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| Big Tippers |
Big Tippers
"Luke Skywalker? Have I heard of him? Hell, I drove his getaway
car once."
The taxi pilots sat around a corner table in the lively spaceport cafe. Tourists,
travelers and freighter bums passed through the cafe by the hundreds each day, but the
manager could always count on this same scruffy bunch. Each day at noon they arrived in
their hovercabs, and took their lunch break together. The ragtag collection of cabbies
were boisterous and rowdy, telling obscene jokes, and swapping "Guess what happened today?"
stories. ‘Sure, they’re obnoxious,’ the manager thought as he wiped down the counter, ‘but
they tip the waitresses pretty well.
The midday news holos were on the wallscreen. Just a couple of years before, the reports were pretty ignorable; Imperial propaganda about the Empire’s latest crushing victory against the insurgent rebels. ‘I guess they weren’t so crushing,’ the manager wryly thought, as the Imperial logos and reporters were replaced with New Republic insignia and staff. These new reports and stories were far more interesting - the manager now found himself actually paying attention to the news. That day’s lead story dealt with the New Republic’s lenient treatment of former spice smugglers, some of whom frequented his cafe. In passing, reference was made to Luke Skywalker.
Whenever any celebrity was mentioned on the wallscreen, one of the cabbies would claim to have had him, or her, as a passenger. Usually the stories were pretty funny, and pretty impossible. A brash and cocky young cabbie named Pyter always related the same anecdote: "I picked up (whichever female celebrity was being discussed) at the ‘port. I say, ‘Where to, ma’am?’ And she says: ‘To the nearest hotel baby!’" The other cabbies stopped taking an interest in his tales of conquest, but they still listened attentively to Jock, a stout middle-aged man with thinning hair tucked under a shabby "Cybocross Racing" cap. If the logo of the defunct sports conglomerate didn’t date the man, the layers of grease stains on his well-worn coveralls certainly did. His stories were always believable, probably because of his apparent age and earnest voice. He was the man who claimed to have once driven Skywalker’s getaway car.
"Ah, sure you did," Pyter disdainfully mumbled, casually waving his hand at his mug of
coffee. He didn’t like the idea of anyone topping his amorous adventures. The others,
however, tried to hush the young man. Gwynna, an attractive student working her way through
the local pilot academy, shoved Pyter playfully and said: "Oh please, we always have to
sit through your boring nonsense." Turning to Jock, she continued. "Tell us about Skywalker,
Jock. I’ve heard he’s dangerously handsome."
"You must be thinking of his friend Solo, my dear," Jock replied after sipping his
coffee. "Can’t say I met him personally but I’m sure he was around somewhere at the time.
His Wookiee got hair all over my upholstery."
"Damn, a real Wookiee!" the fourth cabbie, Alex, said in wonder through a mouth full
of meat patty. "So how did it all happen?"He asked like a child begging for a bedtime
story. Jock resettled himself into his seat, took a bite of his sandwich and washed it down
with another sip of coffee. Once he was in position, and once he was sure he had all of
the cabbies’ attention, he began his story.
"It was about five years ago, just a couple of months after the Emperor himself was
killed. Sure the Rebels knocked off all of the major wheels of the Empire in that big Endor
battle, but our backwater planet was still under Governor Carrus’ control."
"What a jerk he was," Pyter interjected.
"Yeah, he certainly was. Good riddance to ‘em," Jock grumbled, hoisting his mug in the
air in a mock salute. "Anyway, I was waitin’ in my cab just outside the Hotel Bassinni.
You know, where all the wealthy folks with the big tips stay. Everything was pretty quiet
at the time. Early in the morning, sun was shining, nice and warm out. The local cops had
just gone down the avenue, so everyone was playing it cool. When all of a sudden, there’s
a tap at my window. I jumped in my seat - I didn’t hear anyone come up to the cab. So, I
turn to the guy and say, ‘Where to, Mac?’ and I must’ve jumped in my seat again. There’s
this big Wookiee standing there carrying the nastiest lookin’ laser rifle I’ve ever seen.
I mean, how’d this big monster sneak up on me like that? I dunno. He growls somethin’ at
me but I have no clue what he’s saying. It’s like when my pet vornskr’s tryin’ to tell me
he wants to be fed. I just say ‘Hop in pal,’ and he does."
The old man paused for a breath,
then continued.
"Honestly I thought he was gonna tear my cab door right off.He opened it
so fast. Back then I was driving a real clunker, an old XP-17, not the sleek machine I’ve
got now. Anyway, he jumps in, and I can feel his weight sink in. The cab must have dipped
half a foot. Those Wookiees aren’t light, he must have been a real strain on my poor
repulsors. He’s barking and pointing and I’m afraid he’s going to tear my head off. ‘Buddy,’
I say, ‘give me a hint here.’ Fortunately there’s this holo map on the street corner. Like
I said, it’s a pretty fancy district, and the Wookiee points to it. Randomly I start
guessin’ at which point on the map he’s growlin’ about. After a couple of tries, and I
could tell he’s gettin’ more and more steamed with each try, I get it - the old spaceport.
The one that’s been shut down since Carrus took over."
"Didn’t he turn that into a stormtrooper garrison?" Gwynna asked incredulously.
"It was indeed a garrison, my dear," Jock replied with a wink. "All electrofenced off
with troops walkin’ both sides of the wall. No civilians were allowed anywhere near the
place. I say to the Wook, ‘Are you sure you want to go there? Carrus’ll have my cab, my
license and my head if we’re caught. Sorry pal, but-’ and that’s when he roars like a
gundark, right there in my cab! Nearly deafened me! Now, it’s not a good idea to go nosin’
around a garrison, but it’s a worse idea to argue with a ticked-off Wookiee. So I say,
‘Okay Mac, but there better be a big tip in it for me when we get there,’ and I take off
down the street, not forgetting to set the meter. Hey, I was gonna get every penny coming
to me for this run.
He just woofs back at me, and for the next few kilometers, he’s sitting in the back
seat, all quiet-like, loading and reloading that rifle. Just concentrating on it. Real
creepy. Tryin’ to be friendly, I say ‘So, where ya from?’ but he ignored me. That’s when I
decided to stick to the road.
We’re seven or eight kilos out of the spaceport limits, about halfway to the garrison. We’re driving on the Gamma Skyway out through the Crater Plains. There’s nothing - not a building, not a soul visible for miles. Only these huge shallow, empty craters. At least I thought they were empty, I wasn’t paying much attention to them, I had my eyes on the road. Needless to say with an upsetable Wookiee in the back seat, I’m pushing the needle, I mean we’re flying past any legal speed limits. No problem, there’s no one around, right? Wrong. Suddenly this patrol hovercar rises out of one of the craters. It was one of the local cars, Spaceport Security. Thank the Maker, I say to myself, it’s just a speed trap. I’ve talked my way out of these situations before. My uncle, you know-"
"Is a sergeant on the force," the others finished for him in unison.
"I guess you’ve heard about him before," Jock answered with a laugh. "Anyway, I start
to slow down for the nice officers, pullin’ over to the side of the road. That’s when the
Wook shouts again. Obviously he didn’t wanna slow down for nobody, and he motions for me
to try to outrun him, that much I understood. So I remind him I’m only drivin’ an XP-17,
and he nods like he understands. I’m just about to stop the car when all of a sudden he
lowers the window and picks up his rifle. ‘What the-’ I’m thinkin’, when he leans out and
takes a potshot at the patrol car!"
"He shot at the SpaceSecs?" Alex asked in amazement. Jock was glad at the interruption. It gave him a chance to take a bit of his now-cold lunch. He chewed it thoroughly before he swallowed, to build suspense. Once again, he had his audience’s full attention, and went on with the story.
"He sure did. Who would be crazy enough to do something like that? Well, you’ll soon
see why he was in such a big rush. He fires that rifle, just one shot, mind you, and he
takes out that patrol car. With one shot! He caught it right in the directional vane,
slicing it clean off. Without the stabilizer, he swerved off the road and plowed right into
a crater. The car was crashed, totaled, but none of the cops were hurt. As I’m speeding
away, praying that they didn’t get a complete reading of my ID plate, I can see the two
troopers jumping around on the side of the road, mad as hell! Man, that one shot still
amazes me. Those cops were 200 meters back, moving at high speeds. And he sliced that
vane right off!
"
"Sounds like the Wookiee’s done this sort of thing before," Gwynna
commented knowingly.
Jock sipped some more coffee and replied, "Oh, and he did it
again, as you’ll see."
Like I said, we’re speeding down Gamma Skyway, and in the distance I can see the
garrison. It’s looming out there on the horizon huge and ugly, like a sleeping krayt dragon.
There are two towers on either side of the camp, with dozens of smaller buildings spaced
out in between. As we’re approaching it, one of the towers suddenly explodes! Kaboom! The
top half of it shatters into a million smoky fragments, launching massive blocks of
concrete and permasteel everywhere. The bottom half of it simply collapsed, just toppled
right over onto a couple of the smaller buildings. More smoke than I’ve ever seen, and then
these fires began to pop up in the surrounding buildings.The Wookiee sees this and he gives out this loud victory roar, and he pounds his fist
on the seat in celebration."
At this point in the story Jock made a pitiful attempt at imitating the Wookiee’s war cry. Nearly everyone in the cafe turned to see who was making the horrible racket. The others shielded their faces in embarrassment, but Jock shrugged the undue attention off.
" ‘Take it easy pal,' I say, more to calm myself down than him. By then, we were maybe two kilos from the place, and even from there I can hear all the alarms going off. That’s when the Wookiee starts to go nuts again! He’s pointing at something way down the road that I couldn’t quite see. Even then, my eyes weren’t what they used to be, but he has it all picked out as our destination. As we get closer, I see it’s this guy, dressed all in black and running like there’s no tomorrow."
"Luke Skywalker," Pyter said nonchalantly, like a detective revealing the identity of the killer in one of those old-fashioned mystery holos.
"Exactly!" Jock confirmed, taking a swig more of coffee. "We pull off the road, and the Wookiee leaps out, laser rifle already aiming for the gate of the garrison, which was only two kilos down the road. He roars something to Skywalker, who shouts back ‘Thanks for coming, Chewie.’ He sprints up to my cab and jumps in, and the Wookiee climbs in after. Then, Skywalker says to me, ‘Drive as fast as you can.’ "
Gwynna was in total awe of the story. She sighed, "Wow, he must have been exhausted, running all that way with an Imperial garrison at his heels."
Jock held up a finger and corrected, "Actually, and this is the weird thing, he wasn’t out of breath. Not at all. There was a little bit of sweat around his forehead, but he was breathing as normally as you and me. Didn’t look the least bit tired. So I turn the cab around and head back for the spaceport. The Wookiee and Skywalker begin having this conversation, and I couldn’t help but eavesdrop," Jock admitted with a smile.
Alex rose to the bait. "What did they talk about?" He hurriedly
asked.
"Well, first the Wookie growled, and Skywalker replies, ‘I destroyed the first TIE
fighter tower, and I think I disabled the second, so no one should follow us by air.’ The
Wookiee barked again, and Skywalker said, ‘They may have a couple of Chariot Assault
Skimmers, but we might have enough of a lead to outrun them.’ Then he remembered something
else, and said, ‘And, I managed to find this after all.’ He takes out this ordinary looking
data card out of his pocket, but you can bet your cab that it had all kinds of Top Secret
Imperial information loaded onto it. Mission accomplished, Skywalker must have decided to
pull out, and pull out with a bang.
As we’re speeding away, I get these blips on my rear scanner. Skywalker’s prediction
was right - three Assault Chariots were on my tail and gaining ground fast." Jock deeply
exhaled for dramatic effect. The three younger cabbies listened with rapt attention. Alex
chewed his sandwich mechanically, not even realizing he was eating.
Pyter shook himself out
of his daze for a brief comment: "I’ve seen those Chariots on parade grounds. Armed to the
teeth and lethal as a Wampa."
"But not as lethal as a Wookiee and a Jedi," Jock countered. "Those Chariots were half
a kilo away, but their cannons were strafing us even from there. No direct hits, but my
finish was a little scorched. That’s when Skywalker says, no; commands me to pull off the
main road, onto this dusty trail leading to one of the abandoned crater mines. Since all
of the craters, hills and valleys were in between us and the Chariots, we lost them for a
minute or two. ‘Keep driving,’ he commands, and hey, I’m not going to argue with the guy.
So I keep driving fast and low to the ground.
Those Chariots weren’t fooled one bit. They fell off of my scanners for a while,
because of the interfering craters. Suddenly I round this bend, and not 300 meters in front
of me is one of ‘em, heading straight for me at top speed, weapons blazing. The cab’s body
got burned pretty bad, and I took a shot in the coolant system. My knuckles were white with
fear, and I held onto my joystick with a deathgrip. I was so scared I thought I would just
veer off the road because of my shaking hands.
Skywalker must’ve seen how terrified I was, because he says to me, real casual-like, ‘Nervous? Don’t worry, we’re not in any danger.’ At the same time, I feel this tingling sensation in my head, as if he had reached his very fingers under my scalp and began to massage my brain directly. The weirdest feeling I’ve ever had in my entire life! The thing is, I really started to feel calm. The fear disintegrated away until it was just a shadow of something I barely remembered feeling. My grip on the joystick relaxed, and I felt determined to stay on course, head-on with that Assault Chariot."
Jock paused again, and seeing that his own coffee was gone, took a sip from Alex’s mug. Alex didn’t seem to mind,
or even notice.
"The Wookiee leans out the window again, and starts blasting away at the Chariot. His
rifle wasn’t too powerful, but it was needle-accurate. After five or six shots he breaks
through the cabin window, and another shot later, hits the pilot square in the throat! The
pilot slumps over dead onto the steering column, sending the Chariot off course. I was
expecting a head-on collision, but between its lack of direction and my maneuvering we
narrowly avoided each other.
Wait, narrow isn’t the word! As the Chariot passed us, I
could read the insignia on the dead pilot’s jumpsuit. ‘Corporal Axon’ I think he was.
Anyway, we passed each other, and the Chariot’s gunner swivels his turret to bear on
us, but without the pilot the assault boat flipped over on its side and he couldn’t get the
angle. It rolled harmlessly into one of the crater banks, armor plating keeping it from
exploding. Still, it was out of the fight and we raced away.
The Wookiee growled a warning as I heard my scanner begin to beep. The other two
Chariots had caught up to us, and flanked us completely in the rear. Their cannons were
firing relentlessly, turning my XP-17 into a charred wreck. They got my auxiliary repulsor,
my primary cells and my communications array in addition to the coolant system. Everything
seemed to be lost. One of the pilots got on his loudspeaker and in a booming metallic
voice I heard ‘Luke Skywalker! Surrender yourself and the data card immediately or you will
be destroyed. I repeat...’ and he went on.
I was about to pull over. Hell, I’d had enough for one day. But Skywalker acted as if he
didn’t hear a thing. He then tells me, ‘Slow down. Let them pull up alongside of us.’ For
some reason, I decided to trust the guy. Hey, this was the famous Luke Skywalker here. So
I ease off the accelerator, ever so gently. Without even trying, the Chariots catch up,
one on each side.
At this kind of range, it turned into hand-to-hand combat. On the driver’s side the
Wookiee reached across the gap between himself and the Chariot gunner, and pistol-whipped
him with the butt of his rifle. Cracked it right over his skull with a crash that I could
hear over my whining repulsors! Even with the helmet, that poor guy must have been killed.
Meanwhile, Skywalker ignites his lightsaber and reaches out of his window. That Chariot’s
gunner must have been expecting a move like that, because his cannon was already aimed at
my passenger side. He fired twice! At point blank! My cab should have gone up in flames,
with that kind of power at that close of a range. But Skywalker had his lightsaber ready,
and he caught and deflected both shots, sending them right back at the gunner.
Believe me, the gunner was dead before the second bolt hit him. That’s when Skywalker climbed out of the window and jumped across to the other Chariot. He lifted the dead guy out of the turret, tossed him by the side of the road, and got into it himself. He shouted across to me ‘Get out of the way!’ and I jammed on the decelerator. The two Chariots flew ahead of my cab in perfect synchronization. Ahead of me I could see Skywalker blasting away at the other Chariot with his new prize. The other pilot tried some evasive maneuvers, but Skywalker was too good with that cannon. Three shots later it was all over for Chariot number two. It went down in a fiery heap, missiling into a crater bank and exploding."
Jock paused for a bite of Gwynna’s sandwich and another sip of Alex’s coffee. Still,
neither cared. Pyter however retained some faculties of speech and asked, "What about the
third pilot?"
"Well, Skywalker took care of him rather neatly," Jock answered. "The pilot knew he
had lost his gunner, so he turned his craft around and brought his forward guns to bear on
my poor cab. He still had control of those, and he was pretty handy with them, too. Got off
a handful of shots that shattered my front canopy. I ducked just in time to avoid most of
the plastiglass, and it wasn’t even very sharp anyway. Keeping my head low and flying
blind, I pulled off the road and coasted into a bank. I had decelerated enough by then so
it wasn’t a big crash. When I looked up, I saw that Skywalker had lit his lightsaber again,
and he slashed furiously at an access hatch on the top of the Chariot, cutting it wide
open. As soon as it was exposed, he took three broad swipes at the machinery underneath,
sending up sparks and flames. Destruction accomplished, he climbed out of the turret and
leaped to safety by the side of the road.
The chariot passed by my cab, and down the road a ways he began to turn for another
strafing pass. But he never finished that U-turn. Somewhere in the middle of it that access
hatch exploded into a blazing fireball, and the rest of that Chariot was consumed in
flames immediately after. It was over.
The Wookiee and I got out of the cab as Skywalker walked towards us. He had a big
relieved grin on his face. With a laugh, he said to his hairy companion, ‘Chewie, how rude
of you. You never introduced me to your new friend.’ The Wookiee shrugged his shoulders
and growled something, so I decided to introduce myself.
‘Name’s Jock,’ I said. ‘I’m just an ordinary cabbie working out of the spaceport.’ And
I extended my hand to him. He took it and firmly shook. He said, ‘My name is Luke Skywalker,
Jedi Knight. This is Chewbacca.’ The Wookiee then nodded to me. ‘We have to meet some
friends just a few kilos from here. I know we’ve already asked a lot of you, but could you
take us a little further?’ he asked. How could I refuse?
We pushed the cab off of the bank and back onto the road. I still had my secondary
power cells and primary repulsors, but since the coolant system was dead, we had to take
it slow. And believe me, I let the meter run." Jock chuckled, his story apparently over as
he rose from his seat and withdrew his billfold.
The others remained in their seats, fixed
in silence. Jock dropped more than a few bills on the table, covering the tab for everybody
with a healthy tip for the waitress as well. Exhaling deeply, he widely stretched out his
arms and was about to leave when Pyter stopped him with a question:
"What did that fare finally come to?" He asked bitingly.
Gwynna sent him an offended look, as if to say, "That’s a rude question!" but Alex
seemed curious too. "Yeah, how much was it?" the young man questioned.
Jock looked down at the floor with a grin, and looked up again with a smile. "Put it
this way. The fare wasn’t much, maybe thirty or forty credits or so, but that Skywalker
is a hell of a tipper."
With that comment, he straightened his cap and left the cafe. His
brand new XP-781, his fifth new cab in five years, was waiting.
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