The passenger liner touched down roughly on a relatively unremarkable landing pad in a Nar Shadaa spaceport.
The passengers of the craft quietly disembarked, moving in single file down the boarding ramp and quickly blending into the large crowd beyond the landing pad.
There were two easily distinguishable kinds of people who came to Nar Shadaa; those who were drawn there because of the criminal underworld, and who were
forced there because they had nowhere else to go. The two kinds could easily be told apart; the former would display their weapons thoughtlessly and stare
straight ahead as they strode purposefully toward their destination, the latter would slump unenthusiastically down the boarding ramp, looking half-dead, and
would mull around in the starport before working up the courage to move on. One such refugee was Valco Jafar.
A skinny Echani of unremarkable height, Valco had the silver hair and eyes characteristic of the Echani race. Conspicuosly absent, however, were the elegance
and forceful presence also characteristic of the Echani. His posture was rigid and tense, and he had a face far older than his years - both a result of sleep
deprivation. His eyes were tired, yet alert, with dark lines underneath them. He wore a dark brown jacket obviously intended for a species much larger than
humans; the base of the garment almost brushed his ankles, and the exceedingly wide sleeves were bunched up just below his elbow, the ends tucked into a pair
of black gloves. Underneath the jacket, he wore baggy, dark green pants, steel-tipped black combat boots and formerly white shirt that had yellowed with age.
The bagginess of his clothes exadurated the leanness of his figure.
"Credits or life!"
Valco knew their kind only too well. They had targeted him because he appeared weak. As anyone smarter than a Gammorrean would've deduced, Valco didn't have any credits. Of course, no self-respecting Gammorrean would let that get in the way of some skull-cracking. The Echani was entirely too sober to fight three Gammorreans single-handedly, he did, however, have the element of surprise. The three pig-like creatures didn't expect him to find out, so attacking quickly and fleeing promptly was likely to work.
"Wait, lemme get my wallet..."
He reached into his jacket, and produced a quarterstaff. It quickly became apparent that while Valco was hardly the traditional Echani, he had still been raised in the traditional Echani way, as he ducked and spun swiftly with the quarterstaff extended in front of him, knocking the middle Gammorrean off of his feet. His long whipped in front of him, obsuring his movements and disorienting the other two Gammoreans. Not wasting a second, he planted the quarterstaff into the face of the fallen Gammorean and pole-vaulted over the large, green body. As the Gammorrean's high-pitched, squealing screams echoed around the starport, something changed about the Echani.
His face was different, as surely as if a mask had been pulled off. His eyes widened eerily, and an insane grin broke accross his features. When he landed, rather than running as he had planned, he simply stood where he was, chuckling to himself, the agonized screams of the downed Gammorrean music to his ears. The whites of his eyes reddened as a scarlet tint crept across the edges of his vision. He turned around finish off the unfortunate mugger, very little conscious thought going through his head, when he was narrowly missed by an axe swing. This broke him out of his trance; the red faded from his eyes as turned and ran. Gammorreans were not known for being fleet of foot, unlike Valco, who had been trained in agility since birth. They wouldn't catch him.
Having escaped the Gammorreans, Valco turned into the quietest alleyway he could find and slumped against a wall. There was still a small red tinge lingering on the edge of his vision; he breathed deeply and blinked furiously, trying to rid himself of it. His previous display was the reason that Nar Shadaa was the only place he had left to go.
Valco had a relatively normal childhood, at least for an Echani. Out of his entire family of seven brothers and sisters, Valco mastered the fighting arts the fastest, and could defeat the 17-year-old eldest brother in the sparring ring at the mere age of ten. Many claimed that he must be force-sensitive, although he was far too old to be taken in for jedi training. Everything changed, however, when he hit puberty, and the Blood Haze started to develop.
An extremely rare gene-borne virus, the blood haze caused it's victims to enter a berserker rage when extremely angry or afraid. Named for the distincive effect it had on a sufferer's vision, the victim's world was shrouded in a red fog as excess blood flowed through the eyes. Valco had the misfortune of being born with the virus, and because of it, he had spent the last nine years of his life in exile. The incident at the docking bay placed himself and many other people in danger. How could he have been so stupid? He had spent a large portion of his life trying to force back the Haze, only to let it take control again through rash action.
He collapsed onto the ground, panting and massaging his temples.
