Saga Beyond the Saga The Life and Times of the Dancing Gamorrean | Humour, mommy issues | One-shot & short story series

The Life and Times of the Dancing Gamorrean ​

Title: The Life and Times of the Dancing Gamorrean
Timeframe: From a few years before TPM to the ST and possibly beyond
Continuity: Canon
Length: Series of one-shots & short stories (six currently planned, but it could be more in the end)
Genre: Humour
Characters: Zane the Gamorrean clown from Preigo’s Travelling World of Wonder (TCW S05E08)
Notes: Phew, there’s a long story behind these fics. The Gamorrean clown in TCW isn’t called Zane; as a matter of fact he has no name at all. It all started from this video of an aircraft marshaller dancing on the tarmac; it got mentioned in the X-Wing Fan Club: Home of the Dancing Gamorrean thread where we discuss the Black Sheep Squadron RPF, and it all snowballed from there. Blame Mistress_Renata for the name and me for the stories.

Table of contents

Life Is a Tapcafé – How Zane became a Rebel
The Making of a Hero – How Zane became a hero
Bad Business – How Zane became a guard in Jabba's palace (in standalone thread)
The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent – How Zane became a clown​

 

Title: Life Is a Tapcafé
Timeframe: Before and during the very beginning of TESB (including minor references to the Darth Vader 2015 comics)
Characters: Zane, unnamed OCs, established character cameos
Summary: How Zane became a Rebel
Notes: This is a repost from my old Chyntuck’s Ramblings thread, where you will find the original reviews and replies. Special thanks to Sarge for providing the slang ‘wand waver’ for ‘aircraft marshaller’.


Life Is a Tapcafé

Punishments for those who incurred Jabba the Hutt’s wrath were as terrible as they were varied. Some were ripped apart by combat arachnids, others were fed to the rancor. Those whose offences towards the Bloated One were beyond comprehension were dumped into the sarlacc’s maw. Bounty hunters were sent after the fools who thought they could evade the Hutt’s galaxy-spanning criminal network, sometimes with the explicit order to disintegrate their prey. The small fry were enslaved until they could pay their way out of indentured servitude to the mobster, or until he became tired of them and handed them over to one of his monstrous pets. But no one had ever been relegated to the rank of majorette on Jabba’s sail barge, much less one of the Gamorrean guards. Until now.

It was true that Zane had messed up pretty badly and that he deserved to be punished. He had been on duty on the day when Jabba visited his townhouse in Mos Eisley for a secret appointment with a high-ranking Imperial, and he had chosen the wrong time to perform a little dance and practise his juggling skills with the Hutt’s gorgs instead of standing guard in the hallway. But really, how was he supposed to know that Darth Vader’s envoy would exit the conference room just then and there? Those had been very short negotiations indeed, and it was only several days later that Zane understood that the Imperial had merely come to announce the dark lord’s impending visit. It hadn’t been Zane’s intention to cause all that kerfuffle, or to offend the Empire in any way – but there it was, he’d done it. Given a choice between becoming Jabba’s majorette and hard labour in the spice mines of Kessel, he’d chosen to be a majorette.

It was also true that Jabba was, in more ways than one, doing Zane a favour. After all, Zane had spent the best part of his adult life working as a clown for Preigo’s Travelling World of Wonder before coming in the Hutt’s employ, and it was nice to reconnect with the performing arts even though dancing had never been his strongest suit. Also, his new position meant that he wasn’t around when an unfortunate slip of Jabba’s tongue – the Hutt had called Darth Vader a Jedi! – resulted in the death of several fellow Gamorrean guards at the Sith lord’s hand. And, well, Zane was still alive. He hadn’t been dismembered by the arachnids, or eaten by the rancor, or digested by the sarlacc. That had to count for something.

Still, the whole story was deeply embarrassing, and Zane wasn’t sure how he would explain it to his mother when she found out. She’d chastised him many times for his eccentricity in the past – no Gamorrean with an ounce of self-respect would choose to work in a circus, she said – and they’d only mended ties when he was recruited as a guard in Jabba’s palace. She wouldn’t be happy at all to see him demoted to majorette, and that was something that worried Zane just as much as murderous Hutt flights of fancy or the threat of Imperial retribution. Mum was a fearsome sow, and she was the clan matron. If she ever got wind of her son’s predicament, he was in for more trouble than he’d ever bargained for.

For the time being, however, Mum was not around and the Empire hadn’t shown up looking for Zane, so his main concern was to give Jabba satisfaction lest the Hutt decide to resort to a more, ahem, radical form of punishment. He made sure that he mastered every step of the dances he was required to perform, and he found out that baton twirling came easily to him given his natural talent for juggling – except, that is, on that fateful day when a gorg had slipped out of his paw and... well, what was done was done and there was no point brooding over it. Some of the more acrobatic dance moves gave him grief because he just wasn’t cut out for cartwheels and backflips, but he was able to strike what he liked to think of as a mutually beneficial agreement with the Max Rebo Band. By this, he meant that he pointed out to the musicians that he was far more likely to trip and send them overboard into the sarlacc’s pit if they chose to go with the bouncier tunes of their repertoire. They didn’t need to be told twice, and every time Jabba hosted a party on his sail barge, all Zane had to do was to jig about and twirl his baton while Sy Snootles sang Life is a Tapcafé.

Several months went by and Zane was growing accustomed to his new position in Jabba’s court – heck, he was actually beginning to enjoy it – when two unwelcome news items reached him at once. The first was that the Empire required the Hutt’s services once more, and that a new meeting with Vader’s envoy had been scheduled in the Mos Eisley townhouse. This wouldn’t be such a major issue had the Bloated One not insisted to entertain his visitor; but the plans for the afternoon meant that Zane would find himself under Imperial scrutiny as he performed on stage, which was the last thing he wanted. The second news item was a disaster, pure and simple: Mum had sent word that she was coming to Tatooine for business, and she was intending to pay a visit to her son on the same day as Jabba’s appointment.

Zane thought of it long and hard. He could try to pass as a different Gamorrean than the one who had, ahem, catapulted a gorg on... but no. It was a fact that Humans were not very good at telling Gamorreans apart, but the chances that this particular Imperial had met more than one dancing, baton-twirling Gamorrean in his life were nil, zilch, nada, zero. At the same time, failing to dance would attract Jabba’s ire, and that was something Zane couldn’t afford. As for Mum... he considered telling her that he was undercover in the palace, acting as one of Jabba’s operatives in a role in which he wouldn’t draw attention to himself, but he knew that she wouldn’t believe him. Gamorreans were hired muscle – or, in his case, hired talent – but they were no spies. She would see right through his lies, and boy was he going to get it. Mum hated liars even more than clowns and majorettes.

There were no two ways about it: Zane needed to escape. And he needed to escape to a place where he’d be safe from Jabba, from the Empire and from his mother. The problem was that, as far as Zane knew, such a place did not exist.

The morning of Jabba’s appointment and Mum’s visit came, and Zane’s anguish at the prospect of a painful death at the hand of three different beings was beginning to evolve into panic. He didn’t have a proper plan to escape, let alone a place to escape to, but he decided as he slipped on his dance costume that attempting to run for it was better than not running at all. He plastered his most cheerful smile on his face as he made his way to the sail barge, and he danced with great gusto throughout the trip to Mos Eisley. Once they reached the narrow streets and the barge’s passengers had to disembark, he took up his position ahead of the Hutt’s repulsor dais and led the way into town, waddling along and twirling his baton as if this were an exceptionally festive occasion. He stood aside for Jabba to enter the townhouse and went on dancing beside the door as the Hutt’s retinue followed him inside, and as soon as the last guard had gone in, he discreetly pressed his paw to the control panel, activated the lock from the outside and sprinted away as fast as his fat legs would carry him.

He wasn’t so foolish as to believe that his mad dash for freedom would go unnoticed. He chose to favour speed over stealth and went straight to the spaceport without even bothering to cover his tracks. He hid in a corner to take off the frilly dance clothes and remained in the leather briefs and vest he always wore underneath, but he kept the twirling baton as a weapon if need be. A small freighter appeared to have finished loading; the pilot was exchanging greetings with the ground staff. This was perfect. As soon as everyone had their back turned, he trotted up the ramp, headed towards the back of the ship and dived into the cargo hold. He didn’t know where the ship was going, and it wouldn’t be comfortable to travel here among the crates, but anywhere that wasn’t Tatooine was good enough for him.

To Zane’s great satisfaction, the journey through hyperspace lasted several days. He wasn’t very knowledgeable about astrophysics, but he understood that this translated to a great many parsecs between himself on the one hand, and the vindictive Hutt, the angry Imperial and his outraged mother on the other. He was a little alarmed at first when he examined the contents of the crates and found out that the freighter was ferrying Imperial military rations; but it clearly wasn’t an Imperial ship and, given the nature of commerce on Tatooine, this was probably a load that had fallen off the back of a Star Destroyer. Also, it was food, and Zane experimented with the various flavours as time went by, planning all the while how he would leave his hiding place unnoticed when the freighter reached its destination.

On the morning of the sixth day, a faint shudder told him that they had reverted to realspace. He immediately put his plan into action and made his way to a supply closet he had spotted during his night-time explorations of the ship. It was a tight fit for a being as large as him, but it would do. He heard the pilot’s footfalls as the man walked past him on the way to the ramp, and then snatches of conversation.

“Great place you guys found this time,” an ironic voice said. “Can’t complain, it’s clean. Spotless white for that matter.”

“At least preserving food isn’t a problem here and that’s good for your cargo,” another voice replied. “Remember how many fridges we had to run back on Yavin?”

“That’s why I’m carrying food instead of coolant, innit? You wanna offload now?”

“Gotta clear your manifest with my boss first, but we have to hurry. The patrol’s coming back soon, they need a place to land.”

Zane held his breath and listened carefully for a few more minutes, but all there was to hear was the regular hustle and bustle of a hangar bay. He opened the supply closet’s door and peeked outside. A blast of glacial air blew across his snout.

Going out in naught but his briefs and vest in this cold was going to be even less comfortable than travelling in the cargo hold, but there was no time to dither. He sneaked down the boarding ramp and found himself in a giant ice cave where ships of every possible kind were stationed. All bore a red symbol that looked like a stylised starbird. He made his way as discreetly as he could across the makeshift hangar, hugging his twirling baton and wondering where he would find adequate clothing, when a hand landed on his shoulder. He turned around to see a young woman with military insignia on her jacket.

“New recruit, eh? Welcome to Echo Base. They didn’t prepare you too well for this place. Come on, I’ll kit you out.”

The woman led him to the far end of the cave and extracted thermal coveralls from a pile. “This should be your size. Suit up, I’ll get you the rest.”

Minutes later, Zane was wrapped in the warm fabric. He was smoothing it out and noticing a patch bearing the same strange starbird symbol on his chest when the woman returned with a hat, a scarf and gloves. “You’re all set up now,” she said cheerfully. “What’s your field? I’ll point you in the right direction.”

Zane wasn’t too sure what she was asking, so he grunted noncommittally.

“I mean, what is it that you do?” she explained patiently. “Technician? Cook? Infantry?”

Oh. So the woman was asking for his profession. Zane picked up his baton and twirled it in the air.

“Wand waver, eh? I’m glad we’re finally getting help on that front.” She rummaged once more in the pile behind them and pulled out two glowsticks. “This is the type we use here. The patrol’s coming home now, care to show me what you got?”

She pointed in the direction of the freighter. The food crates were now carefully stacked on a pallet; a binary loadlifter was picking it up and taking it away while the pilot boarded his ship. Zane shook his head in panic.

“Oh, come on, don’t be shy! Captain Manar will leave on his own, but the speeder pilots need directions. It’s the first time they’re able to fly on this frigging snowball. I’ll be there to help you.”

The freighter rose in the air and slipped out of the hangar, disappearing into the sky. The woman placed her hand on Zane’s shoulder and marched him to the middle of the landing area. A group of snowspeeders could be seen on the horizon, flying towards the mouth of the cave. “That’s right,” she said encouragingly. “You know the basics of spacecraft marshalling, don’t you? Nothing you haven’t done before.”

Zane took a deep breath. He didn’t know where he’d found himself, he didn’t know who this woman was and why she was managing such a large fleet of fighters, but he had to show his mettle before the game was up. He planted his feet firmly on the frozen ground, he raised a glowrod in each hand and he focused on his moves. His stage fright vanished as he waved the sticks rhythmically in the air and directed the speeders to land. This wasn’t so hard after all; it felt easy, almost familiar. He grinned. He was away from Tatooine, but somewhere in the back of his mind, Sy Snootles was singing Life Is a Tapcafé.

 

A very good read. I always love it when official stories tie so closely to others and I might like it more with Fanfiction. Your use of such a backaround character was great. I also really liked the tie in with the first Vader marvel series

 

Title: The Making of a Hero
Timeframe: The Battle of Jakku and its aftermath (chiefly two years after Life Is a Tapcafé)
Characters: Zane, Carlist Rieekan, Thane Kyrell, Tracene Kane, Birt, OCs
Summary: How Zane became a hero of the New Republic
Notes: The events of the Battle of Jakku described in this story, in particular the strategy used to bring down the Ravager and the boarding of the Inflictor by a Rebel commando, are borrowed from Aftermath: Empire’s End and Lost Stars respectively. Also, many thanks to Kurisan for letting me know that the audiobulb is the GFFA version of a walkman. Zane’s audiobulb makes a brief first appearance in this story, but you can be sure it’ll be back in the future as well!


The Making of a Hero

Zane wasn’t too sure what was going on, but whatever it was, he didn’t like it.

He’d seen a fair bit of action since luck or fate – or maybe just fear of Jabba the Hutt, Darth Vader’s agent and his mother – had conspired to dump him straight into the arms the Rebel Alliance. He’d been assigned to a variety of ships; he’d been in several battles; and he’d had to evacuate more than once in transports whose seats were clearly designed for beings far smaller-bodied than Gamorreans. But this was different. This time, the action was the dramatic, volatile, kaboom sort of action, and it was way too close for comfort too.

Only moments ago, the Amity and the Unity had been right there. He’d been able to see them through the magnetic field that kept the Concord’s atmosphere from venting into space, and, beyond them, there had been a fleet of Star Destroyers. Granted, even in that configuration the Concord had taken a few hits, but Chief Damaya had told the hangar bay crew that the shields of Starhawk-class battleships could take a lot, and all in all the Concord was holding together. But then… then there had been a blinding explosion outside, and a shockwave that sent Zane tumbling into a stack of crates, and when his eyes deigned to fulfil their role again… the Amity and the Unity were gone, chunks of hulls and bridges were flying across space, and there was a gap in the Imperial formation.

And through that gap, the mother of all Star Destroyers was unleashing a relentless barrage of turbolaser fire at the Concord. The battleship was trembling around him, the emergency alarms were wailing, and he didn’t like it at all.

The pandemonium was such that it took him a while to realise that the voice he could hear over the loudspeakers was Commodore Kyrsta Agate’s. He couldn’t quite make out what she was saying, but he saw everyone else in the hangar bay pick themselves up from the durasteel floor and head to their duty stations while the fighter pilots rushed out of their ready room. He scrambled to collect his glowsticks – the blasted things had rolled under a pallet where his thick paws hardly fit – and he followed suit. Chief Damaya was already issuing instructions to the crew, and Zane was determined to do his bit for the Alliance. After all, he hadn’t run into Jabba, or vindictive Imperials, or Mum for the past two years. That had to count for something.

* * *​

Tasse Damaya wasn’t happy about abandoning the Concord. As one of the New Republic’s most brilliant minds, she’d been tasked with the development of battleships from pieces of dismantled Imperial craft, and her success with the Starhawks had earned the honour of being assigned as chief engineer to the first such ship that was assembled by Nadiri Dockyards. The Concord was her baby – but, she reminded herself, it was a baby that she had designed as a blunt instrument of war, and now that peace was at hand, she wanted to live to see it. If Commodore Agate’s gambit were to pay off, peace would be just around the corner. Evacuating the Concord was an acceptable price to pay for that.

What Tasse Damaya was happy about was that, even in the chaos of battle, even after the loss of the Amity and the Unity, even with the bulkheads of the Concord shaking around them as if she were threatening to tear up at the seams, her crew was operating like clockwork. The mechanics gave the X- and Y-wings a last inspection and headed for their escape pods; the refueling crews checked that all fighters had a full tank and followed suit; the astromechs were lifted into their sockets. The pilots were inside their cockpits, signalling that they had all received the details of the course that had been plotted for them from the main bridge, and the wand wavers stood at the ready to direct them out of the hangar bay and into the fight. She raised her arms and crossed her wrists in an old Dantooinian sign of farewell and victory, and she went to prepare the last escape pod while the squadron rose on its repulsorlifts and pointed its collective nose towards the blackness of space.

One by one, the wand wavers joined her in the pod after their pilots were gone, and she was about to close the hatch and activate the release mechanism when she realised that Zane the Gamorrean wasn’t with them. She rolled her eyes. How typical.

It wasn’t that Damaya disliked Zane. He was as dedicated as any member of the Concord’s crew, and that habit he had of waddling to the music he played on his old-fashioned audiobulb while marshalling fighters and shuttles in and out of the hangar bay always made her smile. But he was, well, a bit slow on the uptake, and this wasn’t the time to be slow.

She was standing up to go looking for him when a violent blast rocked the Concord,and the ship’s artificial gravity went off.

* * *​

Zane still didn’t know what was going on, but whatever it was, now he couldn’t make sense of it.

Another explosion had rattled the Concord, so powerful that it had sent him flying upwards. So far, so good. What he couldn’t understand was why he, or any of the objects that had been blown towards the ceiling, weren’t falling down as they should. Not that he was particularly looking forward to dropping to the durasteel floor like an overripe muja fruit, but that was what was supposed to happen to anything heavier than air – and Zane knew for a fact that he was heavier than air and than a great many other things too. Instead, he was soaring like a balloon, and for a fleeting moment he wondered if he was dead.

The upside, however, was that he could now understand why the last Y-wing at which he had been gesticulating in a vain effort to shoo it out of the hangar bay hadn’t budged. The pilot seat was empty, and the cockpit was wide open. In the panic of the evacuation he hadn’t paid attention, focused as he was on getting all the ships in his charge into battle – but his natural airheadedness explained why he’d been the last sentient left on the hangar floor while his colleagues were heading to the escape pods. He made a mental note to remedy that in the future, although a small voice in the back of his mind that sounded suspiciously like his mother’s told him that it was a lost cause.

He had reached the ceiling now. All he had to do was to stretch an arm and he would be able to touch it. This was definitely bizarre, and he couldn’t make sense of it at all.

It was then that one of the headphones through which he’d been listening to music slipped off his ear, and he heard a voice calling his name from somewhere below. He looked down to see that Chief Damaya was holding on to the hatch of the escape pod with both hands, trying not to float out and away. “Zane? You have to come down now.”

How was he supposed to do that? He gave her a puzzled grunt.

“Listen to me carefully,” she said in the calm, soothing tone that she’d got him used to – he was in fact fairly certain that she only ever spoke that way when addressing him in particular, although he wasn’t sure why; she sounded like Mum just before she blew up at him, with the difference that Chief Damaya never blew up. “You’re going to push softly against the ceiling to propel yourself towards the Y-wing, okay? And once you’re there, you’ll push again with your feet and rebound towards us. Got it?”

So Chief Damaya had an explanation for all this. It was somewhat comforting. But first, he had to get to her because she didn’t seem to be in a particularly comfortable position so as to be able to explain things right now. He positioned both of his paws against the ceiling, pointed his feet at the Y-wing and nudged himself away.

He was gliding downwards now, and he could see that the battle was still going on outside the magnetic field, when the Concord rotated a little to reveal the orange-brown planet that the Alliance was trying to conquer. Somehow the planet seemed closer now. Much closer. And then, something happened: the battleship tilted abruptly, Chief Damaya let out a yelp, everything that had been floating in the hangar bay crashed to the floor…

… and Zane plummeted into the open cockpit of the Y-wing and slammed into the pilot’s seat.

* * *​

“Fury Squadron, this is Fury Leader,” the commander’s voice said over the intercom. “The Rebel battleship is pulling the Ravager down with her tractor beam. She’s almost within Jakku’s gravity well, we have to take her out before the Ravager gets caught in it too.”

“Copy that, Fury Leader,” the TIE pilot who served as Fury Seven replied when his turn came. “Looks like they launched the last of their fighters as well.”

“Forget the fighters, Fury Seven. We –”

“All squadrons, this is Grand Moff Randd,” a new voice came over the comm. “Rebel craft are circling the fleet to hit us from behind. Squadron leaders, redirect defenses as appropriate. The fleet formation must hold at all costs.”

Fury Seven’s comm went silent for a moment while his commander conferred with his peers. “All right, Fury Squadron,” the leader said at last. “Fury Two, Five and Six, bring down that battleship. Everybody else, on me. Let’s kill the fighters to starboard, Wrath Squadron will take out those to port. Good hunting.”

Fury Squadron re-formed around their leader’s TIE and zoomed towards the group of X- and Y-wings that had launched from the beleaguered battleship. Fury Ten had to break formation at some point because two A-wings were tailing him, and seconds later a burst of static on the comm indicated that he was hit, but there was no time to stop. From this distance the Rebel craft looked like a swarm of angry wasps, and given their trajectory there was only one possible conclusion: they were planning to bombard the Ravager’s rear engines while the battleship’s tractor beam pulled her in her fall, with the intention of crashing both capital ships on the surface of Jakku.

Fury Seven took advantage of a lull in the fighting to check his ammunition supplies. He was out of torpedoes and missiles, but his laser cannons were still more than adequately charged. He was about to return his attention to the battle when a blip caught his attention on the edge of the scope. Something had just exited the battleship’s hangar bay – the battleship herself was well within Jakku’s gravity well by now – and a closer inspection revealed a lone Y-wing that was now speeding to catch up with the flight ahead of them.

“Fury Leader, Fury Seven,” he said in the intercom. “Looks like a straggler launched from the battleship just now, he’ll be on our tails soon. Awaiting instructions.”

“Turn around and shoot him down, Fury Seven. Could be that he’s carrying missiles to give the Ravager the deathblow after the others soften her up.”

“Roger that, Fury Leader. Fury Seven out.”

The TIE pilot pulled his ship in a wide arc and flew back towards the battle, juking hard from side to side so as not to make himself an easy target. He could see that the Y-wing, which was heading towards him at full throttle, had no such qualms about its trajectory. It was advancing in a straight line, oblivious to the laser bolts that rained around them, yet it never bothered to shoot one of its own or even to alter its course when it became obvious that Fury Seven was coming for it. Man, that bloke sure had guts, the Imperial thought as he calibrated his targeting equipment. Flying straight at the enemy was something you could afford to do when you could get out of their firing line in a fraction of a second with the speed and manoeuvrability of a TIE fighter, not when you were in an outdated bomber just about nimbler than a duracrete slug.

He was almost within range now. He knew that the Y-wing had shields, but he was confident that a few well-aimed shots would breach them and that the Rebel bomber would soon be space litter. He adjusted the targeting computer and he was preparing to hit the thumb trigger when several things happened at once.

The Y-wing lurched violently to starboard and started spinning on its axis in a sluggish roll. Fury Seven would have snorted at the other pilot who didn’t realise that he was sitting behind the commands of a bomber, had the Rebel ship’s ion cannons not come to life. The TIE pilot swerved wildly to starboard to avoid the incoming fire, but he was committed to a frontal attack now and all he could do was to fiddle hastily with his controls to secure a new target lock. Then, the Y-wing suddenly stabilised upside down and two more ion blasts flew from the dorsal turret. One of them hit the TIE fighter squarely on the solar array and Fury Seven’s instruments erupted in a shower of sparkles.

His systems now disabled, Fury Seven was left floating in the middle of the raging battle while his attacker sped away.

* * *​

Zane had no kriffing idea what he was doing.

One moment he’d been gliding smoothly towards the Y-wing, getting ready to propel himself towards the escape pod. The next, he’d crashed in the pilot’s seat, the transparisteel canopy had fallen in place with a loud clatter, and the bomber had taken off on its own.

He was terrified. It was utter chaos out here; turbolaser bolts were flying in every direction and pieces of destroyed ships large and small were brushing past him as they twirled across space. He didn’t know where the Y-wing was taking him, or even why it had chosen to go anywhere, and he was pretty certain that his last hour had come.

He desperately wanted to be back aboard the Concord, to hear the familiar hum of its engines, to listen to Chief Damaya’s reassuring voice as she gave orders to the crew. But the battleship was already far behind him and he didn’t know how to coax the Y-wing into taking him back there. He craned his neck for a better look. On second thought, the Concord didn’t seem to be in particularly good shape. As a matter of fact he could clearly see that she was sinking towards the planet, and explosions dotted her hull. Maybe it was for the best that he’d fallen into the Y-wing after all.

But the Y-wing was acting of its own accord, and that was something he had to remedy as soon as possible. The problem was, he had no idea how.

He started tapping buttons and flipping switches at random on the instrument panel, hoping against hope that instructions would appear on the monitor to tell him what to do. At one point the words ‘shields activated’ flashed in front of him – that had to be good – and soon thereafter the schematics on the screen turned green. He wasn’t sure what that meant, but green was a fine colour. He was about to try another lever when he caught a glimpse of a TIE fighter that was flying straight at him.

So this was it. He balled his paws into fists around the handles at the end of the armrests to stop himself from trembling, he shut his eyes tightly, and he waited for the end to come.

When he reopened them, his Y-wing was zooming past the TIE that now spun languidly in space. The planet was above him instead of being below – how had that happened? – and he saw, to his great dismay, that he was heading towards the Star Destroyers.

At least he was still alive, even if it was just for a few minutes longer. That had to count for something.

He let go of the handles to rub his snout. The Y-wing abruptly flipped over, causing him to stop mid-gesture. So this was how they controlled the direction. He laid his paws back on the armrests very slowly and cautiously to avoid throwing his craft on an unexpected path and took another look at the battle to decide where to go.

There weren’t any good options. The fighting was everywhere around him, with freighters, cruisers, fighters and battleships trading blows in every direction. The only opening he could see – but that was still a fair distance ahead – was in the middle of the Imperial fleet, where the giant Star Destroyer that had been bombarding the Concord now had her nose pointed at the planet. This left a gap in the Imperial formation, and it was somewhat reassuring gap, as the massive ship’s cannons were not directed at him.

All right then. He adjusted his headphones on his ears, looked up Life Is a Tapcafé on his audiobulb and set it to play in a loop. There wasn’t much else he could do anyway. He would remain on his present course and hope for the best.

* * *​

Carlist Rieekan stared at the man who was standing in front of him. “You think we’re wasting our time.”

Thane Kyrell nodded. “I’m certain of it, sir. I’ve known Ciena Ree since we were children. She’s deeply attached to the Jelucani First Waver code of honour. She lost all respect for the Empire, but she’ll never betray her oath of service. She won’t give us anything.”

The general grunted. “I hate to say it, but I’ve got to respect that. We’ll have to put her on trial for war crimes like all Imperial officers though. If we find that she’s innocent as you seem to think, she’ll be included in a future prisoner swap.” He eyed the young commander. “But that’s not what you really want, is it?”

Thane blushed a little. “It’s true, sir. I’m not challenging the fact that she should stand trial, all Imperials should. But I hate the idea that she’ll be returning to the Empire – I’m pretty sure she’d hate it too – and I’d like to offer her a way out.”

“And what do you have in mind?”

“She needs to be dead,” Thane said bluntly.

Rieekan was taken aback. “Are you telling me that you went to the trouble of rescuing her forcibly from her Star Destroyer only to kill her yourself?”

The young man laughed nervously. “No, sir, that’s not at all what I meant. I meant that we need the Empire to believe she’s dead.”

The general scratched his head. “That would take a secret trial. It would be bending the law a bit, but it should be feasible, and if that wins her over… Fine. We’ll still need people like her in the future. How did she die?”

“The simple solution is to claim that she was still aboard the Inflictor when she crashed on the surface of Jakku, sir. It was her intention anyway, she even informed her crew before they evacuated. All we’d have to do is to never mention the rescue.”

There was a pause. “It won’t work,” Rieekan said finally. “We’d be making her a hero of the Empire who scuttled her ship instead of surrendering, and they’ll plaster her face all over their propaganda… It won’t be much of a way out if she has to live in seclusion forevermore. We need a cover story that makes her just another casualty of the war.” He eyed the commander again. “Since you mentioned a simple solution, I take it that you also have a complicated one to offer?”

Thane smiled brightly and pulled a datachip out of his pocket. “I do, sir.”

Rieekan took the datachip and inserted it in the correct slot on his desk. A holo materialised between the two men, revealing a scene from the space battle above Jakku. The recording was surprisingly clear and linear, without any of the jerks, swerves and shakiness that were typical of footage captured in a war zone. “What am I looking at?” he asked.

“This is from the black box of one of our Y-wings that crashed on Jakku, sir. It was piloted by a Gamorrean spacecraft marshaller from the Concord.”

The general raised an eyebrow. “A Gamorrean spacecraft marshaller?”

The young man chuckled. “It’s a long story, sir. Zane fell in the Y-wing and it took off on auto-pilot.”

“He fell?” Thane opened his mouth to speak, but Rieekan waved a hand before he could start. “On second thought, I’d rather not know the details. What did he do?”

Thane pointed at the holo to indicate four Rebel craft nestling against the hull of a Star Destroyer. “This is us boarding the Inflictor. We got Ciena, we detached…” He waited a little until a moment when the recording jolted violently. “This is when it happened. The Y-wing was hit from behind, the shock released his torpedoes…” – he paused for effect – “... and they slammed straight into the Inflictor’s bridge.”

Rieekan grinned at the cloud of bright speckles that was blooming on the holo. “With a very satisfying explosion too. This is excellent. We could simply leak this bit of footage to the media, without the section that shows the boarding craft. Like many others, Captain Ree died on the bridge of her Star Destroyer.”

“At the hand of a wand waver, no less. That’s not propaganda material at all. We could even put Zane in front of the cameras for extra oomph.”

“He’s still alive?”

“Heavily bandaged, but definitely alive, sir. Zane’s got to be the luckiest Gamorrean in the galaxy.”

* * *​

Zane wasn’t too sure how he’d found himself here, but he wasn’t complaining.

The Chandrila Hospital staff were very kind to him. They changed his bacta bandages every day, they brought him his favourite foods at mealtimes and they even saved his morrts in a jar until he could attach them to his skin again. Furthermore, he’d received several visits from a certain Thane Kyrell who told him that he’d brought down a Star Destroyer all by himself and that he would be granted the New Republic’s medal of valour for that outstanding feat. All in all, things were looking up for him. Jabba the Hutt was dead, the Empire was gone, and Mum would be proud enough of her son to forgive him for standing her up on Tatooine two years ago. Yes, things were looking up.

Today, however, he was a little nervous. Commander Kyrell had said that a news reporter was coming to interview him about his role in bringing down the Inflictor, and Zane was naturally shy. It also concerned him that he couldn’t quite remember the bit about the Star Destroyer, even after the commander had shown him the segment of footage that was already playing in a loop on every channel of the HoloNet. He did recall flying towards the Imperial fleet, but that was about it. The doctors had told him that he’d suffered a concussion and had made him promise that he wouldn’t get into a cockpit without a helmet in the future, which was all fine and good since he firmly intended to never fly again – but how was he going to answer the reporter’s questions? He didn’t want to make a fool of himself just in his moment of glory. Mum would be furious and he’d never hear the end of it.

The door to his room opened with a swoosh, and he did his best to sit up against his pillows as a young man walked in, followed by a protocol droid, a tall woman with long black hair and a Sullustan who was carrying a holocam. “Zane, this is Tracene Kane and her camera operator Birt, of the Queen of the Core Network,” Commander Kyrell said.

“And you must be Zane, the daredevil of Jakku!” the woman said enthusiastically. “The crewman who, when the going got tough, chose to jump in a cockpit and save the day!”

Zane’s cheeks took a light shade of purple under his bandages and he let out a mumble.

“Zane says that this isn’t exactly what happened,” the protocol droid translated. “Something strange happened on the Concord and he was floating near the ceiling when –”

“Oh, but you are far too modest!” Tracene exclaimed. “Are you capturing this, Birt? I can already imagine the segment title: ‘A Most Unassuming Hero’. The audience will love it!”

Commander Kyrell placed a hand on Zane’s shoulder. “We should tell Zane that the audience loves him already. I was in a restaurant last night and his exploits in the Battle of Jakku are the talk of the town.”

“Absolutely!” the journalist said. “How do you feel about that, Zane? Knowing that sentients of all species around the galaxy admire you and look up to you?”

Zane wasn’t too sure how to answer that. He grunted. “Zane says that he is glad he made his mother proud,” the droid translated.

“How adorable! She must have been a wonderful mother to you.”

Well, not quite. He grunted again. “Zane says that his mother is actually quite terrifying,” the droid said. “When he was little, she –”

“Zane means that his mother is a formidable lady,” Commander Kyrell intervened. “She would have to be, to have raised such a formidable son.”

“Indeed. Are you getting this, Birt? Good. Tell me, Zane, where did you learn to pilot Y-wings? Was it during the downtime in the hangar bay? Did you sneak in the sims when no one was looking?”

What was she talking about? He let out a long rumble. “Zane says that he never learned how to pilot Y-wings. It was his first time in the cockpit, and he’d rather not repeat the experience.”

“Tsk, tsk.” Tracene patted the Gamorrean’s snout. “You can tell us, you know. No one will punish you for fiddling around with Republic property, not after what you achieved.”

How in the galaxy was he going to talk himself out of this situation? He settled for a series of barks. “Zane says that Chief Damaya would be very upset to find out what he did while she had her back turned. She’s very by-the-book, but that also makes her an outstanding engineer. He’d rather you not play this bit on air.”

“That’s perfectly understandable – we wouldn’t want to ruin a long-standing friendship, would we? Birt, make sure to tag that as off-the-record. Now, Zane, tell me. What were you doing, what were you thinking as you flew towards the Inflictor?”

What could he reply to that? The truth was usually the best option, no matter that he’d just told her a lie. “Zane says that he was listening to Life Is a Tapcafé.”

“You were listening to music? Oh my, you really are fearless, aren’t you? Mind you, I should have known from your ship’s holos of the battle. You didn’t even try to evade the bolts that were flying around you.”

She looked at him expectantly. He had to come up something, anything, if he wanted to make a good impression. He grumbled and gurgled. “Zane says that there was no time to waste.”

The reporter was left slack-jawed. “This is extraordinary dedication,” she murmured. “You were truly committed to restoring the Republic.”

Zane had no idea what that meant. He simply nodded.

“And then, we come to the crucial moment – the moment when your ship was hit from behind, but instead of trying to save yourself, you aimed at the Inflictor and shot your torpedoes. I was told that you don’t remember it or anything that happened after that.”

Zane pondered her words for a moment and growled. “Zane says that he doesn’t remember it at all. He doesn’t know how it happened.”

“It’s a pilot’s reflex,” Thane Kyrell intervened. “Get to the target, even if you’re about to die. Zane really is a natural; it’s a shame we wasted his talent on the hangar floor during the years of the Rebellion. He’s such a gifted pilot, he could even compete with Luke Skywalker.”

Zane didn’t know who Luke Skywalker was, so he kept mum.

“Do you have what you need, Tracene?” Kyrell continued. “You heard what the doctors said, their patient needs to rest and all that.”

“Oh yes, we’re absolutely fine. Zane, would you like to add something?”

Did he? Yes, he did. He rumbled happily. “Zane says hi to his Mum and tells her that he’ll be home soon.”

Tracene Kane smiled. “And you just gave us the punchline we needed. Thank you so much, Zane. Did you get it all, Birt?”

“I did,” the Sullustan said. “Great stuff too. The self-effacement, the concision, and those fearsome tusks… A great combo, if I say so myself.”

The woman’s smile widened. “It’s in the box. We’ve got our hero.”

A very cheerful Commander Kyrell winked at a very puzzled Zane. “Indeed we do. It’s in the box.”

------------------------------------

Notes and Wookieepedia links

Spoiler

Amity
Audiobulb
Battle of Jakku
Ciena Ree
Concord
Inflictor
Jelucani First Wavers
Grand Moff Randd
Imperial Instruments of Surrender
Kyrsta Agate
Morrt
Muja fruit
Nadiri Dockyards
Queen of the Core Network
Ravager
Starhawk-class battleship
Unity
There is no traditional Dantooinian salute that I know of in canon; the gesture I chose is a reference to the Oromo people’s protests in Ethiopia in 2016.

 

Oh, Chyntuck! What a fun read and tie-in to so many things! Only you could do that so effortlessly.
Thane and Ciena and the AudioBulb strategically used

 

This thread proves once more how versatile and inventive you are as a fan fic author, @Chyntuck. You invent characters that readers can relate to immediately. One wants to stay put for more stories, learn more about that person. Wonderfully done!

 

I wish I could hit "like" more than once. This...was...PERFECT! So sweet, so Zane... dear, clueless Zane... and I love that his Mum is still right up there with Jabba and the Empire as the things he fears. And true to the essence of Gamorreans, not really very bright, not able to be articulate... but not all are thugs and brutes; some just want to get along. Love Chief Damaya's patience with him.

And you have four more bunnies for this?!!! Oh, such joyful anticipation!

 

I'm always looking for fics about non-human characters, and I enjoyed this one very much. What a unique and imaginative set of stories! Gamorreans are so often considered as good only for mindless muscle, but there was enough character development here to set Zane apart from the average. First he finds his niche, then he rises above it -- all entirely by happy (mostly) accident. I wish Zane well in his new-found role as Republic hero.

 

Finally getting around to addressing my lengthy must-read list and figured I'd start with something that seemed light-hearted and fun, so you can imagine my surprise at the viscerally bleak opening paragraph in the first story up there! You paint such an effective picture of why Jabba (outwardly comedic in many ways) is such a fearsome centre of power in the Star Wars underworld, to the point where, despite the giveaway title of the thread, it's a welcome juxtaposition to arrive at the mental image of a Gamorrean majorette!

This was a genuine delight. I immediately fell in love with Zane. From sneaking in a little juggling practice whenever possible, to the revelation that he'd always wanted to be a performer, against his Clan Matron's wishes, and that his career wasn't just some random twist for laughs, he's got an underdog quality (an artist from a culture of warriors) which tugs at the heartstrings. The occasional threat of the Empire coupled with the immediate threat of suffering a cruel fate in Jabba's employ is more than enough to trigger all of my protective empathy for him. He's adorable, and the way you achieve this so quickly, via retrospective dialogue-free storytelling, is incredibly impressive.

Of course, when all these factors and pressures collide, I don't blame him for running away in what is such a simple, desperate escape attempt. Allowing this moment of panic to flow into relief (a happily long journey, with plenty of food to try) was a welcome beat, and then the gradual reveal of his destination... [chef's kiss] Again, like before, knowing the story's premise was "How Zane Became a Rebel" still didn't spoil my smile. The warmth of the immediate trust and assistance Zane ends up receiving (on Hoth, of all places) was fantastic!

Back to stress with the second instalment, though.The Battle of Jakku isn't somewhere I wanna see anybody I care about; my knowledge of the wider battle isn't extensive, but it's featured in the Battlefront games and makes for a harrowing set-piece to play through. I appreciate all the little touches you add to the descriptions of the action, the turns of phrase and snippets of inner monologue which help dampen the panic inherent in Zane's predicament. Bless Chief Damaya. Her attitude and patience towards Zane is so "real", it's almost tangible.

And then jumping over to the POV of a TIE squadron was another surprise! Took me a second to realise where everything was headed, as you stayed with Imperial tactics for a while and revelled in a good ol' Star Wars space battle (which I always enjoy). Zane's luck, all haphazard and amusing in a dangerous situation, is also classic Star Wars storytelling. I'm glad that, after the initial chaos, you opted to show Zane getting to grips with the Y-Wing and figuring out how to fly it pretty darn quickly. As others have noted, Gamorreans are often seen as one-note brutes, and whilst you made reference to the species' natural airheadedness (great way of putting it) they can't all be gruff thugs. These kinds of traits are why I immediately liked Zane, only expressed in a new and interesting way.

When I then started reading the conversation between Rieekan and Kyrell, you got me so worried that Zane didn't survive his impromptu flight! I should've known better (especially after the whole "she needs to be dead" thing) but was still nervous until that final confirmation! And whilst I empathise with his shy awkwardness during the interview, I'm pleased Kyrell was there to "translate" his honesty for the camera (although it seems like Kane had her preferred story written already anyway)!

A well-meaning underdog. Misadventure with a happy ending. My kinda stuff. This was awesome, thank you!

 

Enjoyed this story with your hero Zane.

 

I feel the same way. The characters are so deep and realistic

 

* peeks into thread after seven years and a bit *

Ahem. Thank you all for reading and reviewing! For the umpteenth time, I'm going to apologise for being so negligent with replies, but now that I have a new story, I'm going to write those replies and then post the story.

@WarmNyota_SweetAyesha Thank you! I finally managed to find Zane's voice again for this WIP month, and he is indeed a fun character to write. I'm glad you thought he was equally fun to read

@AzureAngel2 Thank you! I'm so happy you want to know more about Zane; he's one of these "side project" characters that came to life one day and then he was here to stay. I hope you'll enjoy the rest of the stories I have for this thread!

@Mistress_Renata Thank you!

Brace yourself, because you're about to find out why he's so terrified of his mum!

I do! I already wrote Bad Business last year for the Dare Challenge, in which Zane is a peripheral character, but it's pretty much the story of how he became a guard in Jabba's palace; and now I'll be posting how he became a clown. I also have bunnies for how he became a pirate and how he joined the Resistance, and then maybe a bonus story about his retirement

@Seldes_Katne Thank you so much! Zane is definitely not "mindless muscle" – well, maybe a little bit mindless but he's not the bodyguard grunt type, and the upcoming story is about how he found his calling, also by happy accident, because that seems to be the story of his life. We should introduce him to Trognu sometime, although given how not-airheaded she is, I expect that she wouldn't have much patience for him

@Happy Sando Thank you for the detailed review!

Thanks! I'm inordinately fond of this character too. He isn't the sharpest knife, not by a long shot, but he's just a nice Gamorrean who deserves all the good things in life, and he keeps getting in trouble through no real fault of his own. In the upcoming story you'll actually find out how he settled on a career as a performer.

I had to think a bit about the Rebel deck officer's reaction to finding a half-naked Gamorrean in her ice cave, but I quickly came to the conclusion that she wouldn't be too surprised. After all, there's all sorts of aliens in the Rebellion, and given the secrecy surrounding Echo Base a lot of new recruits wouldn't be prepared for such frigid conditions. Plus, no one would suspect a Gamorrean of being an Imperial infiltrator, right?

I haven't played Battlefront, but there's a fair bit of description of the battle of Jakku in Aftermath and Lost Stars. The latter is one of the best offerings of the New Canon, I highly recommend it (Aftermath, though, not so much). And Zane was very lucky to have Chief Demaya in his life. I imagine that he cared for her very much and that he became a better aircraft marshaller to not disappoint her.

Well... to say that Zane figured out how to fly the Y-wing is probably a bit of an overstatement but he is most definitely not a gruff thug – not gruff, not thug. As I said, he's not the sharpest knife, but he isn't an imbecile either, and he can put two and two together. Most importantly, he has a guardian angel somewhere out there, like any SW character should

Oh, as long as I am the Holder of the Pen, Zane will live a happy long life full of (mis)adventures and the only thing that could kill him is old age (probably mine more than his too!) I enjoyed writing the interview segment of the story to take a poke at "journalists" who write puff pieces, but the truth is that a good puff piece is just what Zane needed at that point of his life. Maybe his mum (see the next story) will welcome him home after that!

Thank you!

@earlybird-obi-wan Thank you!

@RockU Thank you!

And now (drumroll) seven years later, this thread is finally going to be updated!

 

Title: The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent
Timeframe: Sometime between TPM and TCW, several decades before the two stories up-thread
Characters: Zane, OCs, Preigo
Summary: How Zane became a clown
Notes: This story is a belated entry for the 2024 Spring Bingo, for which it uses all the prompt words, as well as the 2018 challenge Songs of the English Restoration Theatre. My song was Eccles’s Haste, Give Me Wings, in which the speaker is a young shepherd (who in the play for which the song was composed was played as a “trouser role” by a female singer) driven mad by unrequited love. Lyrics behind the spoiler tag.

Spoiler

Haste, give me wings and let me fly,
That I may mount the starry sky,
And there of all the gods enquire
How I may quench my fierce desire.
See, see, where the charming nymph does lie;
Oh! Give her to me, or I die.

I’ll mount above and rescue my love,
And I’ll tumble the tyrant down,
He shall not dare to court my fair,
Though graced with th’imperial crown.
See! Neptune with his wat’ry train
Come, come, ye Tritons, all around,
Come plunge me in the briny main,
And all my flames confound.

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent

In the humble opinion of Zane the Gamorrean, the last few weeks of Slushtime were the best time of the year. The mud resulting from the thaw was soft and plentiful; by now the chilly edge of Coldtime had receded enough to allow for morrts to proliferate and attach themselves to his hide when he chose to bathe in its warmth. The fortress of Clan Bk’trugh was a hive of activity as the entire community made preparations for the Festival of the Trickster: gardeners planted seeds and bulbs to ornament the alleys with flowers, farmers brought all manners of fresh produce from the surrounding fields, and the market was crowded with transhumant snoruuk herders who brought their flock of mobile fungi to town. Zane loved the spirit of anticipation that took hold of his clan, and he was very much looking forward to the day of the feast when he would escort the wooden dragon through the streets, laugh at the pranks that his clanmates played on each other, gorge on his favourite treats, enjoy the performances of Gamorrean opera and Baka rock, and more generally revel in the heady, carnival-like atmosphere of the celebrations.

The problem was what came afterwards.

The Festival of the Trickster marked the end of Slushtime, and the next morning saw the beginning of Zane’s least favourite time of the year: Wartime. Oh, it wasn’t that the weather would become hot and dry. Zane didn’t enjoy that, but he could live with it if his mother would only leave him to his own devices. It wasn’t either the fact that, after the surfeit of partying and the glut of tasty morsels, the clan would be required to observe a day and night of fasting in silence around a campfire, and that the sole allowable food once the fast was over was plain flatbread. It wasn’t even the boring ceremony in remembrance of Clan Bk’trugh’s uprising against its oppressors a long, long time ago, and the pompous speeches that celebrated its rebirth as one of the leading clans on Gamorr. No, the problem was that Mum was the clan matron. She was adamant that her son should become a warlord, or at the very least a clan boar, and to say that she took issue with the fact that Zane was a mere tusker was an understatement of epic proportions. Like every year, she would demand that he bear arms, and when, like every year, he made a fool of himself on the battlefield, she would punish him with hard labour in the fortress and badger him day in, day out about the martial exploits of the rest of the clan’s males.

Zane loved his mum, he really did, and he knew that he held a special place in her heart. She’d kept him close since the day he was born, the runt of the litter, and while she’d had no qualms pledging the remainder of her tusker sons to other clans, she’d always been emphatic that her lastborn should remain among the Bk’trugh. He certainly didn’t want to disappoint her, and, formidable as she was, he knew it would be rather ill-advised to do so. But, well, he simply wasn’t cut out to be a warrior. His talents lay elsewhere; of that, he was certain.

The thing was, he had no idea what these talents might be, unless gobbling up the entire vat of snoruuk stew in a single sitting counted as a talent. But he knew that he must have talents – everybody did, didn’t they?

He still hadn’t figured it out by the time the Festival came around, and he was glumly contemplating the prospect of marching off to war a few days later, when a freighter appeared in the skies of Gamorr and landed just outside the fortress. From the ramp came down all manners of beings: a flamboyant Dug, a group of Aleena who tumbled out and took up their positions around him, a bunch of Twi’leks who displayed impressive acrobatic moves, two Devaronians who herded out several exotic beasts held on leashes – and behind them came the most beautiful sow Zane had ever seen.

She was tall and plump, with splotches of pink and orange on her otherwise green skin; the dozens of morrts attached to her hide formed an unmistakably deliberate pattern and she had tucked wildflowers behind her ears to enhance her discreet makeup. The metal circlets around her tusks glittered like precious gems in the morning sunshine.

Zane barely registered that the Dug was now speaking to introduce his troupe as Preigo’s Travelling World of Wonder. All of his – admittedly limited – attention was captivated by the enchanting sow, and once the speech was over she began to sing.

Her voice was sweet as honey.

Zane had never considered a career in the performing arts, and a small voice in the back of his mind pointed out rather insistently that his mother would not approve. But now that he had seen this female – this beautiful, beguiling, dazzling female – he hoped with all his might that his yet-undefined talents lay in that direction, because he could not contemplate ever being parted from her.

As soon as Preigo was done introducing his circus and announced that they would be performing for Clan Bk’trugh at sunset that very same evening, Zane dropped everything that he was doing – none of which, it occurred to him, was indispensable to the life of the clan – and sneaked as discreetly as he could into the area where the performers were offloading their gear. He didn’t care about the procession of the wooden dragon anymore, or about pranks and snoruuk stew and Baka rock. All he wanted was to find the pretty sow and somehow convince her that he was a worthy addition to her act.

Of course, he lost his tongue the moment he found himself facing her after tiptoeing out from behind a stack of crates, thinking that there was nobody there. His stealth skills certainly left to be desired.

He had never attempted to romance a female before – not that any sow worthy of that name would be tempted to stop and look at a third-rate tusker like him – and he didn’t know where to start.

The sow, for her part, was entirely unfazed by his sudden appearance. “Please tell me that you’re the new clown,” she said anxiously. “We lost the one we had when we last visited Jabba’s palace on Tatooine and we’ve been one act short ever since.”

So the circus was recruiting. That was good. In the absence of his voice, Zane nodded enthusiastically.

“Thank all the spirits!” she exclaimed. “At long last! Here, let me show you around.”

She placed a hand on his shoulder and marched him to a small tent. Inside were a chair, a mirror and a table covered in jars and vials of colourful substances; a variety of wigs hung from a length of yarn that stretched along one of the sides; and a flashy costume was displayed on a mannequin. “Here you go,” she said cheerfully. “Everything you need for tonight. I’ll try to check in on you later, but no promises. Preigo’s in one of those moods again.” And with that, she planted a peck on his cheek and left.

Zane remained paralysed for a few moments. She had given him a peck on the cheek.

She was not only kind, and beautiful, and talented. She actually liked him.

He experienced a surge of panic. He had to prove himself worthy of her; but he had never performed as a clown – or as anything else for that matter – and he had no idea what to do.

Well. Putting on the costume was a good place to start.

It was a little tight around the chest – his predecessor was apparently less keen on snoruuk stew than he was – but it fit him, and when he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror, he liked what he saw. Mum had only ever allowed him to wear the brown leathers and furs favoured by most Gamorreans, but seeing himself now, he had to admit that the costume’s kaleidoscope of colours did wonders to highlight the green-grey of his skin.

He then took a look at the wigs and decided to try them all. The blue one clashed wildly with the fuchsia of his collar; the yellow one was too similar to the shade of his eyes; the black one was plain boring… but the pink-and-orange one was perfect.

It was also a subtle reference to the splotches of colour on his beloved’s hide. That had to be an appropriate thing to do in a courtship, right?

He finally turned to the jars and vials that were spread out on the table. It took him some time to figure it out, but he finally understood that they were all manners of face and body paint. Playing around with those was such a delight that he lost track of time and failed to notice that the daylight outside the tent had faded and the circus performance had begun.

Until an irate Dug leapt into the tent and began to bark orders at him in a voice that wasn’t unlike Mum’s. Before he knew it, Preigo had grabbed him by the collar and dragged him to another tent appended to the big top. He shoved him inside and told him to be ready for his number; his turn was coming right up.

Zane was naturally shy, and the oohs and aahs he could hear from the sizable audience that had assembled to enjoy the circus caused him to recoil in fright. What had he been thinking, believing that he could perform in front of so many, when –

“It’s okay,” a soft voice whispered behind him. “You’ll do great. I know you will.”

The beautiful sow was there, and she was giving him an appreciative once-over.

His spirits soared. He would not disappoint her. He would prove to her that he was worthy, if it was the last thing he did.

The Aleena tumblers bounced into the backstage tent as the big top echoed with the thundering grunts, roars and claps of the audience, and Preigo’s voice came over the loudspeakers. “And now, ladies and gentlebeings, it is my pleasure to reveal” – he paused for a drumroll – “the rising star of the Outer Rim! A being who has already conquered the hearts and minds of the entire Galov sector! One of your very own! I give you” – another drumroll – “the Juggling Jester!”

Zane stayed put. He had never left Gamorr, and he didn’t know how to juggle. Surely Preigo wasn’t talking about him.

“The Juggling Jester!”

“Go,” his beloved whispered urgently. “This is you!”

Him? But it couldn’t be. He wasn’t –

Before he knew it, he found himself on stage, blinking under the harsh spotlights – and with the eyes of every single member of Clan Bk’trugh fixed on him.

There was an ominous silence. Then Mum thundered: “ZANE! BK’TRUGH!”

Zane felt as if a vat of freezing water had been poured over him. No, no, no, no, no, he implored silently. This wasn’t how this was supposed to go. This was where his talents lay, he knew it now; and he was going to impress the beautiful sow, and they would get married and have a whole litter of feeders…

But before he could even begin to voice his protest, the situation had descended into chaos. Under his mother’s direction, the clan boars and warlords were tearing the big top apart to bring him back into the fold.

There was nothing to do but run. Preigo ran. The beautiful sow ran. The Aleena tumblers ran. The exotic beasts broke free of their leashes and ran. And Zane ran behind them.

He barely made it up the freighter’s boarding ramp before it was sealed shut, and he collapsed on the floor panting. The boars and warlords were hammering at the flanks of the ship as the engines revved up. It rose into the air not a moment too soon and took to the skies.

Zane was in so much trouble. Mum would be furious – well, she already was, but she’d be even angrier when he didn’t come back; the Aleena tumblers, the Twi’lek acrobats and the Devaronian beastmasters were giving him sour looks; Preigo himself was apoplectic with rage…

But he forgot all that when the sow came up to him and smiled.

Souls and spirits, she was beautiful.

“You really are a natural,” she told him in her velvety voice. “It takes incredible talent to cause an audience reaction like that.”

Zane was tempted to tell her that it had nothing to do with talent and everything to do with his mother being the clan matron. But he didn’t want to disappoint her, so he kept mum.

“Talent can be such a burden to bear,” she continued with a tired sigh. “Believe me, I should know.”

Of that, Zane had no doubt.

“But we’ll make it through this together, Zane Bk’trugh,” she went on with newfound resolve in her voice. “You’re here now. Welcome to the circus.”

-------------------------------------------------

Endnotes

All societal and cultural information about Gamorreans in this story (the seasons, the hierarchy of warlords/boars/tuskers, the fact that they’re animists etc.) is borrowed from the Legends Gamorrean article on the Wook, with the exception of the Festival of the Trickster and its customs, which I made up.
Clan Bk’trugh
Baka rock
Snoruuk
Galov sector

 

The Black Sheep have no idea of the treasure or the depths of their air marshaller! I love this; I love his reaction to his mum, I am EXTREMELY intrigued by the beauty who has so beguiled him. I love his enthusiastic approach to color and fashion, and I loved the little descriptions of life on his world; the holidays, the farming. Another one right out of the ballpark, @Chyntuck! I don't know how you do it.

 

Great and hilarious! Nice worldbuilding/cultural details. I love Zane's infatuation. LOL He's never clowned or juggled but who cares?



Very much worth the long hiatus.

 

Exciting story about how Zane displayed his talent and is loved by a girl even if he is the runt of the litter