Star Wars: The Old Republic is an MMORPG that shares some story-driven DNA with classic RPGs. I played it a lot. One of my first two novels, NDOW, is the goofy story of slacker Emperor’s Wrath Nalenne and her dead husband Malavai Quinn. (He had it coming.) The Sith Warrior companions and major NPCs, including a badly misplaced LS Jaesa, feature in this post-game adventure.
“Hey. My lord. Wakeup time.”
Nalenne lay flat on her back and cursed her sudden alertness. Then she cursed Vette. “Are you joking?”
“Nope. It’s couch-tossing day.”
“It was couch-tossing day last week. We’re not up for another three.”
“Really?” said Vette. “I’m bad with time. Guess we should do an out-of-cycle one, since you’re already awake.”
“If your slave collar remote were in the furniture, we’d have found it by now.”
Vette jumped onto the foot of Nalenne’s bed. “Go.”
Nalenne sat up fast, pillow in hand, to hit the Twi’lek’s shoulder. “Fine.”
They started in the cargo bay. They always did. Jaesa and Broonmark started in the crew quarters. Pierce ran secondary checks/cleanup. Every box, every case, every databank with a loose chassis, every seat cushion, every couch frame: opened, turned, searched.
“What would you do if you were free, anyway?” asked Nalenne as the two of them fished around in the depths of the reading-nook couch.
“Leave forever,” chirped Vette cheerfully. “See what the old gang on Nar Shaddaa is up to.”
“But you visit them every few weeks anyway.”
“The collar kinda dampens the fun. It gets old, having everyone who sees this slave-without-a-master checking my collar registry and calling you to inform you I’ve ‘escaped.’”
Nalenne moved on to the first of three armchairs. “I feel I should remind you that the slave collar wasn’t my idea.”
“Seems like keeping track of your stuff wasn’t an idea of yours, either.”
NDOW was serialized on the SWTOR forums and Tumblr, and collected in PDF form.
A sequel, The Helicarrier Chronicles, was serialized on the SWTOR forums.
Lieutenant Hareth greeted Quinn and Rutau with an almost cartoonishly tight salute. “Sir,” she said. “It’s an honor to meet the commander of Insanity Company.” Her crimson eyes flashed. “They say it has a higher fatality rate than any unit in the Imperial Army.”
Quinn inclined his head slightly. “At ease, Lieutenant. I intend to change that statistic. Without compromising work performance, of course.”
“Oh,” she said. She sounded disappointed. “It is the greatest of glories to die for the Emperor.”
“In my experience,” said Quinn, “it is a far more effective use of resources to live for the Emperor. Risking one’s life is necessary but discarding it is generally considered inadvisable.”
“He will grant us eternal life once we are consumed for His glory.”
Rutau cleared his throat. “Lieutenant, that isn’t an official policy that I’m aware of. In fact, I don’t think it’s true at all.”
“The one time I died in service of the Empire,” added Quinn, “I was not granted any particular advantage.”
An unfinished Vol. 3 was begun on the SWTOR forums.
The S.A.B.E.R. Helicarrier cruised through deep space like a shark through the merciless inky void; that is to say, it wasn’t breathing and had taken on a dark greyish tinge.
The crew within were not worried. Quinn was on leave from his duties on the Method, which meant Nalenne was in a good mood, which meant Jaesa was minimally terrorized, Vette was downright perky, Pierce was lacking only a good firefight to make his day ideal, and Broonmark was peacefully absorbed in tinkering with either stims or bioweapons, no one was really sure which, in the cargo hold.
“So how great was that Tatooine rental?” Vette said to no one in particular. “Sandy beaches…”
“No rakghouls,” chimed Jaesa.
“No Sand People,” grumbled Pierce.
“No containment breaches,” said Quinn.
“Plenty of shade,” said Nalenne, passing a head over her bare red but unburned head.
“So take out everything that makes Tatooine Tatooine and it’s practically tolerable!” said Vette. “We should go again sometime.”
Quinn frowned. “We do have a war to prosecute, you know.”
“Vacation time still adds up when you’re prosecuting wars,” said Vette. “It’s a rule.”
“No it isn’t,” said Quinn. “Not in the Imperial military.”
“I think she meant in the figurative sense,” Jaesa said diplomatically.
“Give me ten minutes with the database and it’ll be a rule,” muttered Vette.
“Not to say the captain had a point or anything,” said Pierce, “but we do have a war to get back to.”
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