Pious Tapp
Character
The bell coughed out a reluctant tone, off-pitch and fuzzy through the near-derelict speakers. It shivered along the bulkheads like a dying thing. The Daggerfall held the hyperlane steady, her engines muttering in that old Corellian way, the kind you do not hear much anymore. She was a relic, patched and retrofitted until the weld lines told more truth than her hull plates. Not built for beauty, but for survival, and survival is a prettier thing than any polished chrome.
This run was the kind of work that stuck to you. The kind you only get after weeks of planning and a few quiet lies to the right people. The kind that drags you out to the Rim to crawl on your belly for someone you do not respect, or put a hole in someone you almost do. I did not know which way it would go. It did not matter. My part in it was already decided.
I was reluctant to smoke my iho at the console. Not because I worried about ash in the readout, nothing anywhere near as considerate as that. It just felt cheap, made the place seem dirty, used. I liked things clean. Nothing ever stayed that way, not out of Imperial Center.
I never understood why they changed the name. Everyone still called it Coruscant. Even an agitated official let it slip on a holo-chat two nights before I shipped out for Tatooine. I nearly spat my drink, knowing one of my colleagues would be waiting after the broadcast to have a word. Maybe she’d be back on the air after a stern talking-to. Maybe she’d be sent to a penal colony. Or maybe she’d end up like so many do, face-down in some lower level, two blaster shots in the back of the head and a couple of credits in her hand for the poor sleg who found her. At least someone thought to leave a tip. Calling that in can ruin your day.
That bell had been set to warn me as we approached Tatooine. Part of the fringes of the so-called High Republic these days, this part of the galaxy changed allegiances more frequently than a Zabrak changed their undergarments, if you catch my drift. They didn’t much care who paid their credits, as long as they were real and in healthy supply.
I thumbed the trim controls, watching the attitude readout settle a fraction closer to centre. The navcomp began its final sequence, spooling down the hyperdrive while I nudged the sublight thrusters awake. A green blink on the proximity array told me the planet was coming up fast, all atmosphere and trouble.
The Daggerfall shuddered as we punched back into realspace. Tatooine hung in the viewport, a pale, burning coin against a field of dust and stars. I brought her nose down, riding the re-entry corridor the port authority handed me. They still called themselves the High Republic out here, all banners and ceremony, but the officials in Mos Eisley wore the same bored stares as any customs desk in the Core.
We broke through the haze, city domes and spires giving way to the skeletal frame of the spaceport. Landing beacons winked me in, the repulsors growling as I eased her down onto the pad. The heat hit first, even through the hull you could feel it, then the tang of oil and scorched durasteel as the seals hissed open.
Dockhands in faded uniforms ambled up with datapads, logging the ship’s ID and my travel code. One waved me toward a customs station where an officer in High Republic blue waited, looking like he’d rather be anywhere else. The airlock cycled. I stepped onto the ramp, boots hitting the grit of Tatooine, the sun already clawing at my eyes.
The officer didn’t bother with a greeting. He just held out the datapad, eyes flicking from my face to the ship and back again like he was looking for a reason to care.
“Purpose of visit,” he said, voice dry as the sand underfoot.
“Transit,” I answered. No explanation, no smile.
He tapped something in, slow and deliberate, then looked over my ident. “Chandrilla,” he read aloud, as if tasting it. “You’ll want to keep that quiet around here.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said. I didn’t.
He handed the datapad back without ceremony, still watching me the way a man watches a stray animal wander into his yard. “You’re clear to dock for seventy-two local hours. Overstay and your ship’s impounded.”
I gave a nod that wasn’t quite a thank you and walked past him into the noise and stink of Mos Eisley, the sun pressing down like a hand on the back of my neck. I had a target to find and he wasn’t going to be an easy catch.
Kazimir Tragovic. That was the name on the docket. Six foot three, weapons-grade psychopath, zealous fanatic, a real cocktail of Imperial bat-shittery the OIT would love to have back in their good graces, back under control. So they sent me. Pious Tapp.
I’ve seen action. I was there the first time we tried to scour Coruscant, when that mad genius Solipsis drove a Star Destroyer straight through sections of the skyline. Made things tricky on the ground. We did our best, but a lot of us didn’t make it out. Too many of us.
Kazimir was one of COMPNOR’s pet hounds, a man with a taste for off-the-books work. Built like a loading droid, eyes the colour of old brass, a mask welded to his face in everything but name. Ex-Hutt muscle turned NIO trigger-man, the kind of operator who gets the job done, then leaves you stepping over the bodies to thank him. Again with the careless bodies.
I had a couple of leads that told me where to look. Now it was just a matter of waiting him out. I was in uniform, field officer by trade, a full-blown lieutenant, no less. They reward you for walking out of places like Coruscant alive. No such luck for the friends who didn’t.
The cantina was my hunting ground. I stepped inside, scanning the room. Nothing. Not so much as a gnat’s wind to stir the low conversation. The music wasn’t on yet; at this hour, only the professionally drunk or the dangerously unbalanced were in attendance. Perfect. I found a corner and set up shop. Two drinks, both for me. No chems, no stims to cut the boredom. I was on the clock now, seventy-two hours and counting.
I opened a copy of some literature I had picked up in the terminal, all about the High Republic’s social programs. Seemed they had some good ideas here. I would not want my superiors to hear me say that. I would be shipped out as fast as that news anchor had been. I made a note to request the report, see what had actually happened to her. It would pass a few minutes, no doubt. That was what kept us entertained since taking over the Core, the misery of others.
I sipped my drink. It was acidic, with a creamy aftertaste that turned my stomach. I wanted to vomit. These backwater animals would not know good taste if it came into high orbit, announced itself, and fired a superweapon into the side of the planet labelled “good taste.”
I chuckled at the image. Say what you will, the Emperor loves a superweapon.

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