"The Lawman"
The Old Republic is a time of valiant Knights and twisted Dark Lords, an era when the evil Sith Order and their followers clashed with the Republic and their Jedi protectors in great and terrible wars. Amidst this chaos rose heroes and villains whose tales stretch larger than life- names like Revan and Malak, the Exile and the Triumvirate, or the dreaded Sith Emperor. These are not such tales, but smaller stories of ordinary lives across the galaxy which have been touched by the ripples of history.
This is the story of Chief Arc, a LAWMAN of a mining colony in the Outer Rim of the galaxy....

Arc was a big man. Stood at least a head taller than me, and he was jacked as a Mandallian Giant; about as tough as one too. He didn't have much to say, though. I remember whenever anybody asked him where he came from, he always just shrugged and said it doesn't matter now. Rumour was that he's a veteran from the war with the Mandalorians- I saw him changing a few times and the man sure had his share of scars. All we knew for certain at the time was that he was pretty overqualified for the job.
Someone like Arc should've been on the front lines of the war, not working as a security chief on a backwater mining colony in the Begeren system. But I guess you could say the same for me. What's a Zabrak gal in her prime doing in a mine? Well, I didn't care for the Republic or the Sith. The Republic failed miserably to protect us. Sure, I admired Revan- the whole blasted galaxy did, but I never fought with the ex-Jedi back in the war and didn't have any reason to start then. I suppose I had my share of war growing up, and when I found a place to settle down and a job to protect that place, that's all I want to do. Whoever rules the galaxy isn't my problem.
Anyways, enough about me. This is Arc's story, not mine. Arc wasn't Chief when I first came to Begeren. Back then, it was someone called Vont Sagan. He was a good Chief but he was getting old, so the Company retired him and sent Arc a little over a year after the Mandalorian Wars ended. The miners didn't respect him as much as the old Chief, but like I said, he was a big man and they didn't try to pick a fight with him either. There wasn't really much going on at the colony; our duties as security officers pretty much amounted to making sure people weren't slacking off too much and breaking up the odd drunken brawl.
Speaking of brawls, that's when I first saw the Chief in action. Essar noticed commotion in the bar one night and I was one of the officers on shift, so we headed in. No idea what stirred them up, but fists were already being swung when we got there. We broke the fight apart, grabbed the two who were fighting- a man and a female Rodian. I was holding the man when another miner, Gadeel, just stepped over and slammed a bottle over his head. He slipped through the crowd and I tried to chase after him, but he didn't get far.
Arc heard about what was going on and made his way over too. Gadeel froze when he saw him by the door and I figured he'd just stop running and let himself get taken in by the Chief. It was a small colony and we'd have learned of what he'd done sooner or later; besides, it wasn't as if he killed the man. At most he was gonna get a few days in a holding cell and some docked pay. The Chief never gave him a chance to surrender, though. He moved before Gadeel had a chance to say or do anything. A single punch and Gadeel was out cold.
Now, Gadeel wasn't as big as the Chief, but he wasn't scrawny either, and a man who spends his days in a mine is usually not fragile. But Arc, he was something else. I didn't even see the punch- just a blur of motion and Gadeel dropping to the ground. Whole bar went silent after that. And Arc, he just looked around, staring everyone down for a good minute before he said two words: "Anyone else?" That was it. Everybody went home for the night to cool down. We told Arc what we saw, he nodded and picked up Gadeel, carrying him to the cell that was waiting for him.
You're probably not interested in hearing everything Arc did during his time as Chief. I just wanted to give you a sense of how we all saw him before we found out. Well, let's get on to the main part of the story now.
The Sith came to Begeren over a year after Malak's death. Technically, we were part of Revan's Empire from the very start. The Begeren system's located real close to the old Sith homeworld of Korriban, if you didn't know. Revan never had to come and conquer us though. When he claimed the surrounding systems we were right in the middle, so the Company cut a deal with them. The Company would pay export taxes to the Sith, the Sith would let us transport the gems out for trade and they wouldn't try to conscript the miners since the mine's making them credits. Like that, the colony went about its usual business.
That all changed when the Goliath arrived. I remember that morning. Essar woke us all early; the sensors picked up an inbound ship and it wasn't scheduled for arrival. Our sensors were nothing fancy, just basic equipment to let us know when transports were coming in, but the Goliath wasn't subtle and we could see it was no freighter. So we got up, put on our combat suits, grabbed our blasters and vibroblades and waited.
It was late into the morning when the Goliath actually got here. Sensors read that it was a Sith Interdictor cruiser, but we could make out little more than a speck on the ground. When we finally saw something, it was a shuttle and two fighter escorts. The fighters left when they realized we didn't have any anti-air, but not before passing low right over town. I suppose it was a scare tactic to show us what they got. The shuttle landed just outside the colony. Arc kept two of our security officers in town just in case and the rest of us went over to 'welcome' our visitors.
Sith troopers came out of the shuttle and made two real neat lines, standing at attention with their blaster rifles in hand. With their shining suits and helmets, I would've thought they were droids if they weren't of different heights. Once they had all lined up, a man in a Sith naval uniform, one of their officers, stepped out and asked who was in charge.
Obviously, Arc stepped forward and said, "I'm the Security Chief here."
"Not anymore," was the officer's reply. "The Sith are taking over."
Arc looked confused and tried to clear things up, saying, "I thought we had an arrangement."
The uniformed just shook his head as he explained that "the deal was with Revan and Malak's Empire. Revan's gone, and Malak's dead."
"You can't just come here and take control," Arc said to him.
"And why not?" the officer asked. Then he went on to boast about how his soldiers were professional military, and we were just glorified security guards. Arc wasn't happy about that and pointed his rifle straight at the man, saying he would show him what a real warrior could do. The troopers raised their weapons, we raised ours and things got tense.
The officer didn't go for his pistol, though. He just smiled, and said even if we killed the squad here, they had a whole cruiser in orbit. They could send down more troops and easily overwhelm the colony. He claimed he'd rather this didn't end in bloodshed though, and if we didn't resist, we'd all live through this. From what I'd seen of Arc's attitude so far, I seriously thought he was just gonna blast the man and have us fight to the last. But the Chief knew we were way out of our league- we had no chance of taking out a whole ship full of soldiers.
So Arc stepped back and lowered his weapon, and we all followed suit. The officer made us hand them over, then marched us into town disarmed. That's how the Sith took control of Begeren without a single shot being fired. Things didn't stay quiet long, though.
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