening post in the Mindabaal system. It had landed on the main planet, also called Mindabaal, which was not yet a formal member of the Empire. Fett set course for Mindabaal and fell asleep as the stars turned to lines...

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