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The barkeep eyed his latest regular as the man entered the cantina. Without a word, he poured a glass and slid it across to his guest, who gave him a grateful nod of the head and an appropriate amount of credits.
It was a light crowd at the moment, still early in the afternoon. People would filter in later, after the Empire Day festivities died down and the bar crawls began.
It was no real surprise that his guest wasn’t joining the celebrations. It’d been questionable whether he’d even turn up at the cantina at all today, perhaps preferring to hide away from it all, but the barkeep supposed that the lure of the drink could tempt even a Jedi to crawl out into the world for another sip.
Not that his guest had admitted that he was a Jedi; no amount of alcohol had loosed those words from his lips. But there’d been little things: turns of phrase, references to the now-over war, other oddities. Hundreds of little confessions drug up from the depths of a bottle or two, that all added up to a very nice payout for the barkeep if he had put them together right.
The Jedi was quiet today. But that was fine, the barkeep didn’t need to hear any more from him. He’d already struck his bargain.
The barkeep poured him another drink.
He looked like just another drunk, the barkeep thought, just another drunk trying to forget his problems until he was drowning himself for the sake of it. Jedi might be dangerous, unnatural creatures, but drunks, he knew how to handle.
So he kept pushing drinks across the bar until the Imperial forces showed up. The barkeep gave them a nod as they approached.
The Jedi looked up a few sluggish beats later.
“You’re to come with us,” the stormtrooper said, shoving a blaster into the Jedi’s back.
The glass shattered, spilling all over the bar top. The barkeep scowled. His cleaning droid was still on the fritz, so he was going to have to clean that up himself.
Then he was wildly shoved back by nothing, and fear replaced annoyance.
He really was a Jedi.
The barkeep struggled to his feet. The stormtroopers were faring much worse with the Jedi’s attention on them; as dulled as it was by drink, he still put up a fight.
But then an Inquisitor strolled lazily out of the shadows, and there, the alcohol showed its designs, as the Jedi stumbled back, his movements slow and clumsy in comparison.
And then stilled completely, as a red blade was shoved through his chest.
“Your compensation,” the Inquisitor said, sounding bored as she dropped the credits on the bar. She left, and the stormtroopers dragged the body out after her.
In the silence that followed, the barkeep registered the damage that had been done to the place. He scowled again. Would the credits even be enough to cover that?
What a lousy deal.