| abstract
| - For as long as he could remember Voy Velkin had everything he could ever want, a good home, plenty of credits, air speeders, friends, life on Coruscant, and a loving family. But with all that he lacked the one thing in his life that he craved the most - adventure. Being the son of two of the wealthiest business owners in the galaxy did not lend itself to a very eventful and adventure filled life. Every day of the eighteen year old’s life was almost completely planned out for him. He either spent his time learning the tricks of the trade or his other academic studies. When he could, he would sneak away to his best friend's home and they would either test their piloting skills on the latest flight simulator, or throw on their "slum" clothes and sneak to the lower levels of the city and gamble what they pretended to be their last credits away on cheap alcohol and sabacc. Today was one of those days for slumming it. He awakened to discover that his parents had already left for the day. After a brief shower, he looked in the mirror and saw his raged looking face. He had not shaved in two day, much to the dismay of his mother Otta, and his light-brown hair was somewhat of a logical mess, something his father Lark would have killed him for. "You should always look your best,” they always told him. He then threw clothes on to his muscular frame, stepped out of his room door, and found the family's bronze protocol droid, 2-CP9, standing there. "CP, what do you want?" he asked. "Your mother wanted me to make sure that you do your studies. And where do you think you are going looking like that?” the droid said matter-of-factly. "Well mom is not here so I am not going to do my studies, besides I finished it all late last night. And to answer your other question I am going out for a few hours." Every day was the same old thing, whether it was his parents or CP, someone was always badgering him. Voy felt like his brain was too big for his skull and he looked like it too, "Were you not able to sleep again last night, sir?" CP inquired. "No not really, and that is why my studies and my chores are done for today. Now if you would please get out of my way, before I have to deactivate you.” he threatened. The droid complied and moved to one side. Voy walked out the door and started for the stairs. He had not slept in two weeks, for some reason every time he would close his eyes he would be bombarded with horrifying images. "Sir?” he heard from behind, causing him to stop and turn towards the droid, "Would you really have deactivated me?" CP asked with a slight concern in his voice. "I guess we really will not know now will we.” he snidely responded as he headed off downstairs. "I really don't understand humans sometimes..." CP continued to mumble something else but Voy was not interested in hearing it. Voy hopped in the turbolift, entered in his private code on the key pad, and leaned back against the wall as the doors closed. The turbolift car and tube were completely constructed out of transparasteel giving him a picturesque view of Imperial Center. After stepping into the family’s private landing bay Voy thought to himself, "The nice newer speeder, or the old junker? Hmmm? The junker." He hopped into the beat up old thing, switched on the repulsorlifts and headed out the door. His best friend’s, Maik Goldam, high rise apartment was not too far from his front door. But seeing as most of Coruscant’s landscape was dominated by high rise buildings, walking was not exactly an option. Most of their friends called Maik, Digger, because of his sir name and because he liked to dig into the mechanics of every vehicle he could get his hands on. As a matter of fact the "junker" that Voy was piloting was not exactly pulled out of the refuse pile yesterday. It actually ran better and had far superior features then his parents "nice looking" speeder did. It was all because of Digger’s hard work. He had specially designed it for them to go down to the Entertainment Districts and gamble with, it gave them the appearance of being “easy pickings”. "Hey! Digger! You ready yet?!?” Voy shouted into his comm link. "Ready for what, Sparkie?” Maik teased. "To go gamble, you laser brain,” Voy retorted. “And by the way, call me Sparkie again and I will rip your arms out of their sockets like a deranged Wookie.” “Hey sorry, Nails, I forgot how you take offence to that name.” he laughed. Voy was often teased with the name Sparkie because one time he tried to impress a female by showing her that he knew how to fix a speeder, when he really didn't have the slightest clue as to what he was doing. So while he was under the hood he accidentally grabbed a hot electrical line to the main power cuppling and nearly electrocuted himself to death. Everyone said that his hair was standing on end and sparks jumped between his teeth when he talked. So ever since then, whenever they have wanted to tease him, they called him Sparkie. However, his other nickname, Nails, came about when they were playing the most recent simulator to be released. Every round was won by Voy. Not only did he win convincingly and complete all of his objectives, but he also discovered all of the secrets in the game. They all said that he "nailed" the game, "nailed" them, and flew "as tough as nails". Since then no one but Digger will face him in a simulator. Also his temper is shorter than an Ewok on his knees. He lost his temper at CP once and nearly threw him through the wall. Now they called him Nails to keep him calm and so that he did not rip their heads clean off. A few minutes later Digger was meeting him on the platform. Maik was nineteen and looked like your average everyday young adult, except for the scar that ran the length of his clean shaven right cheek. He had a mishap during one of his wrestling matches with Voy. He lost his temper and struck Maik with his fist. It so happened that Voy wore a rather large and expensive ring on his right hand. When he hit Maik, it left a rather sizable gash in his face and he has been scared ever since. Other than the obvious mark, Maik was about 2 meters tall, average build, with auburn hair that he always kept cut close to his scalp so that he looked clean cut to his parents. He was not considered as attractive as Voy was, but his thinking was, why should I have to be handsome, the only thing that will see me is the underside of a ship. "So where are we going today?” Digger asked knowing well what the answer was going to be. "Where else? Ma-Thay's Place you alien loving moron.” Voy said abruptly. He knew well enough that Maik was strictly devoted to the Empire's New Order in which aliens were not loved at all. Maik especially hated them since his older brother, Lynx, was killed by a Rodian who thought he was in debt to the Hutts. He did some research and found out that the Rodian’s name was Greedo, a not to smart bounty hunter, nor was he any good at his job, as his mistake showed. However, the bounty hunter that he hired had not had any luck tracking down the green slime-ball anywhere. He hoped that one day he would find him himself so he could avenge his brother and keep his money. "Why do we always go there? Don't you what to get off this metal covered rock and go somewhere different? Have some real adventures?" "What in the galaxy would you want to leave this beautiful planet for?” Voy asks sarcastically, "We have everything here: money, speeders, the Seat of the Empire, and freedom." "You call this freedom? Living at home, doing what our parents tells us to do, following the life that they have planned out for us. Yeah that's freedom alright,” he responded mockingly. “Come on, like you said we have money, you can fly, I can navigate, let’s go buy a nice space yacht and head out into the stars,” he said as he extended his hand to heavens. “I want to find a new place to gamble, and new people to scam. I hear that there is a cantina on Tatooine that makes Ma-Thay's Place look like a dump." "That doesn't take much, because it is a dump.” Voy snorted. "You know what I mean. Hell let’s not buy a ship, let con someone out of one, charter one, or even offer our services to a smuggler. We're pretty good in a fight, at least you are", thinking about the scare on his cheek. "I don't know Digger,” Voy said hesitantly, “I kind of like our nice content life here. You know my folks are not going to run the business forever, and I would hate to see somebody outside of the family take it over. But on the other hand, I would like to see the rest of the galaxy, especially the Outer Rim Territories. Or I would even love to join the fight against the meddling rebellion. But most of all, I would love to know what this ring meant." Voy had had that ring for as long as he could remember, but did not know what it meant or symbolized. Originally he wore it as a necklace until his hand was big enough to wear it. Oddly, it fit his finger perfectly, as if it was made just for him. He asked his folk about it, but they said they didn't know anything about it. It was given to them as a gift to give to him on his first birthday, but there was nothing to identify who was the giver of the gift. It was a thick, silver ring with a large violet colored stone in the center. The band had a weird writing on the inside of it. The words were not basic nor any of the six million forms of communication that CP is programmed to know. "Well then that settles it. Starting today we are in search of an adequate ship for us, and then we are going to find out what that ring means," Maik said with a smile. "This is crazy; how are we going to tell our parents? What about the academy? You were going to enroll for the next term and join in the fight against instability in the Empire, weren’t you?" Voy asked kind of warily. He knew of the small, insignificant rebellions being led by some of the remaining Separatists and how Maik wanted to join the Imperial Navy to help rid the Empire of their pathetic uprisings. Maik’s entire room was covered in recruitment propaganda and posters including his prized Imperial Recruitment collection. They were a series of beautiful, scantily-clad human women in various military scenes with slogans urging citizens to enlist in the Imperial Armed Forces. "Oh the Academy can wait a couple of years, you’ve been waiting your whole life to find out what that ring means. Besides the rebels are going to be crushed soon enough, with or without me in the Navy. So what do you say?" Voy hesitated a little, What the hell? He thought to himself, A little adventure never killed anyone, "Let’s do it. Of course, you know that we still have to go to Ma-Thay's Place and scam someone out of their ship, right?" "That's what we do best you know. Let's go. Of course if we’re going to get a decent ship, that will be able to reliably get us out of system, we’ll have to go somewhere more reputable. I think we should go to the Outlander Club, I hear they have great sabaac tables there and good looking women." Maik jumped into the speeder and off they went, headed for the second city, to the cultural center of the universe, the Entertainment District of the largest and wealthiest city in the galaxy.
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