Aftermath: Star Wars Read Online Free PDF

will come here—which means no one will recognize him. Second, he just likes the
irony
of it.
    The oaf grins at the Mon Calamari bartender. “Times are changing, squid-beard. You might want to reconsider that sign.” He gives a sharp nod to the stormtroopers and the pair of them step forward, blasters raised and pointed right at Pok. “We’re here to stay.”
    With that, the big oaf starts whaling away on the tail-head again.
    The Twi’lek man bleats in pain.
    This is not how it’s all supposed to go. Not at all. Sinjir makes a decision, then, and it’s a decision to simply stand up and walk out, putting all of this behind him. No need to make trouble. No need to become a blip on anybody’s radar screen. Walk off. Find another watering hole.
    That’s what he decides to do.
    It is, quite puzzlingly, not what he actually does.
    What he
does,
instead, is stand up hard and fast. And when Officer Smugface tries to push him back to his chair, Sinjir reaches back, grabs the man’s hand, and pries two fingers up with a sharp motion. He goes the distance, ratcheting them back so far that they snap—
    The man screams. As he should. Sinjir knows how to deliver pain.
    This causes some concern among the officer’s cohorts, of course. The oaf flings the tail-head to the ground and goes for his pistol. The two stormtroopers pivot on their heels, swinging their rifles around to him—
    Sinjir’s drunk. Or, drunk-
ish.
That should be a problem but to his surprise, it really isn’t—it’s as if the warm wash of strange liqueur has worn away any second thoughts, any pesky
critical analysis
that might give him pause, and instead he moves swiftly and without hesitation. (If a bit inelegantly.)
    He spins behind the wailing, smug-faced officer. Lifts his arm like the lever on a Corellian slot machine, and with his other hand stabs out and plucks the officer’s pistol from his holster.
    Already, the oaf is firing his blaster. His own blaster (well, the smug one’s blaster) spins out of his hand, sparking.
Damnit.
    Sinjir tightens his profile and turns the smug one to meet the attack—lasers sear holes in his chest and he screams before going limp. Then, with a quick plant of his foot and hard throw, he launches the slack body toward the pair of stormtroopers—neither of whom is ready for the attack.
    And both of whom fall backward, crashing into tables.
    The oaf cries out, lifts his pistol again—
    Sinjir dissects the man’s defenses. Hand under wrist. Pistol launches up, fires toward the ceiling—dust streaming down on their heads. He stabs out with a boot, catching the man in the shin, knee, upper thigh. The Imperial’s thick body crumples like a table with its leg broken, but Sinjir won’t let him fall—he holds him up by the wrist, and with his free hand strikes at vulnerable points. Nose. Eye. Windpipe. Breadbasket. Then back to the nose, where he hooks the oaf’s nostrils with a pair of cruel fingers, forcing him to the ground. The man weeps and blubbers and bleeds.
    The stormtroopers are not down for the count.
    They scramble to stand. Blasters again up—
    Someone rises up next to the trooper on the right and swings a chair upward in a hard, merciless arc. The chair gets right under the soldier’s white helmet and spins it around. That trooper flails just as a bottle of liquor spirals through the air, cracking the second one in the helmet. A bottle flung from the droid arm of the Mon Cal behind the bar.
    For good measure, Sinjir twists the oaf’s wrist so that the pistol drops from the Imperial’s grip and into his own. Then he twirls it and fires two shots. One in the center of each of their helmets.
    The stormtroopers fall. This time, they won’t be getting back up.
    Sinjir plants himself over the oaf. He again grabs the man’s nose and gives it a twist. “Wonderful thing about the nose is how it’s tied to all these sensitive nerve endings behind the face. This fleshy protuberance—yours like a hog’s