15,762 – 15,609 BBY
*So, we previously looked at The Pirate Prince, which was Part II of The Despotica, a Hyperspace series. This is Part III.
*As you might notice, Xim at Vontor dates at almost 10,000 years after the First Schism. We’re making time now!
*So, a brief introduction notes that it’s been over 10,000 years since Lyechusas wrote The Pirate Prince. Xim at Vontor is written by a guy name of Peshosloc, who was a writer/director of holodramas. We are told that Xim at Vontor is still considered a great holodrama.
*We are only given excerpts, not the whole thing.
*So, whereas The Pirate Prince was written in the Greek Tragedy style, this one is written in screenplay format.
*So, as our story begins, we are reintroduced to Xim, Indrexu, the consort he took from his own father at the climax of The Pirate Prince, and Oziaf, Xim’s assistant/companion. The Third Battle of Vontor is just winding down; Xim is stomping the living hell out of the Hutts.
*Then we discover that Jaminere, Xim’s aide de camp (or something) is having an affair with Indrexu. They are plotting to kill Xim at this big victory banquet. All of Xim’s ‘allies’ are in on this as well.
*So, the banquet arrives and I was really sort of expecting the whole point of this story to be that Xim was aware of their treachery and he was going to turn the tables on them in some fantastic, clever way.
*But I was wrong about that. The treachery blindsides him and, long story short, Xim gets shot in the head by Jaminere. Jaminere and his fellow traitors take their leave.
*The wounded Xim drags himself to Oziaf’s workshop. One eye has been completely destroyed by Jaminere’s blaster shot.
*Then, in what would obviously rival a scene from the Saw series were this actually filmed, Xim forces Oziaf to replace his destroyed eye with a droid’s eye. The scene description is fairly graphic. Xim remains conscious throughout the operation.
*Xim remarks on how wonderful it is to see as his war droids see. He tells Oziaf he wants the other eye replaced. Oziaf says the other eye is perfectly healthy and does not need replacement.
*Xim frigging pulls his good eye out of its socket and squishes it in his hand. The scene description tells us that ‘vitreous humor’ squirts in all directions. Oziaf replaces the other eye.
*I could see this being a movie.
*The final scene is of Xim and Oziaf arriving at Lord Tion’s secret lair. Xim is aware that Jaminere, Indrexu and the other traitors are inside the lair. Xim vows that this very day, he will have his vengeance. And then the story ends.
*What the . . . .
*Okay, well, I guess it’s just the excerpts and maybe we get the story of his vengeance later or something.
*Well, this one was quite a bit better than The Pirate Prince. As I say, it was in screenplay format, which works better than Greek Tragedy, as you may recall from my savaging of The Pirate Prince’s faulty premise.
*Anyway, this story actually surprised me a couple of times. I was shocked that Xim was entirely taken in by the treachery of his underlings. And then the eye replacement scene was pretty well a shocker since I really didn’t know any details about Xim prior to reading these two stories.
*The last scene is oddly grafted on. It is obvious to me that Xim at Vontor should have ended with the replacement of Xim’s second eye. His final line in that scene, “Their world is my world now,” is a great climactic line for a story about how Xim’s humanity began to be subsumed by electronics. It would have been a killer ending.
Michael Kogge
** out of **** stars.
*Next time, we’ll make some more time. We’ll move approximately 8,000 years on up the timeline to talk about the second great schism of the Jedi Order. Join me next time and we’ll talk about The Hundred-Year Darkness.