Project Boussh: Damn, Damn It, Damn 'em All
by Emily Janson

Hobbie was trying to catch up with lost hours of sleep when he heard
hurried footsteps followed by a pounding on his door. _Maybe if I
ignore it, it'll go away_, he thought, but that wasn't the case.
Instead, Emily flung the door open and let herself in.

"Wes is gone," she gasped.

"What do you mean Wes is gone?" Hobbie propped himself up on his
elbows, astonished how to Wes Janson could just disappear.

"Well..." Emily began. "He left in his X-wing about six hours ago to
get a better look at the area and to come up with plans if the cabin
was to get attacked by Atner or his allies. An hour ago, his X-wing
returned, but no one was inside. The astromech was still there, but
it's memory had been wiped and only recalled being ordered back to
where it came from by an unrecognizable human male."

"This isn't happening," Hobbie murmured under his breath. "Did the R2
get sensor scans of the said human?"

Emily nodded. "Terran computers are too primitive to analyze it. We
probably need to get it to somebody in NRI. I haven't run into anybody
all day, so I'm not sure who's still here and who left for something
else, but I think Winter or Iella would know what to do with the
info."

The pilot closed his eyes and rubbed them with the thumb and
forefinger of his left hand. "Well, we should find one of them, then."
Emily gave the Rogue a thin-lipped smile before leaving to find the
two women.

Hobbie sat up and listened until he couldn't here the sound Emily's
boots made against the cabin's wooden floor anymore. He looked out the
window and marvelled how peaceful the world outside looked when
covered with a thick blanket of snow. So peaceful and so ignorantly
unaware of the war that was brewing on Terra. "Damn," he whispered.

*~**~*

Wes Janson slowly opened his eyes. Everything hurt. It felt like he
was suffering from the galaxy's biggest hangover. When his vision
cleared, Janson saw a gargantuan Trandoshan male standing over him.
The lizard-like alien heaved Wes in the air and carried him across his
scaled shoulders without much forewarning. The Trandoshan slammed
through two wooden doors and opened a third one, throwing Wes inside a
room that was obviously a jail cell.

"What a minute!" Janson shouted, throwing his hands to the bars and
feeling relieved that they weren't electrified. "What am I doing
here?"

The Trandoshan left without as much as a glance over his shoulder. A
man entered, instead. The human looked much like the mascot Mr. Clean
from bottles of cleaning solution at Emily's house. "You are here
because you are the enemy," he said in a gravelly voice. Wes imagined
that was what a Hutt would sound like if trained to speak Basic.

"I'm the enemy of no one! You have the wrong man!"

"You are Major Wes Janson of the New Republic Military, are you not?"
Mr. Clean interrogated.

"I am but...but I'm not."

"How cryptic of you. In my eyes and in Atner's eyes you are, so you
are also an enemy. I'm being rude, of course. My name is Retsim Naelc
and I will be your host until Eugor Atner decides what time will be
appropriate in his schedule. You're to be used as an example to your
team mates, you know. Until then, just sit tight and don't try
anything funny or I'll be forced to sneak sedatives into your meals."

Wes got up and stood next to the barred window. All he could see was
water. Looking out the window, the building stood right on the edge of
a rocky cliff. Unless he managed to grab a speeder or a pair of
hover-boots, Wes was stuck right where he was. He sat down on the hard
cot and sat so he had a better vantage point of his surroundings.
"Damn it."

*~**~*

Him and Lucky had been travelling the wrong way. That much Wes Janson
figured out. Wes went around, asking for directions to Clark's Trading
Post until he finally found someone. By then, he was in a place called
Concord, New Hampshire's capital. The people seemed friendly enough,
but Concord was the same place that Wes ran out of the Terran currency
used on this particular part of the planet. That's when buses and
taxis stopped and hitch-hiking began.

The first person who stoppped was a big man in an even bigger truck
willing to take him to Lincoln. He said that Clark's was about a mile
and a half from the Lincoln visitor's center. Wes hadn't the slightest
clue how long a mile and a half was, but it sounded close enough so
climbed in and prepared for a lengthy ride with the jowled and
extremely cheerful trucker.

After an hour in the cab, Wes learned why the man was so exuberant.
Carrying items to and from destinations often called for tedious,
lonely hours, so Wes's ride to Clark's made new friends with little
things known as bourbon whiskey and various others.

"Emily's a better driver than this guy," Wes muttered to the small
dog, getting attacked with Lucky's tongue in response.

"I 'ad uh girl, once," the man who had introduced himself to be 'Boss
T' slurred, over emphasizing the 's' sound in 'once'.

"She's not my girl," Wes replied. "Emily's old enough to be my
daughter."

"When'ssss that eva' shtopped 'andsome yung men asssss yurself?"

"Not to mention that it's illegal."

"Ack! I verrrry smart man tol' me once that yuh can't look dig-na-fied
while havin' fuhn."

Wes looked over at Boss T in surprise and got a wink in reponse.
Janson put his eyes back on the road and saw a huge, four-legged
mammal with gigantic antlers cross their path. "Look out!"

The truck swerved just in time to avoid the creature Wes had never
seen before. "Craaaazy mooses out ta kill ev'one. Damn 'em all."