Dear Stranger,
Hate. Hate is a strong word. But maybe not for him.
“You botched it up.”
I stood resolute, filled to the brim with hate. Hate like I had never known before.
“You are not capable enough.”
Inhala. Exhala. I remembered Jane’s abuela telling her.
“Kylo will handle it.”
The hate I feel for the Dark Lord is bottomless but the hate I have for Kylo Ren is far far greater, if that is even possible.
“It is my account.” I spoke with gritted teeth. “I spent weeks clinching this. I went all the way to get it. I will have it.”
“You failed.” The Dark Lord spitted into my masked face. “And the account is no longer yours. That’s that.”
But this time, the Dark Lord was not completely off the track. Let me rewind to what happened to the Mars deal.
*
Once I came to my senses after falling into the arms of the Martian and barely kept myself from falling in disgrace, I had the sense to discuss the nitty-gritties of the deal I was about to close.
“I am Regent Gina One from the Death Star and we were supposed to meet regarding the weapons at the top of the Purple Hill, Zone VI.” I put on my best boldest most professional voice and spoke.
“Aahh, hello.” Comprehension dawned on his face as its expression turned quizzical. “You are RG1? I…I was told to expect a male.”
“I get that a lot.” I grimaced. “Anyway, let’s get down to the brass tacks…”
We made our way to the top of the hill and found my two soldiers waiting with the equipment.
“Here is the Turner,” I told him, showing him the carefully bound package which contained the preliminary equipment for the Inhuman Project- the first set of weapons that we were shipping to Mars. The Inhuman Project was supposed to start simultaneously across the solar system. That was another headache altogether. I should have been contacted by now. The Resistance had been doing all it could to stall the project but it hadn’t come to fruition yet. I had not been contacted. I was the only spy in Darth Vader’s Earth enterprise and I was clueless. To maintain secrecy, I hadn’t met any of them. I was a lone ranger, working on my own, trying to get as much information from the Dark Lord as I could. It was imperative that I work anonymously. Mine was more like a suicide mission. I provided information to the Resistance via encrypted messages through the Dark Web. And of course, these. These ‘fictitious’ letters I write to you, dear Stranger.
“We will need to scan your retina in order to authenticate your identity.”
Saying so, I told my soldiers to do the needful. Once I was done with this covert operation, we would need to leave. Didn’t want to have any rival groups spot us.
But before they could even start the procedure, the Martian sniggered.
“Excuse me?” I scowled.
“We don’t do retina scans for verification.” He said simply. “On our planet, we simply show our ID.”
Pfft! What a primitive planet! ID? What was an ID supposed to be like?
“But we can only dispatch the goods if you pass the retina scan.” I stood my ground. “We receive retina samples from every party beforehand and undergo the scan before handing over the weapons.”
The retina scan was a mandatory part of a covert sale. But I wasn’t sure how it happened with out-of-planet parties. This was my first out-of-planet endeavor. The farthest party I had dealt with was the moon and the moon is basically just upcountry, so it didn’t make much of a difference. The same rules applied there.
“Well, you can try getting a sample,” he shrugged and provided his eye for the scan.
Immediately, the machine beeped negative. It didn’t give any result because of the cornea color. Now I understood why the retina scan wasn’t effective for martians.
“What are we to do then?” I was dumbfounded and tried to call one of my colleagues, Alpha for help. Thanks to the amazing network atop the Purple Hill, my call did not connect.
“Well, I do have a solution,” The strangely gentle Martian (I had thought they would be especially war-like, coming from Mars, the warrior planet but such are stereotypes!) offered his hand which contained a chip. “This is my ID. You can use it for authentication.”
I gave it a minute’s thought weighing the circumstances. What if I didn’t give him the goods? Then coming all the way here would be completely pointless. And the Dark Lord would have one more point stacked against me.
“All right, hand it over and take the equipment.” I ordered.
“It was nice to do business with you,” he smiled and it gave me a strange feeling, a funny soaring feeling as he clasped my hand in his and before I knew it, he was gone.
*
“This chip is useless! If people keep handing out chips, will you give them your weapons??” The Dark Lord thundered.
I didn’t know what to say.
“I…I didn’t know any other authentication methods.”
“You should have set the meeting at the headquarters! You should have checked how the authentication happens beforehand!”
I know I had made a stupid horrible mistake. But how was I to effing know that retina scan doesn’t work for Martians?
“Maybe I was wrong to select someone as young and inexperienced as you to work for me,” he bellowed. “You lost us the deal. And more importantly, our reputation.”
I felt like a whole box of weapons had been dropped on my heart. Accusations of incompetence can break one.
Especially one like me.
The Martian had been an impostor. The actual party had reached the rendezvous point about two hours later making me feel like a complete utter fool.
Feeling deceived by a stupid Martian,
The Rogue Stormtrooper
