The Neimoidian Jatz Singer (Flash fiction)

(Figg City Spaceport, Gerrenthum)
I thought it was me she was thinking of, but glitterstim was her true love
I lost the lot and she said see you later
Hopped off to Ryloth on a freighter
And left me alone, so so so, alone

Lou Arnos’s pupils narrowed as his fanfar-esque voice drifted through the crowded cantina mingling with plumes of smoke. If anyone had actually been paying attention to the song and the singer, they’d have seen that it sprang from the depths of his soul. Half of the establishment’s customers probably assumed that Lou was a Duros, the rest probably didn’t even consider his provenance.

Just over ten years earlier, Lou, was an officer on a Lucrehulk-class Droid Control Ship. Mid battle, numbed from the routine duties of monitoring the control computers, as vulture droid starships fought republic ships, his mind would drift away to smokey clubs like this one, where his voice would enchant the audience. He’d make a such a name for himself on the Jatz circuit that people would come from lightyears around to hear him sing. His songs of longing to be free of Neimoidian expectations of financial success, would bring many to tears and Twi’lek girls would compete to be his.

Tonight, as he sang his heart out to a disinterested crowd of pirates, gamblers, assassins, spice dealers, bounty hunters and smugglers, he longed to be back on that ship. He was free of Neimoidian cultural norms, but he was nobody now. He was just another indentured servant, working to pay an un-payable debt back to the crime-lord who ran this joint, much like the Twi’lek girls by the bar, who would only be his if the price was right, and he didn’t have that kind of credit.

Half way through another torch song, he just stopped singing. No one in the cantina seemed to notice. Everyone was doing deals, making money, settling scores. It was just like the Trade Federation, but less organised. He thought of just getting up and leaving, to see how far he’d get, but that thought only lasted seconds. The droid standing guard outside the door would notice. It was programmed for such eventualities. It was probably the only being in the sector who knew he existed. It would catch him in an instant, and even this lousy life was better than the spice mines of Kessel, or desiccating in an alleyway.
He let his mind slip away, to another smokey club where the customers hung on his every note, and sang.

Under the twin suns of Tatooine, between Bespin’s clouds,
As long as it takes me, I will find you.
From the towers of Coruscant, to the snow fields of Hoth,
If it takes me my whole life, I will find you

(This is from a SW flash fiction blog I started that focusses on everyday life in the rise of the Empire era. Only three posts there and I haven't posted anything in ages)