[TOR] Fungus

[Askari]

(( Set approximately ten years ago, on Coruscant. ))

A young Twi'lek girl said goodbye to her friends as they left the luxurious apartment she shared with her father. As soon as the door was closed, she marched back into the main room to confront her father.

"Dad! You totally embarrassed me in front of my friends. Again!"

The dad in question, a very well-dressed and distinguished Twi'lek gentleman, looked up from his holo-news with a confused look on his face. His precocious daughter was thirteen, and this befuddled expression was in danger of taking up permanent residence on the man's face.

"I'm sorry Fungus, what have I done now?"

"There you go again! Stop calling me Fungus! You said it in front of my friends, and now they'll be teasing me about it all day tomorrow. My name is Nodonni'Soovanis. You should know, since you gave it to me," said the girl.

The father stifled a grin and said, "I'm sorry dear. It's just a habit. I'll try to stop using it if it bothers you."

"That's what you said last time. I'm starting to wonder if you do it on purpose, just to make me mad. It's an awful nickname. I don't even know why you call me that," she tried to crush her impatience with her father but stomping her foot.

The father laughed, "I told you! When you were a kid, your curiosity knew no bounds. And the more you grew, the more you got into everything! Just like a fungus."

"You're lying to me father. I asked your pilot's boy, Random. He says his dad remembers you calling me that ever since I was a baby. Ever since mom died."

Her father furrowed his brows and attempted to look cross, "Now listen here. You shouldn't be spending too much time with that Random kid. He's six years older than you and a bit too rough around the edges. He's going to make a great bodyguard and pilot for me, when his father steps down... but he is not an ideal role model for a young lady."

"Yes, father. I know. You buy me all the best friends. Like the "ladies" who just left. The ones who will be teasing me about your nickname all day tomorrow. At least when Random talks to me, it's because he wants to. Not because his rich parents are forcing him to, to get in good with you."

Her father sighed, and put away his holo-viewer. This was obviously not one of his daughter's casual tantrums. "Please, come sit by me."

She stomped over and plopped down on the couch next to him. He threw an arm around her and scooped her close, with only mild resistance.

"I'm sorry. Random is a good kid, as is his father. I'd be lost without them, and I know they both care about you and would never see you come to any harm. As for those little witches that just left? I'm sorry. It's hard to find girls your age for you to hang out with. My work has brought us a great life and many luxuries here on Corsuscant, but also a lot of enemies and danger."

Nodonni'Soovanis sensed her father was entering "lecture mode" and prodded him back on course, "Seriously father, why do you call me Fungus? You've never given me a real answer."

"Hmm, I guess I never told you, because it sounds silly when I think about it. All gushy and emotional. You know I don't like letting my guard down," he said.

She grinned slightly, then remembered she was mad at him and shut that grin down hard. She probably knew ten times more about her father's business than he thought. Nodonni'Soovanis was only thirteen, but was something of a prodigy when it came to computers. And her father indulged her with the best tutors and equipment that money could buy.

Her father was a very successful businessman. That was the truth. But not the whole truth. He was also the head of an extremely lucrative smuggling enterprise. When she had first sliced this tidbit about her father, she was very surprised and worried for him. But further digging showed many ties with the Senate and Republic military. In fact, most of his ships were now acting as Republic-sponsored privateers, attacking Empire supply lines.

Her father continued, "As you know, I came from Ryloth. It's a fairly miserable world and I had a fairly miserable time there... when I was young. We lived in caves to escape the heat and my family grew fungi as a crop. Not the delightful and tasty Alderaanian truffles we occasionally eat now, but several varieties of bland, grey, slimy fungi that took a fistful of seasonings to even be edible."

She slapped his arm and cried, "Slimy?!?"

"Settle down! You wanted the story, and the story's not done," he said. Rubbing his arm, where she'd slapped him, he continued, "We had a hard life. A life I've done everything in my power to make sure you can't even imagine. There were days when we didn't have enough to eat. That's a hard thing for a person to live through. It's a hard thing for a mother to look around the room trying to decide which of her children needed food the most, and which could go hungry another day."

He paused a moment, thinking about his mother. Clearing his throat, he continued, "I was the eldest son, and my father died in a hunting accident. We didn't have enough space and water rights to keep the family going. So I said goodbye to my family, headed for the city, and tried to find some work to send money home to my family. It turned out I was pretty good at a few things, or at least desperate enough to succeed. I signed a two year contract as freighter crew, and when I got back... I'd have enough money to help out my family.

Those two years spacing around the Outer Rim passed in the blink of an eye. When I returned, I learned my mother had passed away and my younger brothers and sisters had been fostered out to distant relatives. It took awhile to track them down, but they were actually doing better than when I had left. I passed out what money I had saved, but it all seemed pretty hollow."

She patted her father's arm, "I'm sorry dad. I never realized you had it so rough. But I'm still not following why you call me Fungus."

He sighed and cleared his throat again, "I'm getting there. Be patient, daughter. I haven't talked about this since before you were born. Now where was I? Ahh yes, hollow.

Knowing my kin were safe, and that my efforts to help had been too late...I went back into space. This time, with a pretty nasty fire brewing in my belly. Looking back on it, I'm lucky I didn't get myself killed in the first cantina I came to.

I fell in with some bad folks, looking to get rich fast or die trying. As you can see from these quarters and the fact that I'm here to share them with you, I made it. I'm not really proud of most of the things I did those first few years. But after I had some scratch, I tried to settle down, fly straight and start a family. I met a very respectable woman, she was lovely and smart. She came from a good family. But her health was frail, so her clan had trouble finding her a mate. Her father was a business associate of mine and he introduced us.

I'm afraid I fell hard and fast for her. I wanted so badly to save and protect her. I spent a lot of money on all the best doctors. Obviously, having children was out of the question. And yet, she wanted a daughter and would not take 'no' for an answer. Having you actually seemed to breathe more life into her, and I know for a fact that the couple years after your birth were the happiest of her life.

But eventually her sickness returned, and there was nothing any doctor could do to stop it. She passed away when you were three."

He scrubbed his eyes with his right hand while squeezing the daughter curled into his left arm. Nodonni'Soovanis knew some of these facts, but had never heard her father talk about them. She was afraid to say anything, almost afraid to move, lest she break the spell that had her father opening up to her.

Her father took a deep breath, "When I was a child growing up, I often went hungry. Urban development had driven off the prey, so most of our food came from the meager fungus crop we could cultivate in the limited area we had. Sometimes food was all I thought about for days at a time. I spent most of my childhood trying to grow more fungus and find more space to grow fungus, so that my family wouldn't starve.

Fungus was the most precious thing in my life as a child, and the focus of my very existence. Just as it is today."

Nodonni'Soovanis wept softly as her father held her. After a time, she said, "OK, old man. But not around my friends."

"As you wish," he conceded.

They sat there together for a short time, looking out over the cityscape of Coruscant as the sun started to set. Neither of them wanted the moment to end.

But all moments end, sometimes with explosions. The building rocked, tossing Fungus and her father off the couch. Looking out the window, they saw a squadron of Empire bombers fly by with fighter escorts.

Random came dashing in, light on his feet. The Mirialan lad was paler green than usual, making his tattoos stand out in stark relief. "Boss, the Empire has launched a full scale sneak attack on Coruscant during the peace talks. We need to get out of here now!"

"Yes, have your father ready the ship. Take Nodonni and go there now, I'll be right behind you after I grab my safe's contents," he cried over his shoulder as he ran for his office.

Another explosion rocked the building, knocking Nodonni and Random off their feet. The section of their quarters containing his office crumbled and fell away, leaving a gaping hole in the side of the building.

Nodonni cried out, "Father!"

But he was gone.

Random grabbed her by the arm and starting dragging her towards the stairwell on the other side of the building. They were only three floors above the speeder pad where his bike was parked. The building was still shifting and it felt like the entire thing could come down, even without another hit.

When they reached the pad, Random breathed a sigh of relief. His speeder bike had slid up against a wall, but was still operational. He loaded the girl in front of him and took off fast, with explosions still rocking all around the neighborhood.

Five minutes later, they arrived at the private dock where Nodonni's father maintained his personal freighter. There was no sign of Random's father, and they couldn't raise him on the comms. Random was young, but he'd flown with his father his whole life. He started up the pre-flight check, just as he'd been taught.

"C'mon dad, where the...," he started to say. Then he remembered the thirteen year-old girl curled up in the copilot's seat. "Dammit!"

Her father had been a good boss. Random would miss the old guy. Assuming he lived long enough to miss anybody.

He was about done prepping the small freighter when his comm chimed. His father was on the line, "Random? Did you get them out? Are you at the ship?"

"Where the frak are you? The whole city sector is coming down," shouted Random as more explosions went off.

"I'm not making it, my speeder got fragged. I'll hitch a ride with..."

The transmission cut out with a screech of static. "Dammit! Hold on Nodonni, we're getting out of here. Hopefully the Republic and Empire are too busy shooting at each other to bother with us."

Random was only eighteen, but he grew up in this ship. For the first time in his life, he was flying it without his dad standing over his shoulder. He decided to see what the old girl could really do and punched up through clouds at best possible speed.

Looking over, he saw Nodonni's fingers flying over the copilot's console, "What the frak are you doing?"

She answered without slowing, "Bringing up the guns."

"Forget it, Port Authority locks down the guns when you enter Coruscant space, we'd need the dockmaster's code to...," he paused as the copilot's computer-assisted gunnery holoconsole lit up.

Nodonni grinned in triumph as she updated the friend/foe assignments from the Republic defense channel and started marking targets on Random's heads-up display. She'd installed a backdoor into this Sector's flight control last year, and set it up to warn her when her father was arriving home from trips. "We got a whole cloud of Empire fighters between us and open space. I hope you fly as good as you're always bragging."

Random closed his gaping mouth and focused on finding a path to the hyperspace limit, "Damn," he thought. "I knew the girl could slice, but... seriously?"

Five minutes of fancy flying had them through the battle and into open space. None of the fighters had really paid them much attention. Even when they shot down four Empire fighters as they passed through the battle. Nodonni queried the nav computer and passed coordinates over to Random. They made the jump to hyperspace: destination Nar Shadda.

Random sat a moment, watching the stars whir by, a relieved smile on his face. Then he looked over at the girl beside him. She had pulled her legs up into the chair, hugging her knees to her face as she quietly wept.

"Miss Nodonni, you did a great job today. Your father would be proud of you. Everything will be OK now."

She slowly looked up at Random, "The Empire killed my father today. Yours too, most likely. It'll be awhile before things are OK."

She wiped her eyes with her sleeve and stood up with a fierce look of determination on her face, "I'll be in my dad's stateroom planning our next move. We'll need to track down and salvage what we can of my dad's operations. And hopefully work a little payback into the mix for what the Empire has done today."

Random thought deeply for a moment, then replied, "Ummm."

Nodonni marched up to Random and got right in his face, "I know a lot more about my dad's so-called business than you might think, and I have access to his money. We'll be lucky to hold much of it together, but I think we can hold enough to keep ourselves afloat, if you're willing to be my front man. We need each other."

"Settle down, Nodonni, I've had a lot thrown at me today. Let me consider my options for a second," said Random. His brows furrowed. No money, no dad, no spaceship, no education, no contacts.

What would the guys down at the cantina suggest? Probably... sell the girl to slavers, use the money to jack the transponder on this freighter, and go into business for himself. That was wrong on a whole lot of levels, so throw that option out. Nodonni was like a little sister to him, and he wouldn't know up from down as a trader. Flying and shooting, those were his strengths.

"Ahh heck, Nodonni. I'm in for as long as you can make it work," he said.

She smiled, "Good. But I have a favor to ask. Nodonni'Soovanis died today, so I want you to call me Fungus."

Random grinned, "I thought you hated that name?"

"Fungus is growing on me," she said with a weary smile and held out her hand. "We got a deal?"

Random clasped her hand and held it, "OK, but I'm not calling you Fungus. I'll call you Boss."