Blind Spot

2003 short story by Jonathan Hicks

Four years after Episode IV – A New Hope

Tunnil Fulle swung around at speed, suddenly aware that there was figure standing just to his left. He tensed; a little shocked at the sudden appearance and the fact that he reacted to it with such panic.

   “Easy, Tun,” Grin held up his hands in mock surrender. “I give up!”

There was the slightest of pauses and Fulle let his huge T-shaped head droop slightly, a small smile escaping his hard features.

   “Sorry, Grin, you just took me a bit by surprise, is all.”

Grin smiled his lipless smile and followed Tunnil’s gaze, looking out over the bay of Amagad from the roof of the Internal Traffic Control building. The moons reflected off the inky black surface of the water, the lights of the busy city on the opposite side of the bay winking and streaking through the waves. The silhouetted towers of Amagads capital city glowed with light, hundreds of pinpoints of window light denoting an existence. Vehicles flew over and around the buildings.

   “Strange to see you at such a high position without your rifle,” Grin said with a nudge and a grin. His clothing, rags and patchwork clothing, ruffled in the wind and Tunnil turned up his nose at the smell that emanated from him but said nothing.

   “What are you doing here, Grin?” Tunnil asked with a sideways look. “Got some information for me?”

   “Nah, I heard that you came up here sometimes to practice shooting at targets on the water. Fancied seeing you shoot.”

Tunnil smiled.

   “Not tonight.”

   “Why not?”

There was a long pause as Tunnil chose his words. He looked down at his feet and kicked a piece of debris off the roof and watched it sail into the darkness of the port below.

   “Not in the mood.”

   “Not in the mood?” Grin guffawed. “Setnin’s most skilled marksman not in the mood to show off his prowess, his gift, to the adoring public?”

   “Most people who see me shoot die straight after I’ve pulled the trigger,” Tunnil said with a down turned face. He toyed with another piece of garbage with his foot before sending after the first. With a sigh he walked to the very edge of the roof and looked down at the port below, watched as a starship slowly lifted off from a landing bay and ascended past them, washing them with heat and light. Grin rubbed a hand against his scaly skin as the vessel passed.

   “There goes Goah,” he said matter of factly. “He’s a good shot, too, isn’t he?”

   “Not as good as me.”

   “That’s not what I meant.”

Somewhere in the maze of streets of Amagad city a blaster shot echoed, followed by two more and then the sound of sirens.

   “What’s going on, Tun?” Grin asked as Galletti’s ship picked up speed and rose higher, into the clouds. They both watched it turn the suspended moisture into a glowing cotton ball before a brighter light and a boom denoted he had achieved escape velocity.

   “I was on Yuma yesterday,” Tunnil said. “Scare shot for Glann, just a wound on a sugar peddler to warn him off the Wennicas run.”

   “And?”

A small Skyhopper shot past, lights blinking as it dipped and headed into the buildings surrounding the Internal Traffic Control building. A dish mounted with dozens of others on the roof whirred as it turned and tracked the vehicle.

Tunnil found the next two words difficult, but he managed to force them out.

   “I missed.”

Then total silence, as if the city and the sky had heard Tunnil’s words and had become quiet in shock at his revelation. After a moment, the noise level returned to normal. Two freighters approached the same docking bay and jockeyed for the landing privileges like two great wild beasts snapping at each other over a kill. Grin watched them with a straight face; usually, the sight would have been humorous, but he was finding it difficult to decide what to say next.

He settled on, “Well… it’s not the end of the galaxy.”

Tunnil turned to face him as one of the freighters broke off the argument and went back into a holding pattern.

   “I never miss, Grin.”

   “Well… you did. Do you know what happened?”

   “I lined up the shot. I was just shy of a kilometre out, no adverse weather conditions, perfect light. Aimed for his shoulder. He was even dozing on the upper hull of his ship as he waited for a drop-off. He wasn’t moving. I lined up, pulled he trigger on the exhale, and I missed. Even Vod could have made that shot.”

   “Vod’s blind’”

   “I know.”

   “Tunnil, you’re going to have your off days, I mean, you’re not a super being, you’re not perfect, no-one is…”

   “I’m going blind, Grin.”

   “Don’t be so hard on yourself…”

   “No, I mean it, I’m going blind. I’ve been checked out. My optic nerves are shot, especially in my left eye. I can hardly see freck-all out of it.”

Grin opened his mouth to speak but Tunnil just let the words stream out.

   “The most important things in my life, my eyes. My wonderful, far-seeing crystal-clear eyes. Everything my whole life is based upon, everything my skill and my profession and my passion is centred about. The things I need. I have trained, practiced, honed every nuance of the shoot, every facet of the sighting, the feel of the rifle, the positioning, the ranging and cover and weather, the re-location protocol, everything. All of this relies on my eyes. My beautiful, crisp-clear eyes.”

Grin’s life was based about two things; information brokering and information collection. He could understand something of what Tunnil was feeling; after all, if all his contacts suddenly decided to severe ties with him, if the trust people had in his words was suddenly destroyed, he would lose everything. Still, he had his network, so it was easy for him think that way. Tunnil was losing his skill for real. Only he knew the pain of that kind of loss.

   “You could get implants, cybernetic implants.”

   “The visual data transfer delay would throw me off. I won’t have perfect vision if I have new eyes vat-grown. I’ve thought of it all before, Grin. I’ve kind of planned for this moment.”

   “Forever the pessimist,” Grin said with a small laugh, hoping the moment of levity would bring Tunnil back from his sadness, at least just a little. He was pleased when Tunnil laughed also.

   “With good reason, it would seem,” Tunnil said, stepping back from the edge of the building and looking back over the city. A large vessel slowly descended behind the tall gravestone-like towers, illuminating the lower levels of the shoddily patched constructs with its thrusters exhaust. Slowly, Tunnil turned his head to follow the coastline, all the way up to where Glann Cipple’s fortress was stationed on the highest point of the bay, looking down on the run-down city.

   “Which means he has no use for me, now,” Tunnil said quietly, although Grin heard the words and couldn’t help but nod in agreement.

   “You know a lot about his inner workings,” Grin said.

   “And if I don’t work for him, I’m a variable in his empire. I’m a dead being.”

   “You could run,” Grin offered.

Tunnil laughed.

   “Run where? Where can I go so that the far-reaching hand of the Cipple organisation can’t find me? I’ll spend the last hundred years of my life curled up in an asteroid in the back-end of space, licking mould from the rocks to live. The once great Tunnil Fulle reduced from the best sniper the sector has ever seen to a madman scared of his own shadow. They’ll come for me. Feese, Goah, perhaps all of them. They’ll find me and they’ll kill me.”

   “Perhaps Glann can find you another role…”

   “Like what?” Tunnil found his voice rising.

   “I don’t damn well know!” Grin snapped. “This isn’t you, Tunnil! I don’t know what to say, how to act. You tell me you’re going blind, and, yeah, that’s real bad, but your life is not over. Sniping and shooting and range finding is not the be-all and end-all of your existence, surely! Yeah, the implants will suck, but at least you’ll still be able to function. Honestly, the way you’re carrying on it’s as if you’ll be spending the rest of your life in a cave with dirty bandages wrapped around your eyes, crying for the good old days. Tun, that’s not you. You’ve always been on top of your game, ready for the next challenge. You’ve always been the best.”

   “Yeah, the best shot…”

   “Killing people at long range and then skulking away is not a life!” Grin roared.

Tunnil took a step back, simply amazed at Grin’s anger and volume. He looked down on the smaller being, saw the fire in his eyes, saw the grim set of his jaw. At first he was ready to pounce, verbally and physically, on the being that had, in one sentence, intoned that his life had been a waste of time.

But, somewhere deep down where his rational mind feared to tread, he knew Grin was right. He had become a sniper to survive. To survive the clan wars on Entall. To survive the inquisition ‘droids where he grew up on Chinngard. To survive the killers and the murderers and all the beings of lesser repute he mixed.

Beings he mixed with. He hadn’t been forced to join Cipple’s ranks; he did because he wanted to.

He was a shooter, a smoker, a sniper, a beam jockey. He was a damn good shot with a skill very few could even understand, let alone equal. He had a skill with a rifle, an understanding of it’s form and function, that would make normal-mined people furrow their brows in confusion, rub their chins in suspicion.

He was a marksman. How could he turn his back on his skill, run like a frightened Womp rat, hide like a coward? He still had some sight left in him. Some fight.

And he was damned if he was going to fold like loser!

   “I need a job,” Tunnil said quickly, turning to Grin. “Anything.”

   “Jan’s recruiting for a job on Alorea, high risk, high payment,” Grin said quickly, as if expecting the question.

   “Target?”

   “Targets, plural. Ferrerrean Warriors. Like I said – high risk. There’s a good chance you won’t…”

   “I don’t care. If I’m going out of this game, I’m going out like I came into it. With a fight. Where’s Jan?”

   “Bay Twelve.”

Without another word Tunnil walked with long, determined strides to the roof access portal, but as he approached it, he slowed down and stopped. At first, Grin thought he had changed his mind, but slowly, Tunnil turned to face him.

   “You knew, didn’t you?” He said knowingly.

   “Knew?”

   “About my eyes.”

Grin shrugged.

   “Maybe”.

   “You knew I wouldn’t give up without a fight, that I’d want to go out struggling, kicking and screaming, that Glann would have me killed and that… well, that would just suck for someone like me.”

   “Maybe. That, and Jan’s having difficulty recruiting for the Alorean job, because of the Ferrereans. Let’s face it, you wouldn’t have gone on a high risk job, Tunnil, not like that.”

Tunnil slowly approached him. “So you get me riled up, ready to fight for anything, just so Jan has another body on his suicide mission?”

No answer.

   “You son of a bitch.”

Grin smiled.

   “Hey, I bet you never saw that coming.”

Blind Spot

2003 short story by Jonathan Hicks

Four years after Episode IV – A New Hope

Histories – Set directly before the Ferrerean Warriors story, this sees Tunnil Fulle and Grin discussing Fulle’s failing eyesight.  A debilitating affliction for a sniper, this is a genuinely touching study in the plight of this popular Setnin character, and a look into how his motivations inform his actions.

Cast of Characters

Grin

Tunnil Fulle