It shouldn’t have been.
A man was dead: a flawed man, but a good one. Uncle Klein had dedicated his life to protecting the people of Theed. Oh he’d had a rough youth on Lok, but by his mid-twenties, had realized the error of his ways. He’d spent the next three decades of his life making up for that. He’d started in the RSF as a beat cop, patrolling the stone paved streets of his city, looking for hooligans trying to start trouble.
Hooligans like me. Only causing problems, never helping anyone.
He’d taken an interest in detective work. Got into it. And from what Gatz could recall, he was good at it. Klein had been about as good at solving cases as Gatz had been at smuggling spice. Except that what Klein did was actually worth being proud of. What Klein did actually helped people. Bettered lives.
That’s what I’m supposed to be doing now. And now one more person is dead because of me. How is that better?
After years of service, he’d earned a promotion. Then another one. And finally, he was mere days away from being made Captain of his precinct. It had been a particular point of pride. So much that even having chased his nephew off of Naboo, Klein had still left Gatz a message. Asked him to call.
But I was too bitter. You sent me off on my own, with a million credit bounty on my head. And you did it for the right reasons. I’m a danger to everyone around me. But I couldn’t see that.
And now he was dead. Killed. Murdered. A message from Kragan Garr: if he couldn’t have Gatz, then he’d have everyone else.
But Uncle Klein had been everyone else.
And now, all that was left of a noble man was a tombstone in a graveyard, and not even a particularly nice one.
