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could see the inside of the rib cage, little
notches and chunks missing from the short ribs, where one of the
damned things had taken a bite. Zeke felt his gorge rise up in his
throat and a tight lump form in his chest. The meat-husk was
wearing Ol' Dogs boots, the tooled leather ones, with the big
letter ‘Q’ just above the ankles, the boots Rosie gave him for
their anniversary last fall, just before she started taking Young
Pup to her bed instead of the Ol’ Dog.
    The thought of
Rosie brought Zeke to his senses. He stood and dove past the
carcass of his oldest friend, rolled over his shoulder and took to
his feet, tumbling into the hard scrabble of the underbrush,
branches tearing at his shirt and his skin, and he’d never been so
happy.
    Safe. Zeke
thought. Need a goddamn coffee. Whiskey. Some of Rosie’s good
chicken and biscuits.
    The last
thought lodged in his throat, with the sound of pine trunks
cracking and a pressure at the base of his spine as one hooked
talon sliced through his backbone and his face hit the dirt with no
feeling.
    Rosie? Rosie.
No! I made it to the trees! Rosie?
    He only felt
the blood rush to his head as he was pulled up into the treetops,
and he felt nothing more than wind in his eyes as the the ocean of
green and the hard ground below rushed back towards his face.
    I’m comin’
Rosie. I made it to the...
     

 
Dark Flush of
the Sith

     
    From the desk
of:
    Janine Mothma,
HR Sector 12, Block 46 Rebel Alliance SWU.
     
    Re: Applicant
Interview – Position RSS Level 3, Waste Management – HQ Arbra
Base
    Applicant:
Genevus Fervo Ozzel
     
    Work
Experience: 10 years with Light-Snake Droid Drainage Services,
Coruscant
5 years independent contractor, Imperial Navy – Death Star I
3 years independent contractor, Imperial Navy – SSD ‘Executor’
     
    Transcript of
personal interview follows:
     
    JM - “Good
morning Mr… Ozzel? I’m Janine Mothma”
     
    GO - “Call me
Gene.”
     
    JM - “Gene. So
why do you want to defect to the Alliance, Gene?”
     
    GO - “Well,
it’s not really defecting, is it? I mean, I’m just a
contractor…”
     
    JM - “A
contractor for the Galactic Empire.”
     
    GO -
“Everybody makes mistakes, right?”
     
    (Nervous
laughter)
     
    JM - “What was
your capacity on the Super Star Destroyer ‘Executor’?”
     
    GO -
“Capacity? I’m in waste management. My capacity was cleaning up
after about seventeen hundred stormtroopers and Galactic Empire
enlisted. Not to mention that prick Vader and his ‘guests’.”
     
    JM - “Excuse
me?”
     
    GO - “Sorry. I
get a little riled up about that guy.”
     
    JM – “I meant
about the ‘guests’, Mr. Ozzel.”
     
    GO – “Gene.
Yeah, Vader’s always bringing up dignitaries and big-shots. He
likes to show off and brag about his private destroyer. Acts like
it’s a yacht or something. Big parties with real scumbags. Last
week he had some ugly space-slug of a Hutt up there. Some
mucky-muck from Tatooine. Showed up with this big entourage of
bounty hunters and call-girls. Had a whole pile of Gamorreans with
them too. Have you ever seen what a Gamorrean can do to standard
space plumbing?”
     
    JM – “I’m sure
it’s very unpleasant. How is it that you are aware of these
‘guests’ of Lord Vader’s?”
     
    GO – “Seems
like a big place, but even a Super Star Destroyer is a pretty small
world. Everybody talks about everything. Gossip is probably the
third most popular pastime. And most of the guys I know, grew up
with, they’re all officers now. Me, I got screwed over. My uncle
Kendal…”
     
    JM – “Kendal…
Ozzel? Admiral Kendal Ozzel? Was your uncle? You should have
mentioned that in your application. I don’t know if we can…”

GO – “Woah, woah, woah! He was my uncle. Past tense. He had put in
a good word for me and I was supposed to come in as a supervisor in
garbage disposal. Then that jag Vader killed him after that whole
ice planet fiasco. Soon as Vader got