***20 December 2004 -Blackmailed

 

Anbato asked me to contact him last week, so I do this. We will meet in front of the Starport, one of the standard meeting locations. I know he wants to talk about the leaflet, I realize this is a risk too, but if I don’t want to take any risk I will get nobody to join the Alliance. A Zabrak wearing a hooded cloak approaches me, I recognize him vaguely. “Let’s go to the desert.”, he tells. He looks quite confident, I better watch out. We walk into the desert, I think about last time in the desert when a bantha attacked me with no reason and broke my leg. But there are no bantha’s now, only a few womp rats. I pull my pistol for if any animal decides to attack me, but also a bit because I don’t trust Anbato completely. He could kill me, nobody is here except for the two of us.

He starts to ask me questions, I have the feeling like I’m being interrogated, I really have a bad feeling about this. “Why were you spreading those leaflets?” “Are you a rebel?” Then he asks if I would kill him if he would say that he is a member of the Empire.

I keep my answers as vaguely as possible: ”Maybe.. maybe not.”

We ask each other questions like this and give each other vague answers. He also carries a gun, I keep my pistol tight in my right hand.

 

I act as relaxed and confident as possible, although I feel a lot of fear. Maybe he is an Imperial spy.. maybe it will all be over now for me! Maybe he will kill he, would he do that? I don’t manage to set up a story.. he catched me when I was spreading those leaflets so he knows I’m a rebel. He talks about the Imperial WANTED announcement (from the leaflets, and my attack on the stormtroopers), that he now knows that one of those two persons is me. But he won’t turn me in, for a price. I have to do jobs for him, with my ‘friends’ or else he will turn me in. Well, what can I do? I better not answer ‘no’ because I don’t want to get problems with the Empire (more then I already have).

 

 

So well I agree, ok I will do it, here is my comm number. Then we split. While I’m walking away he shouts “It can be profitable for you too!”, I wonder what he means with that.

I feel blackmailed and scared. I really feel like I’m being pushed against a wall with almost nowhere to go. I realize: someday the Empire will get me.. all this that I’m doing is really dangerous. In an alley I permit myself to cry, after which I rub the tears from my face and back on the street I act as casual and confident as always.