What made me realize that I had fallen into the hands of a smuggling big fish was that, immediately, Hato had dispatched two smaller shuttles from the mothership.
Shuttles on a smuggler's ship? Usually smugglers liked something light and compact. Mostly, they did not even carry escape pods.
First, this one was a humongous ship, and then he had shuttles which looked fancy. That told me all I needed to know about him.
He did not look anything like a member of Black Sun or even affiliated with the Hutt, though I could not tell that outright.
As far as I could tell, he was probably an independent smuggler who was doing well for himself.
We were now seated in the cockpit area, with Hato swinging on his comfortable captain's seat.
"So, this smuggling father of yours," he said, picking his fingernails with a pocket dagger. "Did he ever tell you what he was smuggling?"
For the second time, I mumbled my no, though I was struggling now to make it sound firm.
He fixed his eyes on me for a few seconds. We stared at each other without saying a word.
"Must have been a disappointed father. One would judge by your age. How old are you?"
"Twenty-one, sir," I said.
"Might be just me, but I believe that a father who wanted to teach a son the ways of the trade would have shown him such things by now."
I began to feel that catastrophic tremor begin in my fingers again. I clutched my arms together to stop them from betraying me.
Honestly, I was struggling to hold this story together, and Hato was having fun demolishing it.
"He did not bring me on most trips. This was one of the few times."
"Ah. So you carry bad luck then. You hear that, guys?" he said, turning to his enforcers around him.
"We have ourselves an omen. Maybe we should just throw him out. Maybe you will bring the same fate you brought to your father."
To that, I had no answer, so I held my tongue. Hato was still fixing an empty glare on me, but I stopped myself from adding anything.
This was some kind of psychological trick he was playing on me.
When you looked somebody in the eye and stayed silent, psychology had it that someone would feel the need to explain further.
Well, I did feel the need to explain further. But I was using all my energy to stop myself from doing that.
"In any case, we shall find out soon enough," he said.
For the next hour or so, they engaged in their own kind of talks, some in a strange language that I did not even know.
Until, from the viewport, we saw the shuttles coming.
It took a few more minutes before the Rodian and the team that had been dispatched earlier reentered the main deck.
"Boss, we found the ship."
"And?" Hato spread his arms, as if waiting for more details. "Found anything interesting, in a smuggler sense?"
The man shook his head.
"Nothing, boss. The ship is too destroyed to salvage. It would be a lot of effort. Not much return."
"That is that. And his old man?" he asked, pointing to me with the dagger.
I did not like it, but I did not have the freedom to express it.
"We looked a good distance around the shipwreck. We did not see anything."
"Hear that? They did not see anything," Hato said, jumping from the seat. "Which leads me to think you are lying."
"And for the second time, and the last time, I will tell you now, boy. I hate liars. I would hate to think I changed my course to save a liar's life."
"He was there, sir. I do not know what happened to him," I said, feigning too much sadness. At least I achieved some tremor in my voice.
"So unless you are saying he had a shuttle which he did not tell you about, and he was transporting nothing, I say you were piloting the ship."
I froze for a second before breaking out of it.
"Me?" I exclaimed, like it was the most far-fetched thing I had ever heard.
Hato ignored it.
"Was there any extra escape pod on the ship?"
"Yes."
I answered immediately. It was the only answer that could hold together my story. I was now desperate, grasping for anything that would salvage it, though it was already too full of holes.
Hato smiled as he paced around me.
"So he took his other escape pod and left his empty ship. Have you ever seen an empty smuggling ship being chased across the galaxy?" Hato asked his captain and enforcers.
They all shook their heads.
"Get up, boy."
He reached for me and yanked me up, almost lifting me clean off my feet.
How many times did I tell you I hate liars?
"Three times now," I spluttered.
"Three fucking times. This is the fourth and the last. I hate liars. Do you have something to say?"
"I am telling you the truth," I mumbled.
"I do not like you," Hato growled.
"No cargo. And no fucking skill. How are you going to pay my debt?"
I had no answer to that.
For a moment, I considered telling him I had three thousand six hundred credits packed in my pod. But I highly doubted that would save me. It would only create more scrutiny, and more scrutiny was not good.
Hato released me, and I stumbled back onto the seat, almost falling onto the deck, but one of his enforcers steadied me.
Hato twirled his dagger expertly, grinning so wide that I could see almost all his teeth. Honestly, he looked scarier when smiling than when he was grim.
"Oh, I tell you what, boy. Hato gets his money one way or another. Hato is always paid."
He casually turned to the viewport.
"Let us resume our course toward Ord Mantell. Should not be far now."
And without turning back to me, he said, "Throw him in with the rest. He will be useful."
Immediately, some hands grabbed me from behind.
I turned. It was one of the Nikto enforcers who had been looking at me like he was waiting for that particular order.
"Move," he growled, yanking me and tossing me toward the opposite wall.
There was nothing but solid metal. He punched a section of the wall, and a panel growled open. There was only darkness through it.
He tossed me again. "Move."
I supported myself on the side railings as I walked in. I wanted to rush back and scream wait.
Maybe this was the time to reveal the credits.
"Move."
This time, the Nikto poked me with a blaster. I did not need more prompting. I hurried ahead.
"Stop."
I did, instantly, like a remote had been pressed.
Again, he punched another section of the wall. It scanned his palm, and the door opened.
A kind of stench and warmth hit my face as soon as I stepped in. Having come from the light outside, the sudden darkness was too much to see anything.
He pushed me inside.
"Stay," he growled, sealing the door behind me.
I stood there, perplexed at what had just happened.
I did not need to think deeply to know what had happened to me.
What Hato meant when he said he would be paid one way or another was that I was now his slave until my debts were paid.
Knowing how the galaxy worked, especially the Outer Rim and shady smuggling worlds, I knew debts hardly ever got paid. They just kept piling up.
"Fuck," I cursed.
Suddenly, to my utter shock, I heard a pair of feet shuffling back, followed by whispers.
I stepped back, only to run into the door behind me.
"Is someone here?"
It was only then that Hato's words came back to me. He had said throw him in with the rest.
It meant there were others here.
"Hello? Is someone here?"
There was silence before an even thicker voice spoke.
"There are quite more than someone here. You might want to sit down."
The voice sounded almost humorous.
I did as the voice said and sat on the empty deck.
Slowly, my eyes adjusted to the darkness. Once again, I could see an array of creatures around me. Some eyes were so bright I could see them before the rest of their bodies.
"Are you one of them, or did you also come for the job recruitment?" a feminine voice asked nearby.
"Job recruitment? No," I said, turning to the speaker.
Even in the darkness, I could immediately tell she was a Zeltron.
There were three. Actually four of them. Just like I said earlier.
Having played Star Wars games and consumed so much content from the franchise, I could recognize them anywhere. But right now, their presence was not as pleasant as I had imagined it would be.
There was also a Zeltron male among them.
There were humans too. Plenty of humans. My eyes counted eight.
Then there was, if I had to guess, a Devaronian. The red skin and horns fit the image perfectly. And there were others as well.
There were Twi'leks too.
"Fuck," I cursed again, almost collapsing inward.
It was only now that I realized who had come to rescue me.
Hato and his men were transporting wet cargo.
Wet cargo meant living beings. Trafficking. Slaves.
It was a crime under Republic law. But then again, everything smugglers did was a crime in the Republic's eyes anyway.
Only now did I truly understand.
We were fucking slaves for certain.
"So do you know what jobs we will get?" the Zeltron girl insisted.
'Yeah. A whore, most likely' ... I didn't say it to her though.. Better to let her cling to her blind hopes as long as she could.
I breathed out in frustration and tried to sit comfortably.
Welcome to the galaxy, Jax.