An Unlikely Trio

Setting: Star Wars, Between the 3rd and 4th movies.

Alain is sitting by himself, watching the bar he has settled down in for a rest. A human male, face down in a bowl of noodles, yells at the serving girl, “Hey….girl….my glass is empty!” A Nautolan looks up from tuning a gun. “TO WHOM WERE YOU REFERING?” Alain walks over to see what is happening. The drunkard looks over, “The girl who needs to fill my glass!” Alain walks up to him, "I think you should be a bit nicer to the nice lady who keeps refilling your glass." The Nautolan, interested in a fight, walks over, mug in hand. The drunkard looks at Alain. "And I think you need to keep your mouth shut...boy" Alain laughs lightly, "You really should behave yourself, and claim no right to call someone older than you a boy." Jeb looks up from the table and gives Alain a crooked smile. The Nautolan comes up behind Alain, “And I think you should both silence yourselves.” Alain turns around and feigns surprise. “Hello there.” The human glares at Alain, “Sit down.” Alain turns, "Just who are you talking to?” The human responds quickly, "The green alien standing in front of me" The Nautolan joins in the conversation unexpectedly, “Hello, and well met. May I ask your name, stranger?” Alain turns again, “Which one?” The human glares at both of them. “Oh just sit down already. “ The Nautolan decides to anger the human more, "Either one of us you choose to mouth of to, stranger, you'll find yourself without a mouth at all.” but still sits down. Alain starts fully waking up, and realizes the trouble he just started. He sighs. The human turns on Alain, "This kid has the right idea...now sit." Alain sighs again, and starts looking around. The Nautolan takes offense at the drunkard’s statement, "You refer to us as your inferior in generation, yet you fail to realize your own childish incompetence?” "Well greeny. You got a point there! HAHA!" Jeb laughs. Alain puts a hand on the Nautolan's shoulder, "Don't go into a rage." The Nautolan ignores him, however, "Now, assuming you have either a brain or a reason to disturb me, you insolent twit, then you may want to state your reason." The Human looks straight at the Nautolan with anger in his eyes, "Well we have one name down. I'm Jeb...Jebidiah Zemalf. And who are you Twi'lek?” Alain doesn't have to feign confusion anymore. "Well... I am Alain..." The Nautolan ignores Alain, "His name would appear to be of no concern of the likes of you, cretin” Jeb responds quickly, "Good. we are at first name basis." Alain steps quickly between the two. "Woah! Step it down a notch!" The Nautolan pushes past him, "Don't worry, I’ll kill him quickly, but first we'll hear his reason." "No! There's no reason to kill random people!" Alain faces the Nautolan. Jeb burps lazily, “Yeah…no reason.” The Nautolan glares at Alain now, "Is it random for the Sith to annihilate the Jedi for a mere disagreement? No, it was logical, reasonable, and well calculated." Alain narrows his eyes. "Funny you should bring that up..." The Nautolan still won’t give up, "So? Too chicken to tell us a reason?" Jeb grins, "Just trying to make some friends...hehe" and burps again. No one else was taking notice of the whole fight until the Nautolan mentioned the Jedi and Sith. Now they back away. Alain looks around, then whispers, "Now would be a good time to go." The Human gets up to leave, "Yes, I said the word 'Jedi' and 'Sith' in the same sentence, but I guess those ladies around us are scared that I was in that fight? TOO BAD!” Jeb stands up as well, "I wouldn't call it a fight, more of a quarrel." A metal sphere falls out of the Nautolan’s sleeve Alain who has been standing the whole time, has been walking toward the door and walks straight into an Imperial officer. “Er…Hello there!” The Nautolan walks up with a pleasant look on his face, "Good evening officer, allow me to introduce myself! I am Veritas Volitheum, this is Alain, and this is the drunkard Jeb." Alain fires a blaster in the guard's face before he can react, and the body lies twitching on the floor. "Got to go!" Alain rushes out the door. Jeb follows Alain. Veritas strolls out of the bar, and the sphere he dropped explodes. "Mission accomplished!” Alain, however, is out of sight by now. Veritas hops into a strange looking “ship” and zooms off in the direction Alain disappeared in, and grabs Jeb along the way. Jeb burps again, "Thanks big boy" Veritas tranquilizes Jeb, and puts him in his cargo hold. “Mission two, accomplished!” Alain comes out of hiding as the two of them leave, then runs the opposite direction. Veritas spins his ship around and flies after Alain. Alain has already reached his ship by the time Veritas catches up to him. Veritas pulls out a large rocket launcher and fires it at Alain’s ship. A net lands on his ship, and clamps down. Alain looks at the readings on his dashboard, and realizes that he can no longer reach the atmosphere. Alain flies his ship away from the main city in an attempt to get away so he can remove the net. Veritas’s “ship” zooms after Alain. Veritas’s voice comes through the intercom, "BZZZZ- Surrender your ship! or I fire!-BZZZ" Alain responds with a barely audible grunt, and attempts to lose Veritas by dodging into a canyon. Alain’s instruments start going wild, telling him that the ship is getting too heavy to fly. After a bit longer of struggling to keep the ship aloft, Alain responds to the transmission, “Fine, what do you want?" Veritas responds, “Land!” Alain demands “Why?!” Veritas’s voice comes over the intercom again, "Because rules are rules, missions are missions, and money is money!" Alain swears, then finishes rewiring his ship. Hopping into a cramped “escape pod”, he hits a button and falls out of his ship, appearing to simply be a loose chunk of metal. As Alain’s ship slowly starts to fall, Veritas zooms over and locks the ships together with metal claws and lands Alain’s ship. Alain notices that Veritas’s ship appears to have stopped activity. Curious, Alain walks over and sneaks a look through the view screen. Veritas appears to be unconscious and Jeb is pressing buttons on a round silver sphere. Alain takes out his blaster, sets it to charge, and fires at the door. Quickly rolling through the opening, Alain knocks out Jeb before he realizes that there is another sphere similar to the one Veritas threw into the bar. Realizing the danger, Alain grabs it and throws it as far as he can outside, then starts trying to revive Jeb and Veritas. Jeb pukes once again, and then rolls on his stomach. Veritas simply coughs and kicks the chair. A math text-book and a physics text-book fall out. Jeb starts crawling towards the door as a page with a riddle falls out of the text-book. Alain picks it up and starts toward the silver sphere, thinking it might be a code of some sort. Deciding against it, he goes over to drag Jeb away from the open door, when the bomb outside goes off. Both of them are knocked backwards as a mechanical voice speaks, “The first is the third of the second”. Alain sighs, and then gets an idea. He starts toward the door, when Jeb stops him and pulls out a blaster, “Wait Alain!” Jeb points it at Alain. The mechanical voice speaks again, “The second's in second and the third of bend.” Alain raises his hands in defense, “Woah! I'm going to get a pail of water!" Jeb slowly lowers his blaster, "You’re gonna fix this mess you made! Oh…mind getting me a drink?” Alain nods, “Hold on!” and jumps out. After rummaging through the hold of his ship, Alain comes back and tosses a bottle at Jeb before dumping a pail of ice cold water on Veritas. Jeb grabs the bottle and takes a long swig, “Thanks mate.” Veritas awakens, and the mechanical voice continues speaking nonsense, “The third is the first two all of these words have it.” Veritas exclaims “S*** you triggered the Riddler's matrix?!” Jeb laughs drunkenly, "Oooh sounds dangerous...Hehe" Alain ignores them and points his blaster at Veritas’s face, "What bounty are you trying to fulfill?" The voice speaks again, “The fourth is in fourth and in fourth place it is.” Veritas’s eyes widen, "A man, oldish, orange-white beard. Named Ben." Alain doesn’t recognize this description nor the name, so he relaxes a bit, "And what is that machine of yours doing?!" Veritas starts to get up, “It’s a riddle, if we don't solve it, it blows up.” Jeb slowly makes his way towards the door, "Well, I think this is my que to leave." He looks down at the far drop and thinks twice. Alain lowers his blaster, "How far is the blast radius?" The voice speaks again, “The fifth’s not in fifth but he might be in second.” Veritas glances at the silver orb, "Ummm." Alain sighs, "Never mind. Can you stop it?" Veritas looks nervously at the ground, “About a planet, it was a fail-safe measure...” Jeb comes back over, "Yeah...we should figure out that riddle." Veritas looks at Alain, “Alain, the riddle is the key.” Alain looks at him like he’s crazy, “It’s your trap! Why don’t you figure it out?” Jeb comes up to them, "V I know we got off to a bad start. But tell us the damn answer!" Veritas looks at them nervously, “I…” The voice interrupts him, “The sixth isn't in any of these so far, but it is in this sentence; so with pairs I must spar.” Veritas cringes, “I don’t…know…” Alain swears, grabs the sphere, and starts hitting random buttons, “Curse it all!” Jeb smacks Veritas in the head. Veritas lowers his head in shame, "I do know that it is called the literal riddle..." Jeb sits down, “So Alain…got anything?” The sphere speaks again, “Sevenths a vowel, not so earlier mentioned, the second to last, it will end all the tension.” Alain grins as an idea pops into his head, and goes into his ship with the sphere nestled in the crook of his arm. As he leaves, he hears Jeb exclaim, "I don't think the kid is gonna get up anytime soon.” Veritas yells after Alain, “It is literal!” Alain grabs a satchel from his ship and climbs to the top of Veritas’s ship. Jeb climbs after him and tackles Alain. “What is that?” Alain manages to pull a compact rocket out of the bag, "If it explodes in space, it won't do as much damage!" Jeb gets off of Alain, “Well…then hurry.” As Alain attaches the sphere to the rocket and pulls out a match, Veritas yells, “Alain, the rocket won't get far enough!” Alain stops, sighs, and unattaches the sphere. Veritas climbs to the top and grabs it, then climbs back inside. “ENTROPY! It’s Entropy!!!” Alain ignores Veritas and tapes some fireworks to the rocket instead. He lights them, then comes back inside grinning. Veritas is now holding a miniature version of the sphere. Alain pauses at the doorway, “Can you release my ship now?” Jeb, who had climbed in before Alain, points his blaster at Alain’s head, "After all the stuff you two put me through, I believe I deserve that ship." Jeb jumps down before adding, “The bounty also.” Veritas sighs, "No, but you do deserve some answers..." Jeb ignores Veritas and yells up to them, "I'm gonna go find that Ben fellow!" Alain jumps after Jeb,”Uh…I modified the ship though…” The inside of Alain's ship is a mess. There are cables strewn everywhere, and random stuff just lying on the ground. Jeb takes a swing at Alain, but Alain ducks and rolls under him, grabbing a rubix cube as he comes back up. Jeb is stunned for a moment then spins around and points the blaster at Alain’s head. Alain jams the rubix cube into the barrel of the blaster and leaps behind a pile of sparking wire. Jeb pulls the trigger and the blaster explodes, sending Jeb flying backwards. As Alain starts bombarding Jeb with random stuff to keep him from recovering, Veritas sends his ship into hyperspace, pulling Alain’s ship with him. Alain realizes that the door is open, and manages to grab Jeb to keep him from being pulled into hyperspace. Grabbing onto the pilot’s chair, Alain swings Jeb into the button that closes the door. They slam into the ground as the ship’s automatic gravity takes hold, and they struggle for breath. Air cascades into the room, dusty, dry, Tattoine air, but it is still air. Alain gets up as the ships land. He realizes the Jeb landed dangerously close to a pile of sparking cables. After dragging Jeb away from it, he realizes that they were no longer moving. A quick look at his dashboard tells him that they are on a planet. Alain opens the door and peers out, remaining as hidden as possible. Jeb rolls out onto the dusty land before Alain can stop him. They are in Mos Eisley, and there is a Storm Trooper standing basically right outside. Before Alain can close the door, Veritas grabs Alain and Jeb, and chains them to his hoverboard as the Storm Trooper comes over. “What are you doing?” The Storm Trooper has leveled his gun at them. Jeb, nearly dead, gasps, "They..They're....they're trying...to kill me...." Veritas hands Jeb Ua sandwich and explains to the Trooper, “Slave, officer, both of them.” Jeb nearly drops the sandwich in rage, “Do I look like a slave?!” but then looks at his dirty ripped clothing and notices that he does look like one. Veritas grins, “Slave trade does flourish on Tattoine!” Alain struggles against the chain, then quickly turns so his back is facing the officer. He mutters curses under his breath. Jeb doesn’t let it go through, "He is lying. I'm a bounty hunter looking for a man named Ben." Alain secretly kicks Jeb, “Shh.” Veritas turns toward Jeb, “What? Did. You.” Jeb yells at Veritas, “IT’S MY MONEY!” Veritas glares at Jeb, “Say. SLAVE!” Alain whimpers, and does his best to act like a slave, then motions for Jeb to be quiet. Jeb ignores him and tries to appeal to the Storm Trooper, "He captured my ship and the he stole my credits! Now he is claiming to be me!" Alain sighs, then quickly knocks out the Storm Trooper with his blaster as Veritas starts dragging them off into the wilderness. “C’mon. I know worse stuff. At least we’re not actually slaves.” Veritas grins, “Yet…” Alain looks up in startled surprise, “What?!” Veritas chuckles, then they stop. Alain realizes that this must be the spot at which they were to meet with Ben, "Er..." Veritas looks down at him, “Hmm? Oh…chains…” Veritas unties them. Jeb looks over the dunes, “Are those…Tuskens?” Alain quickly turns at Jeb's remark. Veritas swears and throws a sphere at the group of figures the Jeb had spotted. Alain pulls out his blaster and crouches, ready for battle, as Jeb runs to avoid the blast. Jeb trips over a lone rock and lays on the ground. A Jawa runs toward them, yelling incoherently, and making curious gestures at Jeb. A horde of Tuskens is chasing it. The Jawa falls to the ground, ragged breath escaping its lips, the horde falls upon the group. Alain starts firing at the Tuskens and rolls over toward Jeb, but there are so many that it has little effect.

Sorry it took so long