Bondo threw his duffelbag, at the man with the pistol. Cylinder shaped and weighing about fifty pounds, Bondo was large and strong enough that his bag might as well been filled with feathers.

#

“You know why you’re here, chummer?”

Bondo had been staring at the floor in the small room. He’d been so lost in his thoughts that he hadn’t heard the door swoosh open, but he had looked up when he heard the voice.

“They tried t’take m’bag,” Bondo said to the man in the blue uniform.

“Yeah, I know- hey, I can’t place your accent. It’s offworld, but what planet’d you come from?”

“Didn’t, I.”

“Didn’t you what?”

“Didn’t I. Come from a world. I...I was birthed in space, on an agro freighter. The Crasna. ”

“Off world, huh. Nomads. Verb-subject speech pattern, I got it. It happens. Alright, son, sit tight. I can tell we’re gonna have us a few language barriers, and I’m gonna get someone in three shakes of a yona’s tail who can talk with you way easier than me.”

Bondo had a hard time understanding what people here said. It was like his father had told him: they used the same words, but not the same way. Worse, they thought Bondo was the odd one, when it was obvious they were talking wrong.

The door opened again. This time it was a different man, younger, though wearing the same clothes. “You clan?” Bondo asked.

The man smiled, and...pulled his chair and sat down the right way, with the back of the chair in front of him! It was the way Bondo had seen all members of his clan sit since he was old enough to remember anything; sitting the way the Core people sat, with your back resting against the long end of the chair? That was far too odd.

“Yeah,” the blond man with the blue uniform said, “but not like y’think. Heard you an agro freighter birthed?”

“Yessir!” Bondo said, happy to hear the familiar speech patterns again. “You?”

“Y’right. Born, my father, same freighter you come from, Crasna. He marry mother, mine, from a Transport clan. Started big fight, my father clean their house. Put off with mother mine next world, here. Uh’grew up here, heard him talkin’ like on the freighter.”

“Hearing good, real good,” sad Bondo. “Just...why’m here?”

“Bondo, I will speak slowly, and you will have to listen to me. Do you understand?” the officer spoke, indeed, slowly, as if he were explaining how to fix the power converter of a hovertruck to a simpleton like Edder back home on the freighter.

“My name is Officer Jando. This is not a clan, it’s a job. Here in Core worlds, your family- mother, father, children, all live a small place like a house, and go to a job in the day. To survive, you will need a job, and a place to live. To get these things, you will have to learn how to speak like most people, the way I am speaking now. You want to do this so you can get along for the next year without being homeless. That means sleeping out in the open, where people like little Wulf and his street family can take your stuff or even kill you for fun. You understand?”

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“They’re a clan? Or is killing people their job?”

“No, not really. That is not important now. Bondo, they tried to rob you. Do you remember what you did?”

“Yes, do I.” Bondo started, only to be corrected by Officer Jando. “Yes...I do,” Bondo started. “First they…the big one…he said, said that I fight…I look like I'd fight, like a drunk little girl with no hands and a blindfold on. That was mean. I…the little girls on my ship, they do all right. They fight good, when bad guys tried to take the ship, they took stunclubs, and they…”

"The robbers, Bondo. What they do?"

"Well, then..they…my...I mean, they took my bag, or they...they tried to take my bag.”

“And then?”

“I threw my bag at them. I hit the man with the gun, then I grabbed his wrist an’ squeezed it ‘til he dropped the gun. Then I took’im and bashed hi’head into th’ground until he stopped moving. When I looked around, Wulf had gone.”

“Bondo, thank you for that statement. Since they tried to rob you, you shouldn’t get into any trouble, no matter what his state of mind is after he gets out of the hospital. But Bondo, when you threw that bag at him, you didn’t run, and you didn’t just hit him. You took his gun while you were distracted, then picked him up and threw him down onto the paved ground so hard they still haven’t revived him, and it’s a day later. If little Wulf hadn’t called it in, he might have died and you’d be looking at a murder charge. Do you understand that?”

Bondo nodded. The speech of the Core worlders was getting easier to understand.

“Bondo, what happens now is you go to a judge. He acts like your PawPaw if brothers fight. I show him what you just told me-“ here officer Jando held up a datapad that had been transcribing Bondo’s words into text, “and odds are very, very good you go free. After that, you’re going to have trouble. Do you know where to get a job? Or find a place to live and pay rent? Bondo, I cannot help you much there- I have my own family to help and raise.”

Bondo looked at his wristpad. “I got here, people? I showed, when I first got here.”

“I heard about that. Bondo, they checked- they’ve moved, and we don’t know where they are now. Now, Bondo, you got no place.”

Bondo looked down at the floor. “What I- What do I do, now?”

“I’ve got a suggestion,” Jando said, “a place where they’ll treat you a lot like they did over at the freighter. Not as nice, true. Not nice at all, most of the time. But they’ll give you meals, a place to sleep, and even teach you some skills. Plus, if you sign up, it’ll mean one less we’ll have to find for the Emperor to meet our quota.”

“What, your?”

“Our quota, Bondo. It means- we get hafta a certain number of soldiers for the Empire, give. If we don’t, it’s like not making a delivery, only much, much worse. Savvy you?”

Bondo nodded his head, still not completely comprehending. Officer Jando took out his datapad, spun his finger on the screen a few times to locate something, then stood up and opened the door to leave.

“There you go, Bondo,” said Officer Jando. “If you take my suggestion, then push the red circle on that gadget with your thumb when they tell you to. They’ll wipe your record clean and give you a thousand credits if you agree to start right away and meet their recruitment droid out front. If I were you, I’d do it without a second thought.”

“Officer?” Bondo said. He was picking up more than he thought he would, and quicker than he thought would be possible. He knew ‘Officer’ was his title, not his clan. Like ‘father’ or ‘lifter’ or ‘driver’ back home on the Crasna.

“Yes, Bondo?”

“Officer, your...your father. If he...did he ever say he was sorry that he left the ship?”

The officer sighed, and looked off in the distance. “Yes. Sometimes. But really, the only time I remember hearing him say that was when he and my mother had a fight of some kind. Transport women don’t fight or cook as well as the ones on the freighters, he once told me. But they are feistier and a lot more fun to be with.”

Officer Jando excused himself. Bondo looked at the tablet in front of him. The swirling pictures, huge machines and blaster fights stirred something inside of him, even more than the pictures of the women wearing stormtrooper armor.

And when the red dot appeared he jabbed it with his thumb without a moment’s hesitation.

#