Offspring

Up until today, he'd been convinced that jawas were disgusting creatures. After today, he remained even more convinced. He'd been, as some might say, convinced-convinced, or double-convinced, or convinced-ed.

Was that a word? Maybe. Quite possibly, for some species, in some language, there was a word that could sum up his confirmation bias, but since he wasn't speaking right now, there was no need to look up a galactic lexicon for the trillions of languages that existed in the galaxy. All he knew was that jawas were disgusting. They were disgusting because they'd steal anything that wasn't locked down, and steal half of what was locked down, and have no qualms about it. They were disgusting because he'd been incapacitated by their stunners earlier on, and part of his body still ached from that experience. They were disgusting because instead of giving him back the material that was rightfully his, they'd arranged a trade for "the Egg." Not an egg, he'd noted, the Egg, as if it was some kind of religious object. Then again, watching them eat the damn thing, he was willing to bet that it wasn't an object of devotion. Rather, it was an object that the jawas wanted to eat because yolk was tasty.

The jawas were chattering away in their incomprehensible language, their grubby mitts dipping into the egg and putting it down their gullets. Gullets that he couldn't see under their hoods, the only sign of a face being the baleful red eyes that each jawa possessed. For a moment, he was reminded of himself - caught forever behind a mask, his face hidden from the world. A moment after that, he chastised himself for the thought. He had a face. He could take the mask off. Jawas kept their hoods down, and unlike him, didn't even have mirrors to see their ugly mugs.

The egg had significantly less yolk in it now. The creature that was forming inside it will never see the light of day. For his own ends, it killed its mother. She fought to protect her child, and he took her life, and delivered her offspring into the grubby hands of bi-pedal rodents. A compassionate man might shed a tear. A callous man wouldn't be bothered at all. He, being neither of the two, forces himself to look away from the feast, only for his eyes to come upon the infant. The offspring of an unknown mother and father, being taken to its doom as well. To serve his own interests.

Sixty years, he reflected. Sixty years, and the infant's older than most of the people he knew in this business. For whatever reason, the Empire (or rather, Imperial remnants with delusions of grandeur) wanted the creature. Preferably alive, but potentially dead, and he wasn't sure whether he should take the latter as cold comfort or not. Because under normal circumstances. he'd have no trouble turning over a bounty to his employer. Most of his bounties were scum, which fit in with how the galaxy actually works. Only the infant wasn't scum. It couldn't be scum. Perhaps, another sixty years from now, it would grow into scum, but in his experience, children came into the galaxy innocent, and it was the galaxy itself that robbed them of that innocence in a hail of blaster fire. His hand brushed against his own blaster, and he wondered if it would be kinder to put a hole through the infant's head right now. Get the bounty, spare it the pain of proto-Imperials that emulate an order that willingly committed slavery and genocide.

Or, he reflected, maybe it was already gone. Because it was sleeping now, and I was a sleep that whispered not of peaceful slumber, but of painful exhaustion. Because the infant, his bounty, his enemy, did something. Did something he couldn't explain, did something that defied all logic, did something that harkened back to legends before the Dark Times, but whatever it did, it did something. And in doing so, saved his life. The infant, still innocent, had no idea that it was sparing the life of the one that would deliver it to a fate worse than death. And in doing so, passed out, not seeing how another infant was delivered into the hands of ovivores.

"Egg egg egg egg egg egg!"

Well, at least the jawas were happy about it, he reflected. He couldn't be sure what they were saying exactly, but he was pretty sure what it translated into. They had the egg. They'd eaten the egg. They were so glad to have the egg, that they'd already begun unloading scrap from the sandcrawler. Stuff that was his in the first place, thank you very much. Unaware that in doing so, they were hastening the demise of another infant, and the path its killer was walking down.

He glanced back at the child. He wished it were dead. It would make things so much easier. It would mean he'd murdered two children, rather than murdering one, and harming his spirit in wrestling with the cruelties of the galaxy. So cruel that it dared him to take the path that will lead to his ruin, rather than the path of his enemy.

"Egg egg egg egg egg egg egg!"

Well, least there was still one certainty in all this.

Jawas were still disgusting.