The twin suns gazed down on the barren deserts of Tatooine, its lands ever so dangerous and exciting. Mos Eisley Spaceport stood proudly in the middle of the Great Mesa Plaeteu, north of Anchorhead and southeast of the Jundland wastes, where the most wretched sum and villany settle for shady trades and the occasional bar fight.
A dark green, saucer-shaped starship with gold and silver highlights made its landing at bay 51, where a tall figure with a large, wide-brimmed metal hat stepped off the landing platform. His skin was green and rough, with a poncho and long battle skirt covering his body; his yellow eyes glowed as bright as the two suns above his head. He had a gas mask over the lower half of his face and a bowcaster strapped his back.
"That's fifty Peggats for a day." A Rodian who stood at the entrance looked at the tall figure, who stayed a menacing silence as he approached him.
The figure mumbled something almost incomprehendible.
"Sorry, I don't speak Kyuzo." The Rodian called his associate over the comlink, "Wait a second here…"
The figure simply walked out the port, in the Rodian's hand were fifty Peggats.
-Line Break-
"What would you like?" The man behind the bar table wiped a few glasses as the figure sat down and took off his hat, revealing his bald head.
"A Hutt's Delight will do." The figure's yellow eyes pierced Wuher's knowingly.
"Will do." Wuher turned around to start mixing the drinks.
"Thank you, Wuher."
Wuher turned around, confused.
"How do you know my name?"
"That's what people call you." The figure was playing with a coin, letting it roll across his slim, gloved fingers, "I heard from your colleagues."
"You've got pretty good observation skills compared to most people who hang out around here." Wuher slid the tailored drink to the figure while wiping his hands.
"I am not most people." The figure took a sip through the filter in his mask and set the glass down, his yellow eyes staring at the liquid within.
"Out of all places, why here?" Wuher asked.
"I have a job to do." The figure took another sip and massaged his neck with his left hand, "My contact is supposed to be here any time now."
"Well you and your contact better not make a mess." Wuher slid the glasses back on the rack.
"Our profession does not allow messes."
"I've had enough with you!" A Duros in the back shoved a red-skinned Twilek, "Time to pay up!"
"I told you I'll give you the credits after the job is done!" The Twilek shoved him back.
"I've got a family to feed!"
"And so do I!"
"Hey hey hey! Take it outside!" Wuher yelled across the room, but the two didn't seem to hear him, "And no blasters!"
"And of all the places you could've opened business, you chose Tatooine." The figure chuckled.
"Let me just…. Deal with these two first." Wuher took a blaster plastered under the counter, but the figure stopped him.
"How much for the drink?" The figure snorted.
"Five Peggats," Wuher holstered the blaster into his pants, "Why ask?"
"Think of the drink as the house's treat…" The figure took off his hat and leaned it against a wall, "And I promise I won't make too big of a mess."
"What is it that you do?" Wuher asked.
"I'm a bounty hunter."
The figure got of his seat and walked towards the two gentlemen. Kicking the joint of the Duro's left knee, forcing the blue-skinned humanoid to kneel down in pain. The twilek quickly pulled out his blaster pistol and took aim, but the figure slammed his fist into the Twilek's wrist and wrestled the pistol from him.
The twilek raised both his hands in surrender as the bounty hunter pointed the blaster pistol at his head. The whole cantina was silent now, the music and people chattering stopped to watch the fight that lasted only a couple of seconds.
The twilek's legs were trembling, his body was shaking like crazy as he stared down the barrel of his own blaster pistol. Surprisingly, the bounty hunter unloaded the clip of the blaster and forced the loaded bolt out of the chamber, followed by several clattering sounds as he dismembered the blaster and dropped the pieces on to the ground.
The twilek's expression slowly relaxed, but quickly turned into a smug grin as he tried to throw a punch at the bounty hunter's face, but could only feel a firm grip on his fist as the bounty hunter caught his punch easily and held it there all the while staring at him.
"What….. Let go of me!" The twilek demanded.
"If you would be so kind to tip kind Wuher for the mess you and your associate made." The bounty hunter hissed.
"Fine!"
Just as the bounty hunter turned around, the twilek unsheathed a dagger from the back of his belt and snuck up on him. Raising the blade above his head, he struck.
The crowd gasped as the bounty hunter turned around as fast as lightning, siezed the twilek's knife arm, and shoved the blade into the twilek's stomach. Blood started to ooze from the twilek's wound and mouth as he slowly rocked back and forth and finally fell into the bounty hunter's arms.
"No second chances." The bounty hunter hissed as he laid the twilek gently on to the ground, "I'm that sort of a man."
"You…" The twilek choked on his blood as he struggled to deliver his words.
"Rest now, man." The bounty hunter put his hand over the twilek's eyes to close them. Reaching inside the corpse's pockets, he pulled out a small pouch of credits.
"Take them and your dead friend." The bounty hunter tossed the credits to the Duros, "And get out of here."
The Duros didn't need him to remind him twice and limped out the cantina with his dead associate on his back.
"Sorry about the mess." The bounty hunter tossed Wuher twenty Peggats and sat back down at the counter.
"You and I have very different definitions of not making a mess." Wuher took the credits and poured another drink, "What's your name, stranger?"
"Embo."
There were two Weequays sitting next to Embo who kept staring at him after the fight, but once hearing his name, they glanced at him and shivered. Wuher saw this, plus he himself watched the bounty tallies everyday just before he goes home.
"Then tell me, Embo…" Wuher leaned in and whispered, "What job are you taking this time?"
"My employer only instructed me to wait here for my contact." Embo had a hand on his chin while his other tapped the table gently, "I don't even know what my contact looks like."
"Well, your employer sure seems pretty mysterious." Wuher smirked as he drank from his bottle of blue milk.
"Who knows?" Embo sighed as he put his wide-brimmed hat back on.
"Do you have any hints from your employer?"
"He just said it was going to go off with a bang."
"Nobody move!" A squadron of clone troopers declared as the door to the cantina was kicked down. The troopers scattered into the premises, taking their stances.
"Probably here for the twilek you murdered earlier." Wuher whispered to Embo, "You should probably go."
"They're not clone troopers." Embo said calmly, "Can I have another drink before I go?"
"S…Sure." Wuher poured Embo another Hutt's Delight and slid it towards him, which he devoured in one gulp, "How do you know they're not legit?"
"See the blast marks on their armor plates?" Embo didn't even bother to look at them.
"No, why?" Wuhere said skeptically.
"I mean, they did a pretty good job of trying to clean and mend them." Embo flexed his fingers, "But those marks are lethal for a normal trooper."
"So you mean they killed those troopers and stole it off them?"
"I doubt it. They Probably scavenged them off a battlefield." Embo said, motioning for another drink, "See the trooper close to the entrance?"
Wuher looked at the clone trooper who stood at the entrance: the blast marks were pretty obvious on the snow-white armor, all in the stomach or the chest; the trooper's stance was lazy and lacked the spirit of a soldier, even the way he was holding his rifle wasn't right. Looking at the head, Wuher noticed something that almost made him laugh…
There was no neck visible between the head and the torso.
"Too short for a clone trooper, eh?" Embo smirked under his mask as he sipped on his second drink, taking small, graceful sips this time.
"So why are they here?" Wuher was confused.
"Remember when I said my employer said my contact was going to go off with a bang?" Embo sighed.
"I think he meant that literally."
"You there!" Two of the troopers approached Embo, who kept on sipping his drink, "You're…"
"Let me finish my drink, sleemos." Embo twirled the shot glass in his hand as he stood up, taking a few last sips before drinking the whole thing.
One of the troopers gripped his blaster tighter, as if he wanted to punch Embo in the face, but the other stopped him by placing a hand on his shoulder.
So they understand Huttese? Embo thought.
"Come on, we don't have all day." The first trooper said, handing Embo a pair of cuffs, "Put 'em on yourself."
Embo didn't need them to ask twice and put the cuffs on.
"Now follow us."
Embo took one last look at Wuher before turning back around to follow the clone troopers out of the cantina.
"What do we do now?" One of the troopers hissed to the other.
"Find an alley." The other responded.
Twisting and turning into dark alleys of Mos Eisley, the "troopers" slowly dispersed into the darkness, leaving only the two troopers and Embo at a dead-end.
"What's the job?" Embo asked as the two troopers uncuffed him.
"We're going to Christophisis." The short trooper said, but his voice had changed into one of a female.
Vocal manipulators, huh? Embo thought.
"And yes, it was one of our people who got in touch with you." The other "trooper" added, her original voice resurfacing.
"Christophisis? Like dealing with Seperatists and enslaved Twileks?" Embo asked.
"Yes." Both "troopers" replied.
"Don't tell me those poor souls got enslaved again…"
One of the "troopers" aimed her blaster rifle at Embo, but was quickly disarmed as Embo swiped his leg across, kicking the blaster out of her hands. At the same time, Embo reached for his bowcaster and aimed it at the other trooper who still had her blaster.
"You'd better think your actions through before you act them." Embo snarled.
"I think we should all calm down here." The taller "trooper" pulled off her helmet, revealing brown eyes and two blue twin tails at the back of her head, "He's probably our only hope."
"We should have called Cad Bane!" The shorter one protested, but she kept her helmet on, "He wouldn't have…"
"Cad Bane would have shot you on the spot if you tried anything like that." Embo scoffed, "Besides, he's still rotting in the most secure prison on Coruscant."
"That's why we hired you!" The shorter one said.
"Look, I know this seems weird for an employer to treat an employee like this." The blue twilek put her blaster down slowly and raised her hands in surrender, "But we don't have a choice."
"My employer promised me five hundred thousand credits if this gets down." Embo slung his bowcaster on to his back, "What am I supposed to do?"
"The Seperatists have taken control over Christophisis again." The blue twilek put her hands on her hips, "And they're increasing their defenses over the past few weeks."
"And we want you to break in and free our families." The shorter one pulled off her helmet too, revealing two red tails and amethyst orbs.
"Why didn't you ask the Republic for help? I'm sure they'll be happy to send troops down to liberate it again." Embo crossed his arms.
"The Seperatists set up one of the biggest blockades I've ever seen." The blue twilek pulled up a hologram of the blockade.
There was a huge space station in front of the planet, surrounded by Seperatist ships and battle-cruisers. Droid fighters were patrolling the perimeter in whole squadrons while mines were planted across the debris.
"We and a few others were the only ones who escaped." The blue twilek retracted the hologram, "I'm Jessie."
"I'm Charlotte." The red twilek said smugly.
Embo stayed silent, but his nods gave the acknowledgement to the two twileks.
"But how are we going to get there?" Charlotte asked.
"I suppose you girls have a ship?" Embo asked.
"We…crash-landed here." Jessie had a small tint of red on her cheeks.
"Well, I guess there's only one option left…" Embo placed his hand on his forehead in frustration.
-Line Break-
"Here she is." Embo said, leading the twileks to his ship, the Guillotine: the dirty yellow rocks complimented her dark green paintjob perfectly, although several parts of the ship were scratched, revealing silver and grey marks of steel.
"That's a pretty small ship." Jessie commented in a mellow manner.
"You kids might want to sit in the compartment deck." Embo lowered the landing platform and stepped on to it, "I don't want to suffocate in the cockpit of my own ship."
"You know, you're such a jerk sometimes." Charlotte said haughtily.
The twileks have changed back into their civilian clothing and abandoned the scavenged clone armor. Most of them wore tunics, but Jessie wore a tight tank top and skin-tight pants while Charlotte wore a vest and shorts.
"Must have been your imagination." Embo scoffed as he opened the compartment deck of his ship, allowing the twileks to board his ship.
As the different colored humanoids boarded Embo's ship, he had noticed the blue-tailed twilek stayed next to him.
"Get on board, kid." Embo motioned her to board the Guillotine.
"You're going to need a copilot." Jessie said with a hint of arrogance.
"I don't need one." Embo wanted to shove her on to the compartment deck, but his conscience kicked in the last second, "Get in or I'll carry you inside."
"I'd like to see you try."
Charlotte walked up to the duo and stood there with her arms crossed.
"Jessie can best anyone in combat, you won't beat her because you can't."
"Really now?" Embo raised an eyebrow while Jessie looked at him peculiarly.
"Not everyone, but most people."
Before Embo could respond, Jessie swept her legs under, taking him off balance; sitting on top of him, she pinned his arms to the ground firmly while staring into his yellow eyes with a sense of mischief.
"You're pretty strong for a girl your age…" Embo groaned, "Pretty good at close combat too."
"I'd take that as a compliment." Jessie said with a wink.
"But the only advantage you had was the element of surprise."
Jessie's eyes widened as Embo lifted her up and threw her off him without effort. She tried to take a defensive stance, but Embo tripped her knee joint with the tip of his boot, forcing her to kneel down on one knee.
"Still have lot to learn, have you?" Embo chuckled as he pulled Jessie back up on her feet.
"I should have pinned you down harder." Jessie said with a smirk.
"Can you two stop flirting and get on the ship? It's probably stinky and suffocating in the compartment deck!" Charlotte glared at the two.
"We're not flirting!" Jessie protested with a blush on her cheeks.
Calm but easily flustered? Embo thought.
"Anyways, I'll talk to you once we reach Christophisis." Jessie patted some dirt off her pants, and started to walk towards the compartment deck, "The people need sleep."
"Wait."
"What is it?" Jessie turned around to look at Embo, confused.
"Get in the cockpit."
"I thought you said…"
"You surprised me in combat, I'll give you that." Embo crossed his arms.
"That's why you're letting me be your copilot?"
"You crash-landed your ship, I'm not letting you touch the controls." Embo pointed his finger at Jessie, who responded with a small pout, "Just watch and learn."
"And I thought you were one of the meaner ones?" Jessie asked teasingly.
"You're just a kid, now shut up and get on board before I actually shove you into the compartment deck."