Good Boy Mird!

Hi Star Wars Fans! 

I thought for this contest I would do a short story about everyone’s favorite good boy from the Extended Universe in a Galaxy Far Far Away. I love Star Wars as gritty Noir, especially on Coruscant, so doing a Follow-the-Cat style story in this setting amused me greatly! This one was an absolute blast to write. Hope y'all enjoy! 

Grand Republic Army black-ops counter terrorism safe house,
Federal District,
Coruscant,
The height of the Clone Wars:
 

Lord Mirdalan was a strill, a shaggy, six-legged, wrinkled skin, rat-tailed, good boy. He had a jaw like an alligator, a salivary gland like a spigot, and a musty scent that could fill a room like a bantha belch. He was covered in a thick golden coat of hair that was soft to touch and warm to cuddle. Not that he was a cuddly boy. Lord Mirdilan was far too proud for that. Unless you were a female. He sometimes made an exception for females. 

Mird was big for a strill. If he were to stand on his rear legs he'd be nearly as tall as his beloved master, Mandalorian black-ops specialist Waylan Vau. Mird adored his master. Vau was a hunter. He hunted men for other men that paid him well. Mird was a hunter too, just as his master had trained him to be. 

He loved when he and master were on the hunt. The men that were their enemies ran, hid, cowered and even fought. The thrill of the chase, the pursuit of scent, the spring, the kill, and the taste of prey, these were the things that made it good to be a strill. And last night they’d had good hunting indeed. 

This time they had hunted men who smelled of secrets, of machine oil, and of the acrid pungent scent of explosives. That and of course fear. But they always smelled of fear by the end.  

But for now the hunt was over, and Mird had not been allowed to finish his prey. Now his master was currently busy about his other business. The business of finding out things from people who didn't want to tell him the things they knew. 

Mird’s master never let him hang around when he did his finding out. Lord Mirdalan was always offended by this, because the smells from the little rooms where his master worked smelled like the hunt. Fear and blood. So in defiance, tonight he had decided not to wait around, but had gone off to find his own fun. He was interested in this strange planet, a planet of gleaming durasteel, permacrete, and glass with no ground that Mird had ever seen.  

He slunk around the little handful of rooms and the common area that made up the top story of the ramshackle building they had been holed up in for days. He padded suspiciously past the handful of armed and armored clone soldiers that his master had seemed to allow in his presence. So of course Lord Mirdalan had allowed it too. And he avoided the angry one that had hired them, the one who was not a clone, the one that exuded hatred for his master. 

That one Mird had remembered from before, and when they had met this time the man had thrown a knife into the floor right next to Mird. It had nearly clipped his tail off and had made him jump. The angry one had told his master that it wasn't Mird’s fault. That he was only what Vau had trained him to be. But that both of them had now had their fair warning. Mird had given that one cautiously wide berth ever since. 

He made his way to the balcony door and whined. The armored men didn't know he wasn't allowed out. One had moved to open the door muttering something about him stinking up the rest of the planet instead of their operations center. And just like that, Mird was free. 

The Coruscant skyline glistened and gleamed in its wild and windswept canyons and towers. But Lord Mirdalan didn't see it the same way a human would. The winds blew unfamiliar and interesting smells to his nostrils. It had rained, and the soft scent of water pooling on steel wafted in on the night breeze. The desire to explore rose overwhelmingly in his shaggy heart. Or maybe it was his stomach. Someone somewhere was cooking something that smelled like grease and entrails.  

Mird's balcony was a dozen stories up above anything that could be considered ground level in this planet spanning city. Below him walkways, alleys, and permacrete streets ran in tiers and layers stacked one upon the other down to the unseen vanishing points deep deep below. Above him the skylanes were full of vehicles motoring on their repulsorlifts, their glinting lights like chains of glowing insects against building spires that lost themselves in the rainswept clouds. But the most interesting smells were coming from below. Mird clambered up to the balcony railing and jumped.  

He didn't fall. He spread his six legs wide so his wrinkled skin stretched out tight between them, and he flew. He glided like an avian on the wind gusts and updrafts as he soared down into the beckoning depths and canyons of the sleepless city. 

—-

Eventually Mird flew himself over to the side of a building. His long claws gripped the slick permacrete and he clung to the wall, head downward, twisting around, scenting the air. Wafting from below was a familiar smell. A place of food he already knew well, and it beckoned. But there was something more interesting nearby. 

He breathed in deeply. It was the smell of the hunt, of a hunter. It was something tight and predatory, full of anticipation, and sticky with the tinge of hunger. Mird followed it, claws clinging as easily to the building as they would to the trees of his homeworld on Mandalore. His nose led him to a corner that cut down a flight of stairs into a dark alley. Here the smell of predator joined the smell of prey. A bright and urgent fear scent met and mixed with the sharp adrenaline of the predator, and both smells had turned off, wafting down into the shadowed alley. 

Mird turned the corner scrambling quietly along the side of the building, and his sharp ears picked up sounds of a scuffle and muffled cries. A male was dragging a struggling female back deeper into the murky isolation of the darkness. The female reeked of fear and desperation, and Mird knew that shouldn't be. 

He rushed along the wall of the high building, lept from the darkened permacrete and silently rode the still humid air the last few yards. Fanged jaws that could crush a man’s skull quietly opened wide. The scream that erupted from the woman didn't bother Mird. But the throat he was clinging to wouldn't be making noise ever again. 

The female had fallen to her knees in muted terror as she watched Mird finish his business off in the shadows. When the movement had stopped, Mird politely licked his chops clean before picking something up from the permacrete and padding back over to the female. She was frozen in horror as he came and sat down on his haunches in front of her. He dropped the hand blaster he had been carrying on the ground and looked at her expectantly. She stared at it uncomprehendingly. Mird gently put his muzzle over her shoulder and she slowly put her arms around him and then buried her face in his thick fur as she let out a sob of relief. 

Mird patiently stayed there until she smelled less like fear, and eventually she released him, picked up the blaster, and stood shakily to her feet. He accompanied her back out of the alley, and accepted one last grateful pat on the head. “Thank you," was all she said. He gave a quick sneeze to clear his nostrils, then trotted off. He was still hungry and the smell of food wasn't far. 

—-

Eventually Mird came to a long low building, all gleaming durasteel and glass paneling with sleek rounded edges. The smell of grease, protein, and sweetened starches cut with the sharp warm smell of hot caff was irresistible. It was a place Mird had been before with his master, and he began to drool as he remembered what could be found inside. The pleasant clinking and conversation sounds that he associated with eating tumbled out the open door set in the middle of the shiny building, and Mird eagerly trotted right in.  

A variety of beings were seated in booths under the windows along the outer wall, or on tall seats along the high counter that ran the length of the dining area. He started to trot his way down the aisle between them, dripping puddles of saliva the whole way.  

Suddenly, a customer gave a startled shout and a serving droid slipped in Mird's soggy wake dropping a tray of dirty dishes with a crash. The burly four armed figure of a Besalisk in a grease stained apron shouldered his way out from the kitchens and quickly went to reach for something under the counter top. Mird simply sat on his haunches panting good naturedly.  

The Besalisk paused and then straightened up. “Well I'll be.”he said thoughtfully. “Mird! I guess that means Vau is back on Coruscant then.” He glanced around. “Just you today? Tell you what, you bandit, you stop scaring my customers and trott yourself out and around back and I’ll get you something as a treat.” 

Mird obliged the alien, and obediently trotted himself out the door and slunk around back. He was rewarded with a big bowl of innards, entrails and the fatty trimmings that weren’t fit to feed the bipedal patrons. It was everything he had hoped for. He dug in with drooling relish and the big alien patted him on the head with a meaty hand.

“Good boy, Mird!” the alien chuckled. “You know, I always wanted a strill,” the Besalisk said to the curious cook that had followed him out and was now leaning against the back door puffing on the nub end of a death stick. “Rare they are, and wickedly smart! Almost full sentient level intelligence. Understand most speech too, even in more than one language if you get em young enough! His owner promised me I get first choice when Mird has little ones.” He scratched at the strill’s wrinkly hide again. 

“Mird, when are you gonna find a lady Strill and sire a litter, eh?” Mird was unmoved. As a proud hermaphrodite, Mird could reproduce with himself, by himself, when he decided the time was right. Although another strill would be more traditional. He’d had an intrinsic understanding about the nature of the clone soldiers he had worked with, and his experiences with them had only reinforced the wisdom of genetic diversity. 

Mird had finished his meal and was licking his chops in gratitude when the Besalisk held out a message capsule. “Here, Mird,” he said as he began to fasten the capsule to the strill's collar. “See that your papa gets this for me, will you? If he is here, then he is probably looking for intel. Lots of loud noises and things going bang around here lately,” he whispered conspiratorially. “And it wasn’t any Fete Week orbital fireworks either. Somebody has been taking out an awful lot of those clone boys he helped train, and I bet he wouldn’t mind a local’s take on things.” 

Mird stood still until the cylinder was in place. He had played the messenger before. He gave the alien's face an enormously drooly swipe with his tongue, which seemed to bother the cook watching from the door a lot more than the Besalisk. And then he was on his way. 

—-

Fed and happy, Lord Mirdalan trotted his way along the thoroughfares and walkways that crisscrossed the streets below the skylanes as the rain picked up again. Water flowed in trickles and rivulets to congregate in the sewer lanes under the sky bridges which eventually dumped the whole lot unceremoniously into the depths. Mird padded his soggy way over to the edge of a walkway and sniffed with interest. He watched the waterfalls pouring down into the dark. Interesting scents of musty decay and living things were wafting up from below and investigation was a given. He lept and began gliding his way down through an ever denser tangle of beams and catwalks looking for ground level. 

He didn’t find ground. In the dark close depths he eventually came to an enormous and slightly domed layer of sopping wet permacrete sub-basement that filled the claustrophobic spaces between the twisting maze of support struts and building foundations. Rivulets and waterfalls poured down through culverts and grated ducts that led further below. The permacrete layer stretched away as far as he could see through the tangle, and he found that he couldn’t descend any further. But his nose didn’t lie. There was life here somewhere and he began to slink his way carefully along in the dark.  

The surface was ancient, mossy, and covered with stagnant water-filled potholes. Only the barest fragments of dim light could be seen flickering down from the glowing buildings and streets above. But that wasn’t a problem for a creature totally comfortable navigating by hearing and scent alone. In the musky damp, the garbage piled in corners and crevices let off an odor even a strill found unappealing, and the soft sounds of dripping followed him as he moved away from the larger waterfalls. 

His claws clacked softly on the scree of centuries, flaking rust and rain-drenched rubble that had tumbled down from the buildings above. He made his careful way along, snuffling and sniffing the ground, when suddenly a screech cut through the humid air. 

Mird jumped sideways as a barbed tendril slashed out of a pile of garbage. It clanged against a metal strutt near him and a smell of ozone cut the air as an electric shock grounded itself in the beam. Mird growled defiance as the barb was whipped back, disappearing into the trash pile. No further attacks seemed to be forthcoming. Mird sniffed derisively at such cowardice and began to make his way further into the forest of rusted metal.  

Eventually he came to a deep jagged crack in the permacrete beneath his paws. Moist and fetid smells came up from below. Mird could smell life and breath, and he could hear soft movement. The hunter rose up in him again. Slowly, with his head low and his eyes glinting, he made his way down into the dark.  

He came out into a dim hazy expanse. The dome of permacrete stretched above him in the blackness and receded back into obscurity in all directions. Underneath it was a sea of garbage. Miles and miles of refuse stretched before him, and more occasionally poured in from culverts and shoots falling onto peaks and tumbling down tottering piles in the distance. The footing was treacherous, but Mird’s six legs had no trouble navigating the shifting mass. His nose didn’t do him much good here. The scents were overwhelming. But he could hear a scuffling sound from over the next ridge and he followed it with the silent grace of a natural hunter.  

As he crested the stinking hill he came upon an enormous grey rodent like creature, nearly as big as he was, with rows of armored plates that arced down its humped back. Each plate was topped with a wicked looking spike, as was the animal's whiplike tail. As it turned its beady little eyes to see the strill bearing down on him, Mird caught a glimpse of razor sharp boney tusks protruding from a pointed whiskered snout.  

Mird pounced and knocked his muzzle into the side of the creature trying to flip it and expose its soft underbelly. The armored rat swung with its tusks and barely missed raking Mird’s front legs as it was bowled over. The creature kept rolling, pulling its spikes down along its own back and righting itself again. It charged instantly, bringing its tusks in low toward Mird’s head, and its shoulder into Mird’s flank. The creature shoved the strill’s head away with its horned snout and tried to bite at his throat. 

Mird's three legs worked to fend off the bull rush as he yanked his long neck out of the way. But he was knocked into the pile of refuse and red beady eyes glared down at him gleaming with murder. Mird curled all six of his legs to his exposed stomach, and as the creature charged, he kicked out hard and sent it tumbling down the trash heap. 

The strill didn’t give the creature time to collect itself. He rushed in again and the armored rat lashed out with its tail. The strike caught Mird a slash across his flank. But strill skin is thick, and the welt barely drew blood. 

Mird had seen a soft spot as the creature had tumbled. The back of the neck just behind the skull had no plating, and with gusto Mird dove for it. He snapped and bit deep, his teeth ripping through soft flesh, and striking bone. The creature writhed, trying to bring its spikes and tusks to bear but Mird held it tight. It lashed out once with its tail, whipping a nasty cut across the strill’s snout, but Mird held on. He shook the heavy rodent with all the strength he could muster. He kept shaking until his foe finally stopped moving. 

Then he sat, happily victorious, in a deep crevice of the garbage ocean, and he licked his wounds with his long tongue. He was just about to enjoy the spoils of his hunt when something under him shifted. With a sickening stench the garbage beneath his paws heaved and an enormous puss white cilindar, covered in nearly transparent glassy scales, arced up under him. A toothed maw as big as Mird himself descended on the armored rat and bore it down deep beneath the garbage. 

Lord Mirdalan was no coward, but he wasn’t stupid either, and he knew a bad day when he saw it. He had cleared the crevice he had entered through before the writhing mass finished settling back into its heap of refuse. He had decided that, upon reflection, he didn’t like it down here one bit. Things here were thieves, and cowardly. They didn’t hunt honorably. And besides, it smelled like osik. 

—

Mird scrabbled and climbed his way up the scaffolds and metal struts that held up the gleaming city above. He finally came up under the clouded night sky, tired, stinking, and soggy, to find himself in a vast and deserted warehouse district. The rain had let up, but he found a handy fresh puddle to roll in and rinse off most of the refuse from the deep city. He shook himself with a fwumping noise like a rain shield until he was mostly dry. 

The spires of the federal district gleamed in the distance across the open space between two enormous warehouses, and he began to sniff his way along the thoroughfares that ran among the landing platforms and loading docks. 

Lord Mirdalan was in a bad mood. He had been denied his rightful meal and had endured a grueling climb back up to find a boring empty world where the air smelled like oil and engine exhaust. He was in a hurry to get back home and see if Vau had anything interesting that needed doing. He was just about to begin to run in earnest towards the city spires, but as he passed an ancient crumbling warehouse he scented something particularly interesting. 

Wafting from the building Mird caught a whiff of an acrid and metallic smell that he recognized from the previous evening. It smelled like the men his master had been chasing, and like the one that they had brought back to the operations center. It was the smell of explosives. That meant one thing to Mird: Prey. And at the moment it was the one thing that was absolutely guaranteed to turn his night back around. 

Avoiding the open loading bay door, Mird’s tree dwelling instincts took him up high and onto the roof. He found an escape scaffold that led to a balcony with a blown out window. Silently he slipped in among the upper catwalks that filled the walls and shadowed spaces of the cavernous dusky room. Beneath him were a number of beings in conversation, and the smells coming off them spoke of tension, fear, hate and suspicion. And of course, explosives. 

They were divided into two groups, and the parties were facing each other at a distance across the empty warehouse floor. All were on edge and heavily armed, although no one had drawn yet. No one, that was, except the two men Mird could see perched in the shadows, hidden in the rafters near him. They had wicked looking long barreled guns pointed down at the further group, and Mird could see the tension in their muscles and hear the quiet steady breathing of their focus. 

“So you don't have the materiel for us?” someone said with impatience. 

“No we don't, and I am sure you know why, slemo!” a man from the other group growled. His voice carried anger, and a tinge of fear. “Our supplier didn't show, and word is somebody nabbed him right off the street! Whoever did made a mess of our team too. Who do you think may have done that?” 

“Search me,” the first man said. “Sounds like a load of podo. You holding out for more credits won't get you anything but a hole in your hide.” 

Mird slowly slipped along the catwalk towards the nearest of the two snipers, his golden eyes glinting in the darkness, grinning lips curled back from fangs leaking drool. This was the stuff! And this time his master wasn't here to keep him from his fun. 

“We aren't holding out for anything,” the second man said, all manufactured bravado. “But I am telling you we didn't get the stuff. Give me a few weeks to find another supplier and we will be back on track.”

“Look, bantha brain,” the first man shouted, “the time table data we have won’t be good in a few weeks! If you don’t deliver, we miss our window. If we want to hit the next troop exchange we need the stuff tonight!” 

“Well, then maybe you shouldn't have sent amatures to jack our delivery contact and cut us out of the payment chain!” the second man shouted, his accusation finally aired. 

“You take that back! We are supposed to be all in this together.” His hand dropped to his blaster. 

“Looks like some of us are all in for themselves.” And his hand crept slowly beneath his jacket. 

Mird lept. The long gun went off as the gunner was born down on the catwalk, and the night opened up in sizzling chaos. Every man drew his weapon and started letting off glowing blaster bolts at any enemy he could see. Mird ducked back into the shadows the taste of hot blood on his ginning jaws. The other man on the catwalk was firing shots down into the mele, oblivious to what had happened to his comrade. He didn't even hear the strill approaching. Then he never heard anything again. 

The chaos had spilled out into the streets and Mird followed. He jumped from the window and soared over the remains of the firefight. Blaster fire traced red daggers through the dark, out of the warehouse, tearing after the remaining two runners. 

The last two fell in the middle of the landing platform with a smell of plasma burnt flesh. The last man standing stumbled out of cover, clutching a searing burn on his shoulder. He worked his unsteady way over to the fallen bodies. The strill didn’t hesitate. He dove, and suddenly there were no survivors. 

—

Mird made his satisfied way back to the dilapidated building and climbed the wall up to the balcony where his adventure had begun. Vau was waiting. He was sitting on the cold permacrete with his back to the wall, his jet black Beskar helmet on the ground beside him and he looked tired. He had a commlink resting in his open palm and was listening to an official sounding voice arguing with the knife wielding man about some kind of gang warfare their team had apparently kicked off. 

Mird snuggled up to Vau and threw himself most ignominiously across his master's legs and rolled on his back to receive the belly rubs he knew he so richly deserved for the night’s work.  

Vau obliged him with good humor. “And just what have you been up to, you di'kut? You’ve been scrapping again. I can tell.” He pulled out a rag and began dabbing at the slash across Mirdalan’s muzzle. “We better get a bacta patch on you!” Then he stopped. “What's this now?” he asked as his hand brushed the message capsule on Mird’s collar. 

Very carefully Vau removed the capsule. He opened it gingerly, and pulled the scrap of flimsy out of the cylinder. As he read the message he chuckled to himself. “So, you went to see old Dexter Jettster, did you? Mirdala Mird’ika! Clever Mird.” Vau scratched him with both hands under his jowls while Mird contentedly drooled into his lap. “Maybe I should pay Dex a visit,” Vau mused. “At the very least he may just have some idea what caused our suspects to so graciously remove themselves from the equation. Now come inside chakaar and let's patch you up.” 

As Lord Mirdalan followed his master into the warm glow of the ops center, the windswept planet spanning city spun on, uncaring of the wars and whims of the beings who inhabited it. An eternal city as full of secrets and hidden depths as the heart of the strill who had taken a walkabout under the rain in the dark of its starless night. 

Translations: 

• Chakaar - Mandalorian - Thief or grave robber - a common term of abuse 
• Di'kut - Mandalorian - Idiot - impolite 
• Mirdala Mird’ika - Mandalorian - clever little mird 
• Osik - Mandalorian - Dung
• Podo - Huttese -  Dung 
• Slemo - Huttese - literally slime ball - General term of abuse