Chapter 10.

Sergeant Corey Macaulay eased himself into the booth of the seedy dinner that his partner had chosen. He studied the other Human for a second. 2 meters, extremely thin, receding hair black hair faded to salt and pepper, a nervous tick with his fingers, signs of death stick addiction. rumpled Police uniform that needed to be cleaned and had probably been slept in, the only thing left that was clean and immaculate as always was his blaster pistol on his belt. Sergeant Felik Demond, Coruscant police force, former Lieutenant of the imperial order, looked worn out. He had been a thin man when he had commanded Corey’s unit back in imperial order half a lifetime ago.

“Mac, glad you could make it,” Felik said as he toyed with his steaming cup.

“Of course Lt, any time,” Mac answered, he had been given a chance to get off the streets nearly five years before and into the homicide division. The Lt had encouraged him to go for it, so he had, leaving the last member of his old squad on the streets to train rookies.

“So what’s up Lt?” Mac asked hesitating slightly. The Lt smiled stiffly and reached into a pocket and drew out some papers, and handed them across the table to Mac as he sipped his drink. The serving droid came by just as he took the papers.

“What you gonna have Human?” the droid asked, managing to sound cranky even with a cheap audio output. Mac answered distractedly trying to read the menu and the papers at the same time.

“Nerf steak, rare.” Mac chose his usual meal. The Lt waved the droid off but smiled at Mac’s typical choice.

“You never did become fully civilized.” The Lt said with a rough chuckle a sound rarely heard, and never by rookies or recruits. Mac smiled reading the papers quickly.

“Finally got your walking papers, you earned them Lt,” Mac said looking at his friend. The Lt grimaced.

“Yeah, they finally decided I had given enough...after all these years.” The Lt looked around at the dinner, mostly humans with only a handful of aliens scattered among them and a deep frown pulled at his thin lips.

“You remember this place, Mac?” The Lt asked nodding at the dinner around them. Mac followed his gaze behind him to the far wall where a few holes in the Durasteel had been badly repaired. The memory flooded back unblunted by the years.

Mac jogged into the dinner try to get out of the stinging acid rain as quickly as he could. The Lt had sent him back out to the patrol speeder for his forgotten comm. unit. Mac silently berated himself for the mistake; something like this would have gotten him killed in the field. Being out of contact with the rest of the squad and he was mincemeat for any rebel sniper with a bad attitude and a heavy blaster rifle. He ducked through the door and whipped his patrol helmet off so the acid rain wouldn’t pit the metal. He glanced around and froze, the Lt was sitting down calmly in a booth facing a pair of ugly Shistavanen, their squat dog-like bodies bristled with completely illegal weapons. Nonhumans weren’t allowed to have anything with more punch then a holdout blaster in this sector! Mac thought his hand instantly went to his holstered blaster pistol. Cautiously he walked forward to stand at the Lt’s shoulder

“Look fur face, I still need to see some kind of paperwork for those weapons, either a contract that says your freelancing for the Empire OR something from another HUMAN employer.” The Lt finished. Mac tried to look confident at his partner’s attitude, but sweat beaded his brow. The bigger of the two Shitavanen’s nostrils flared and its eyes whipped to focus on him. The sight of filthy aliens trying to act like humans, carrying weapons as if they owned the planet. With a practiced flick of his hand, Mac drew his pistol just as the Aliens clawed hand pulled a concealed weapon. He barely had time to register the weapon before his world suddenly tilted to the right and pain blossomed in his knee. Shocked, Mac realized that the Lt had kicked his legs out from under him. The second Shitavanen had already slid a blaster out of its holster and started firing directly where Mac’s chest had been a split second before. Bolts of crimson death whizzed by Mac’s face as time seemed to slow, his hand came up out of reflex and years of training with the Imperial Storm Troopers paid off. Even as he fell he fired a burst of three shots from his blaster pistol. One shot clipped the first Shitavanen on the shoulder spinning it to the side. It’s weapon discharged harmlessly into the windows beside the booth. Mac noted idly just before his head hit the ground that it had been a disruptor the alien had pulled on the LT, powerful enough to completely vaporize a human. Then everything went black as his head struck the dirty floor.

His thoughts snapped back to the present and he glanced over at the LT, while his mind was occupied the LT had pulled out his service blaster. Its well-polished barrel glinted dully in the cheap plasma lanterns of the dinner. The service droid dropped his nerf steak off with a clatter as he simple stared across at the tormented eyes of the LT.

“What’s that for LT...” Mac said quietly.

“I had nothing but this left.” The Lt unclipped his badge from his chest and put it on the table next to the gun with a gentle reverence. Around them, the room faded into silence.

“You know what we did back in the bad old days, there’s no place left for us in the new order of things. Not MEN like us. I just wanted to say goodbye and give you this.” The Lt handed Mac a data chip. Without another word, he twirled the blaster expertly in one hand, pointed the barrel at his temple and pulled the trigger. This time in the dinner everything went white.

Six months later.

Mac swirled the expensive liquor around his glass, eyeing the rest of the bottle, little less than half was left. Which meant that he would have to go out again, back out into the stinking alien-infested streets. He downed what was left in the glass and poured another healthy sized dose of his medicine into the glass. Mac looked bleary-eyed around his apartment, it had never been much just the same boring set up that a trillion others had at this level of Coruscant. His place hadn’t been cleaned, vermin had moved in, Mac didn’t care. He was on a vacation paid for by the department, 6 months paid mandatory psychology vacation. Talking to some med droid every day about his feeling seamed ridiculous. What could a machine know about Human emotions? Disgusted with the whole situation he drank down the warm liquor with barely a grimace. Pounding sounded on his front door.

“Mac! Open the damn door!” After a brief pause, the pounding resumed. Mac groaned and rolled over it was too early, barely before noon galactic time. He waved blearily at the door and it slid open with a satisfied beep.

“Damn it, I thought a locked door was an obvious no,” Mac said as the room still spun lazily, leftovers from his long night of drinking alone.

“Yeah, I figured you would want to hear this one though.” Captain Algran said pushing a pile of dirty clothes off the one chair in the filthy room.

“Its right up your alley, Twi’lek, kidnapping, rape, destruction of property, resisting arrest, reckless endangerment. Something that might take your mind off of Felik. Plus you could probably use the money by now.” Algran said glancing around at the mess. Mac snorted and sat up reeling slightly he staggered to the bathroom, he left to door open so he could talk.

“Actual you would be surprised, The Lt practically saved every dime. He gave it all to me, right before...”Mac stopped as bile rose in his throat, he choked it back and zipped his pants back up. He stood there for a few seconds struggling against the tide of memories try to drown him. Braced against the wall, his shoulders shook as he rode the tide of images, blurred by drink the edges worn soft by time. They were still nearly enough to have his head in the toilet.