The Rebel Faction

A fat man sat on a huge, purple chair. Perched on the arm of the chair was a bronze lizard with a hawk-like head and strong-looking wings. In fact, this animal was hardly a lizard at all. It was a dragon, a dust dragon.

Dust dragons were very rare and nearly extinct animals. To purchase one cost about as much as an average dust farmer would earn in his lifetime. To find one in the vast, unfathomable seas of dust on Renteg took years and years of searching in a specially-equipped vehicle, which itself cost a small fortune.

"Sir Grandor, I have the most recent report from our collectors," offered an aide. He already knew what the practically royal man's response would be.

"Oh ho ho, yes, yes, very good. Show it to Kjistoff," waved Fruulian Grandor, the fat man, in response. He never bothered with those reports.

Fruulian Grandor was a dust farmer of the complete opposite breed than Ter. His filters were huge, literally square miles from side to side, and each year he would just purchase more with the money he had made from the ones he already had. They were no where near his estate, floating in the precise location where they could harvest the most money out of the planet's metal-rich atmosphere.

His compression facility was manned by experts in the field (who themselves would be unable to compress a single capsule if it wasn't for their expensive, advanced machines). His filter adjustments were handled by high-paid officials, and had been ever since Fruulian had inherited his father's fortune (who had in turn inherited his father's fortune, and a hundred fathers back from then, until the fortune had been bloodily squeezed by a tyrant from the farmers, barely more than slaves, in his domain.)

Kjistoff, a tall thin man, was Fruulian Grandor's chief advisor. He made all the "little" decisions… and to his credit, he did design the computer program that he used to make the decisions, while he lived a life of luxury simaler to Sir Grandor's.

The aide, a small and ruthlessly efficient woman, bowed and went off to give Kjistoff the reports. She happened to have been born nearby the estate of Fruulian Grandor, and was obviously far more intelligent than Kjistoff and Grandor. Of course, she had no fortune, merely the salary which Sir Grandor granted her with which to support her small family.

Most dust farmers hated people like the aide. They accused her of working for the enemy, among other, more hateful things. Really, though, she was simply trying to get by. She had no devotion to the poor, dark-lunged existence of the rural dust farmer, unlike the dark-lunged dust farmers themselves.

Honestly, Grandor was among the more generous of super-farmers. He didn't disturb the little farmers. His filters were far enough out at sea that no farmers were in his "shadow." He never stole (not that he would have anything to gain from stealing), and only bragged some. Mostly, he just enjoyed his fancy pets and fine drinks, one of which he sipped now.

The only activity Sir Grandor had schedualed for the day was a meeting with a tech developer about a new type of propulsion for his filters, which had to hold themselves up in the dusty air somehow. This would be held in the same building as Fruulian was in now. It would take a little effort for Sir Grandor to roll himself over to the meeting room, in which another large chair was waiting for him. He would probably then go to visit his beastiary, which he allowed anyone who wished to enter so that they could marvel at his collection of animals.

For now, the rich and metal-gobbling man just sat on his chair, petting the fierce-looking dragon. He was expecting someone to come with reports of his sales to the merchants who came to Renteg to buy his metals, most of which had binding contracts that allowed to trade with only him for a somewhat lower price than non-bound merchants. This was common practice among super-farmers, who competed often for the contracts of these merchants.

And Fruulian Grandor did enjoy looking at these reports... if just to glance at the nice, fat, black number that told him how much money he made.

Months later.

"And for the heroes never made,
we rest them in this glade,
for though their bodies float at sea,
with us they will always be."

There were some people on Mon Calamari, mostly humans, who attended every single soldier's funeral they could get to. It was a matter of respect for them. They thought so highly of the coalition that they thought it would be wrong of them not to attend the memorial of those who died fighting for it.

Of course, this was silly. Especially since these particular soldiers weren't dead.

"They were a good crew, they will be sorely missed."

A lie. The person saying this never met a single member of the crew. Of course, they are a good crew. The lie was the "was."

The ironies continued on for another quarter, but their importance is minimal. Let a passage from the coalition military code suffice:

Should a member of the Coalition armed forces on an exploratory mission fail to make contact within three months of their designed check-time, an investigation should be launched. Should that investigation prove unsuccessfull, after one more month the crew should be declared lost in action, until further evidence can prove their existance.

---

"Frelling turnovers, navigator! You mean to tell me that we've been drifting aimlessly for two months?!"

"I only even found out, captian, because I did a full hull-search with one of our remobots... hey look, there's another one of those copper-headed things."

They were more sane then you might expect after being adrift for four months. Rij had retreated to some lala land thinking his piloting stick was a cucumber sandwich, but other than that the crew of the Fearless was basically still capable.

Yes, they ran out of cucumber sandwiches a month ago. And yes, that might explain Rij. And Rij was the most apt of the crew, so maybe they weren't lying when they said that intelligent people were the closest to being insane. Or the most dependant on cucumber sandwiches. I don't know who said that.

"Well where the frelling pecan did our aft engine go, if it isn't attached to our ship?"

The Navigator, Egger, seemed to consider that. "Maybe somebody took it."

Captain Dapan was about to retort that idea (reflexively, of course, he had no evidence to the contrary) when the first good thing to happen in four months occured.

Like a throwing-disc into a sand-trap, the Fearless crashed headfirst into land. The pain of being thrown across the 30-foot-wide bridge was nothing compared to the idea that the Fearless had just struck land.

Later on, someone in some office would calculate that an initial velocity of 200 meters per second, a time of two months, and a mildly strong air resistance figured to some 4,000 kilometers of distance drifted over by the Fearless and her hover-engines. Right now, the crew woulden't care if they floated around in circles for the whole time or if their wake-trail had drawn the prime minister. They had struck land.

Yes, land on an unknown dust-planet. But land.

Now there was just the problem of their pilot and his cucumber sandwiches.

The crew froze, their diplomatic training sudenly catching up with them. Feeling repremanded, they straightened up, and Dapan spoke.

"We are the crew of the Fearless, and I am captain Dapan" he said, trying not to cough due the dust invading his breathing, "we have come to explore this planet and perhaps offer it entrance into the coalition."

Dapan expected Ter to be dumbstruck, his small farmer's mind unable to handle the sheer scope of what Dapan had just said. Perhaps Ter didn't even speak basic, realized Dapan. Maybe the dust-atmosphere of this planat effectively isolated them from the rest of the galaxy. Dapan was about as wrong as he could be.

Ter laughed exageratedly through his breathing mask, then, trying to contain his rudeness, spoke his mind, "Ha! Offworlders. Great! Just what we need. Buddy maybe your ship got blown off course because we sure as the Gooler aren't going to enter into any Coalition, even if you DO want us. Which you won't."

So much for not speaking basic. And so much for the small-minded farmer.

"Look," he continued, "you better come in side before you die of Sleezia."

With all the dust swirling around, sometimes biting their faces and always damaging their lungs, it wasn't too hard for the crew to figure out what Sleezia was, and even easier for them to go into the farmer's house.

Ter removed his dust-mask. He's human thought Dapan significantly. And how indeed could humans be on this isolated un-chartable dust-planet? Dapan remained standing, most of the furniture unaccomadating for a creature of his stature. The rest of the crew sat down exhaustedly on Ter's chairs and couches.

"Allright look, blue guy," said Ter, adressing Dapan, "Am I to understand that your ship crashed in the dust-sea, barely allowing you to reach land, and you came stumbling through the atmosphere here from the shore?"

"Well... not exactly-"

"Sure, sure," interrupted Ter, "stay here. I'll be right back."

Ter left to get something, and the crew was left to sit and breath the good air. He must have something filtering the dust out of his house, thought Egger.

"Captain," Egger adressed Dapan, "what do you think he does for a living? This isn't quite your average self-sustaining farmer's home."

Dapan looked around, "Well, I don't suppose you can farm here especially well, unless you plan on farming the air!" Dapan joked, his chuckle becoming a cough.

Ter then returned. He had heard Dapan's statement, "Skinned-right we do," he said, offering to further explanation. In his hands he held three spherical objects that looked like inhalers.

"Unless you want to die from Sleezia," said Ter, "you'll use these to get the junk out of your lungs... I don't know how well it'll work for you, blue-dude."

The two humans of the group: Rij and Egger, accepted the breathers. Simultaniously, they breathed carefully into the mouth-piece...

And were stuck by the horrible sensation of having every last bit of air sucked out of their lungs and then rocketed back in as the black, spherical objects made loud whining-whooshing noises. Ter didn't seem to think anything of it. He was watching Dapan

The small machine Dapan recieved whirred uselessly when the Azgaurd attempted to breathe into it, unable to fight against the magnitude of the Azgaurd's breathing apparatus. Dapan looked quizically at Ter.

"Well, whatever. You are probably fine anyway," said Ter, rolling his eyes and taking the lung-cleaner back from the crew. Between Rij and Egger, Rij was the first to recover.

"Ugh! Are you people humans, or windbags?" exclaimed Rij in his delayed reaction to the lung-cleaner.

"You'll get over it," murmured Ter. Dapan and Egger, though, were pleasantly suprised at the synical outburst of Rij. Perhaps he had regained his sanity.

Seeming to find this the time to discuss the situation, Dapan started to speak.

"So, human. What is the history of your planet? We expected you to be isolated from the rest of the world due to your planet's dust atmosphere and unlikelyness to evolve intelligent life. However, I see you are not native to this planet. How did humans come to live here?"

"Here on Renteg? How should I know? My family have been dust farmers since forever. Maybe we're the descendants of some crashed explorers like you." Ter smirked.

"I see. You say you are a dust farmer? Do you farm the air as I said earlier?"

"What else is there to farm?" responded Ter, no longer standing face-to-face with the Azgaurd and now wandering over to his kitchen to tinker with some controls on what, Dapan thought, might be the atmosphere controller for this home.

"Indeed..." said Dapan. The conversation was then taken up by Rij. "Well if you're a filter-farmer, I don't suppose you make alot of money... the process is notoriously innefficiant."

"You would know?" responded Ter.

"Well... usually it's filtering some kind of ocean..."

"We filter the air." stated Ter, simply.

"Heck, works for me," said Rij, finding it odd to talk with another human as if the human was from a strange planet, "Say, you don't seem too suprised at the idea of offworlders. Do people from other planets come here often?"

"How else would we get food?" said Ter, finishing up what he was doing and then sitting on his counter, looking idly at his visitors as if they were a mildly interesting new filter-pump.

"Fair enough. So it's merchants who come here and trade for... what you filter out of the air?"

"Yes, or what our fleets of machines filter out of the air... in some cases."

"Hm?"

"I'm a poor, rural farmer, mister. There are people inland who sit and do nothing while their giant machines buzz away with little people who pretend to know what they're doing fixing them if they break down. They take all the good farming air while they are thousands of miles away in practical palaces and they make pacts with the traders so the traders only buy their metal."

"Ah... I see..." grunted Rij

Egger had something to say. "The government doesn't feel these land-lord type plantation-owning folk are a bit dangerous or unfair to more rural farmers or what-have-you?"

Ter snorted. "What government?"

For now.

Slowly but surely over the next few years, Ter became an inspired farmer. Inspired farmers inspire other farmers, and groups of inspired farmers lead rebellions and rallies and get noticed. It's been proven time and time again.

Yes, inspired farmer's rallies nine times of ten get quelched and never lead to any change. But the problems with nine-times-out-of-ten happenings is that one time out of ten when the whomever they are rallying infront of makes them mad enough, or is enough of a sympathiser.

Fortunately, the latter was the case in this instance. Grandor was a softy, and he who had never gone so far as to opress his farmers now listened to them and formed what they wanted: a sort of agreement with him and a meeting with the other rich snobbs.

Ter didn't know he was such an inperational speaker, such a revolutionary. But after seven years of dedicating himself to the cause, that one dust-farmer made a huge, important chapter in his planet's history. Years later he would have books written about him. For now, he had one thing in the back of his mind while revolutionizing his planet: that when his planet formed its own government, decentralized as it may have to be, he could send a call to the Coalition and ask for captain Dapan. That mission that ended as a difficult escape could be redone with proper landing coordinants as a diplomatic mission with a high chance of success.

Plus, Ter, now the first elected speaker for the Grandor province in the Republic of Renteg, could have his partner in the whole revolution, Kjad While, give back his stolen engine.