Tales from Mos Eisley Cantina Read Online Free PDF

midday sun. The third ship was no more.
    Greedo never heard the explosion. He was in the cockpit of The Radion , gawking at the starlines, as Uncle Nok’s silver ship vaulted into the unknown.
    3. Nar Shaddaa
    Planning for this emergency, Nok had programmed the Rodian ships to jump to a heavily trafficked region of the galaxy, where the survivors of his little tribe could lose themselves among the myriad alien races engaged in interstellar commerce.
    So it was they came to Nar Shaddaa, a spaceport moon orbiting Nal Hutta, one of the principal worlds inhabited by the wormlike Hutts.
    There was a continual buzz of space traffic between Nar Shaddaa and the far-flung systems of the galaxy: mighty transgalactic transports and bulk cargo vessels, the garish yachts and caravels of the Hutt ganglords, the battle-scarred corsairs of the mercenaries and bounty hunters, the pirate brigantines, and even the occasional commercial passenger liner, packet starjammer, or massive migration arks. And, of course, the ever-present star cruisers and sleek patrol vessels of the Imperial Navy.
    The surface of Nar Shaddaa was an interlocking grid of miles-high cities and docking stations, built up over thousands of years. Level upon level of freight depots and warehouse and repair facilities were linked by gaudy old thoroughfares that spanned the globe, bridging canyons that reached from the upper strata, swarming with life, to the glowing depths where several forms of subspecies thrived on the refuse that fell continuously from the towering heights.
    Greedo and his brother and mother and all the pilgrims on those two silver ships came to Nar Shaddaa, merging with the life of the great spaceport moon, finding a home in the huge sector controlled by Corellian smugglers.
    The Corellians kept things reasonably under control in their part of the moon. Gambling was an important source of income for them. All races were invited to wander the brightly lit avenues and gawk and eat and drink and throw away money in the sabacc joints. A gun duel or a bounty killing now and then was to be expected, and petty thievery was largely overlooked. But there was an unwritten law in the Corellian Sector, enforced by Port Control: If you want to make big trouble, do it somewhere else.
    The Rodian refugees merged with the denizens of the dingy warehouse districts on Level 88. Over the next months they found work as freight handlers and house servants, and went about their lives.
    Nok ordered everyone to stay away from the public levels, the thoroughfares, and the casinos, on the chance they’d be recognized by a Chattza hunter. Nok assured them their stay on Nar Shaddaa was a temporary one, until he could locate another jungle world where they could dwell in peace.
    For the adult Rodians it was not a happy time—they deeply missed the lush green world they had left behind. But for Greedo and Pqweeduk, a whole universe of excitement began to reveal itself.
    Four years later Greedo’s people were still on Nar Shaddaa, working and surviving. Greedo was nineteen, his brother was sixteen. The green youths had merged with the boundless spectacle of the Galaxy.
    4. Bounty Hunters
    “Jacta nin chee yja, Greedo!”
    Greedo leaped back as three repulsor bikes whippedpast, jumped a broken retaining wall, and disappeared into one of the crowded concourses that had been declared off-limits by Uncle Nok.
    He watched his brother and friends swerve their bikes among the landspeeders, antique wheeled cabs, Hutt floaters, skillfully dodging the strolling gamblers, alien pirates, spice traders, street hawkers, ragtag homeless … and bounty hunters.
    “ Grow up , Pqweeduk!” Greedo slouched against a wall, waiting for his friend Anky Fremp, a Siona Skup biomorph who had taught him the secrets of the street.
    Greedo, on the edge of adulthood, had left the games of childhood behind. He’d traded his repulsor bike for a fine pair of boots. He had stolen a precious rancor-skin jacket.