Oga's Cantina was busy, with the usual collection of travellers, locals and offworlders gathered around the bar. Music carried through the crowded room, competing with conversations and the occasional burst of laughter.
There was enough noise that Tanner Kest could sit among dozens of people and still feel very much alone. In his plain racing jacket, dark shirt and pants, he looked unremarkable compared to his usual public appearances, judging by how few people had tried to speak to him.
He'd been there for hours. An empty bottle stood beside his glass, and the former racing champion was well beyond counting how many drinks he'd had. His jaw was covered in stubble and his hair had been pushed into a mess from repeatedly running his fingers through it. He had spent much of the evening hunched over the bar, staring at the steadily disappearing amber liquid in front of him. The drink was something local to Batuu. He didn't care what it was, only that it went down easy and numbed him.
It had been a month since the Sith destroyed his home. A month since he'd lost Na'eesa and Janni, along with almost everyone else he'd known there.
Sometimes he could scarcely believe it had been that long. Other times, he struggled to remember what he'd done with himself during the intervening weeks. Most of it was a blur, if he was being honest with himself, and more than a few times Tanner had found himself thinking about running his Z-95 into the hard side of a moon.
Unfortunately, the memories were never far away. He'd tried drinking until he couldn't think about them, but every night brought him back to the same place. The people responsible were still out there somewhere, and the knowledge of it made his stomach turn. He wanted to get his hands on them. He wanted to hurt them, to give them some small understanding of what they'd done to him. They were Sith, every one of them, and because of that he wanted the entire Sith Order to burn.
And then...
Tanner finished what remained in his glass, swallowing hard against the unpleasant warmth that followed. His eyes were bloodshot, though there was little softness in them as he looked across the counter. He could feel the anger working through him again, along with a growing frustration that he was sitting here getting drunk while the people responsible for his circumstances were still breathing.
"Here's another bottle, Kest." A female Twi'lek server approached and placed a fresh bottle beside the empty one. "You sure you want to start it?"
Tanner gave no indication that he'd heard the question from Marsy. He reached for the bottle, struggled briefly with the seal before twisting it loose, then tipped a generous measure into his tumbler. His aim was poor. Liquor splashed against the rim and ran across the counter, wetting his fingers. He didn't seem particularly concerned, continuing until the glass was nearly full.
The server lingered, perhaps expecting some acknowledgement, before leaving him to it.
"Okay, your choice."
Tanner glanced at the Twi'lek and grunted before he picked up the glass and drank. He'd barely lowered it when an unfamiliar voice interrupted him.
"Oh wow, Tanner Kest, is that you?" The man answered his own question immediately. "Oh, it is! Can I get a holo?"
Tanner glanced sideways at the man who'd approached, who was grinning with the sort of enthusiasm Tanner had once encountered regularly during his racing career.
"No," the ex-racer muttered.
The answer came easily enough, and Tanner returned his attention to his drink. He'd had more than enough of strangers recognising him over the years, and tonight he had absolutely no interest in entertaining another. In fact, if no other sentient ever recognised him again, Tanner would be fine with that.
"Aw, come on. Just a quick one?"
Tanner sighed.
"Not tonight."
The sentient apparently wasn't prepared to accept that. He brought out a small holoprojector, which Tanner initially ignored, until the man activated it and continued speaking.
"She's a huge fan, it would be nova to show her I met you."
The hologram showed a little girl wearing a Galactic Racing League shirt, smiling broadly for whoever had taken the image as she held up a poster of Tanner. She looked about Janni's age, perhaps a little younger.
Tanner found himself looking at her for longer than he'd intended.
He remembered Janni sitting beside him watching old race recordings, pestering him to explain how he'd managed some particular manoeuvre. She could watch the same overtake half a dozen times and still have questions. He'd sometimes pretended to be annoyed when she wanted him to rewind the footage again, though he had always indulged her.
He hadn't thought about that particular memory in a while.
The man was still waiting, holoprojector in hand. Tanner looked at him, then back at the girl's image, before putting his glass down.
"Alright."
"Really? Thanks! She won't believe this."
Tanner pushed himself from his stool and stood beside the fellow, wobbling for a moment, before the man raised the holocamera and captured the moment. He faced it without a smile, looking tired and thoroughly unimpressed, though he remained still long enough for the picture to be taken.
"Thanks, buddy. Really appreciate it. You're the best!"
"Yeah," Tanner said with a nod as he slid back onto his stool.
He ignored the pat on the back from the man. Instead, he reached for his glass and took another mouthful as the stranger wandered off, apparently quite pleased with himself.
Tanner wasn't sure why he'd agreed. Perhaps it was the girl's face, or simply remembering how excited Janni used to get about the smallest things associated with his racing career. He could remember her smile perfectly well, even now, and that was proving considerably harder to bear than he'd expected.
He sat with the drink in his hand for some time, listening to the noise around him without taking much of it in. Eventually, he swallowed the contents of the glass and reached for the bottle again.
Tanner Kest
from his file. Not from his career. She hadn’t followed the trends of the verse growing up. She’d been too busy conquering worlds with the Dreadborne. 
