Chapter 2: The Weight of a Credit
The entrance to the cargo hangar was a dark, cavernous mouth that exhaled waves of heat and a deafening roar. It was a symphony of chaos, composed of the high-pitched whine of grav-lifters, the deep, resonant thrum of starship engines idling, and the percussive clang of metal on metal. It smelled of ozone, fuel, and something acrid that reminded Jax of burning plastic.
'Step one,' he thought, the words a silent mantra against the noise. 'Just get through the door.'
He walked past the threshold, and the sheer scale of the place struck him dumb. The hangar was a self-contained valley of steel and duracrete, vast enough to house a fleet of the C-5 Galaxy transport jets he used to fly, with room to spare. Floodlights mounted high in the gloom cast long, moving shadows as massive cargo containers were levitated through the air by unseen forces. Droids of all shapes and sizes, from rolling astromechs to hulking, multi-limbed lifters, moved with a dangerous, single-minded purpose.
"Right. Don't get run over," he muttered to himself, his voice lost in the din. He felt small, soft, and crushable.
He needed to find the man in charge. He spotted a being with tough, leathery skin taking a break, leaning against a stack of crates. Jax approached cautiously, holding up his datapad. "Excuse me," he said, the device translating his words into a series of low-frequency clicks. "Who's in charge of hiring?"
The creature grunted and gestured with a three-fingered hand toward a brightly lit cage perched on a raised platform overlooking the hangar floor. "Grakk," it clicked back, the datapad rendering the word in English.
Jax nodded his thanks and navigated the treacherous floor to the metal stairs leading up to the dispatch cage. Inside sat a being that made the word 'foreman' seem inadequate. He was a mountain of muscle and dark, chitinous plating, with four powerful arms. Two were folded across his broad chest, while the other two deftly manipulated a glowing control panel.
Jax cleared his throat. "I'm here about the labor work."
Grakk didn't look up. The voice that came through the datapad was a low growl, like stones grinding together. "Can you lift?"
"Yes," Jax said, his posture straightening by reflex.
"Got a criminal record on Vorlag?"
"No. I just got here."
At this, Grakk finally paused. His head, a brutish wedge with small, black eyes, turned, and he gave Jax a quick, dismissive appraisal. "Good," the translated voice rumbled. "Means you're desperate. Bay 7. Partner's named Pim. Don't be slow. Don't be stupid. And don't get dead on my floor. I'll charge you for the clean-up."
With that, the foreman turned back to his console, the interview clearly over.
'Charming,' Jax thought, a bitter taste in his mouth as he descended the stairs. 'At least he's direct.'
He found Bay 7 in a slightly less chaotic corner of the hangar, a designated loading zone next to a grime-streaked freighter that looked ancient. Awaiting him was a creature that couldn't have been more different from Grakk. He was a small, wiry being with mottled gray skin, long, nimble fingers, and large, weary eyes that seemed to have seen ten thousand shifts just like this one. This had to be Pim.
"They sent me here," Jax said, stopping a respectful distance away. "For Bay 7."
Pim looked him up and down, a long, cynical appraisal that missed nothing, from his clean clothes to the tension in his shoulders. "Another one," the datapad translated a sighing, reedy voice. "You look clean. Too clean. You won't last the cycle."
"I'll manage," Jax replied, his jaw tight.
Pim gave a tired shrug, gesturing with a thumb back towards Grakk's cage. "Just some advice, new blood. Keep your head down, and your mouth shut. Grakk doesn't like questions. Or excuses." He leaned in a little closer. "Or breathing too loud, sometimes. Just do the work."
Before Jax could respond, a deafening klaxon blared through the hangar, signaling the start of the work cycle.
Pim sighed, the sound universal. "Well," he said, "there's the call to prayer." He turned and activated a nearby grav-lifter, its engine humming to life like a thousand angry hornets. Taking a deep breath, Jax turned and did the same.
The grav-lifter was not a tool of brute force, but of agonizing finesse. Jax learned this within the first ten minutes. The massive crate didn't just float; it resisted, fighting him with its own immense inertia. His job was to become a human gyroscope, his legs braced, his back screaming, his arms trembling as he guided the humming machine. It was like wrestling an angry ghost.
'In the cockpit, every muscle was tense for a purpose,' he thought, gritting his teeth as he nudged a container into a stacking slot. 'This… this is just erosion.'
The first hour was a blur of sweat and strained muscles. He and Pim worked in a surprisingly efficient rhythm, their movements economical, their communication boiled down to simple grunts and head nods. Jax's body, conditioned for the explosive stress of high-G maneuvers, began to betray him under the slow, attritional warfare of manual labor. Every muscle fiber became a testament to his fall from the sky.
During a brief pause to let a massive, six-legged transport vehicle lumber past, Pim nodded toward a nearby crew settling a deal with a pilot. The pilot handed over a handful of metallic coins.
"See that?" Pim's reedy voice, translated by the datapad, cut through the hangar's noise. "Republic Credit. Shiny, isn't it?"
"It's the currency?" Jax asked, grateful for the chance to catch his breath.
Pim let out a dry, clicking laugh. "Here on Vorlag, yeah. It's the only thing Grakk pays in. Take it to the Core Worlds, they'll use it for target practice. But out here in the Rim… it's king." He spat on the ground. "As long as the Syndicates say it is."
'Syndicates,' Jax filed the word away. Another piece of the puzzle.
They moved to a different section of the bay, where a series of long, heavily sealed red crates were waiting. As Jax reached for the controls of the nearest one, Pim's hand shot out and grabbed his arm.
"Whoa there, new blood," Pim warned, his weary eyes suddenly sharp. "Not that one. See the seal?" He pointed to a small, intricate symbol burned into the lid.
"What is it?"
Pim leaned closer, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "Spice. From the Kessel mines. Unrefined. Sometimes the crates leak dust." He looked Jax dead in the eye. "You get that on you, you'll either see the face of the Maker or your own intestines trying to crawl out of your belly. Either way, your shift's over. Permanently. We leave the red ones for the droids."
A cold knot formed in Jax's stomach. This wasn't just a job; it was a minefield.
The lesson was driven home moments later. As he maneuvered a large container of what smelled like preserved fish, a towering, autonomous crane-walker droid pivoted without warning. Its massive hydraulic leg, thick as a tree trunk, swung directly toward him. His mind, dulled by fatigue, registered the danger a half-second too late.
"Jax! Move!"
Pim's shout, the first time he'd used his name, was what made him react. He threw himself backward as Pim yanked on his tunic, pulling him clear. The droid's leg swept past with a pneumatic hiss, the wind from its passage whipping his hair. It would have crushed him without even registering the impact.
Grakk's voice boomed over a loudspeaker from his cage, a furious, untranslated roar.
Jax was left panting, adrenaline a fire in his veins. He looked at Pim, his eyes wide. "Thanks."
Pim just grunted, already turning back to his lifter. "Told you. Don't get dead. Bad for productivity." But as he turned away, Jax saw something new in the old alien's posture—the slightest easing of his cynical guard.
The work continued, but Jax was different now. The fatigue was still there, a heavy cloak on his shoulders, but his mind was sharp, his senses on high alert. He was no longer just a laborer. He was a student in a very harsh school.
When the final klaxon sounded, it was like a collective exhalation of the soul. The deafening hum of grav-lifters died down, replaced by the tired groans of exhausted workers and the shuffling of weary feet. Jax leaned against a crate, every muscle a throbbing symphony of pain. The fatigue was nothing like the aftermath of a difficult flight; that was a clean, electric exhaustion born of adrenaline and focus. This was a heavy, grinding depletion that felt like it had scraped something from his very bones.
'This is worse,' he thought, his mind feeling slow and thick. 'After a sortie, you felt alive. This is just… empty.'
A ragged line formed near the center of the bay. There was no chatter, only the shared, silent understanding of men and beings at the end of their strength. Grakk descended from his cage, his four-armed silhouette a monolith of authority. He walked down the line, not with a paymaster's ledger, but with a small, greasy pouch.
He didn't hand out the wages. He threw them.
As he passed each worker, he would dip a hand into the pouch and flick a single, small credit chip into the dust at their feet. It was a gesture of pure contempt, a clear and deliberate reinforcement of their station. They were scavengers, scrambling for the scraps he threw them. One by one, the workers would bend, scoop up their coin without a word, and shuffle away.
Then Grakk was in front of him. The foreman's small, black eyes met his for a fraction of a second, holding nothing but indifference. A chip flew from his fingers, glinting under the harsh floodlights before clinking in the dust near the toe of Jax's boot.
A hot surge of fury, the pride of Major Ryker, rose in Jax's throat. He wanted to spit at the creature's feet, to tell him what he could do with his coin. But he choked it down, the memory of a green ring and an impossible number flashing in his mind. 'Breathe, Ryker. Just breathe. This is the price.'
He bent down, his back and legs screaming in a unified chorus of agony. His fingers closed around the small, greasy disc of metal. It was warm from the heated ground. As his skin made contact, a quiet, clean chime echoed, not in the hangar, but inside his own mind.
TRANSACTION DETECTED: +1 REPUBLIC CREDIT.
NEW BALANCE: 1 POINT.
The feeling was electric, a jolt of pure triumph that vaporized the pain and the humiliation. The physical coin was an insult, but the digital point was a resurrection. It was proof. It was progress. It was real. A wide, incredulous grin spread across his face.
"First one's the hardest."
Jax looked up. Pim was standing beside him, his expression as weary as ever, but his eyes held a flicker of understanding.
"Yeah," Jax breathed, still staring at the chip in his palm.
"That chip won't get you a ticket off this rock," Pim said, his translated voice low. "But it'll get you a bunk at the Dust Devil Flophouse for one sleep-cycle. It's loud, but the door locks." He gestured with his head toward a squat, windowless building just visible past the hangar's mouth, its sign flickering weakly. "Better than sleeping in the alleys. The skags will strip the boots right off you out here."
"The Dust Devil," Jax repeated, committing the name to memory. "Got it. Thanks, Pim."
"Don't thank me," Pim grunted. "Just try to be here for the next shift. Most new blood isn't." With a final, brief nod, the old worker turned and was swallowed by the departing crowd.
Jax stood alone. He looked at the credit chip, then closed his fist around it, feeling its insignificant weight. He focused inward, on the glowing number in his soul: 1 / 10,000,000. The first step on a journey so long it was functionally infinite. Then he looked up, his eyes tracing a path from the dark, familiar mouth of the alley where he'd woken up, to the faint, sputtering sign of the flophouse.
Safety for a night, or the first coin in the treasury of an empire. The man and the king were already at war.