Author's Note:
First of all, before you begin reading, I strongly suggest reading "How Did I Get These Scars". It sets up a good portion of the story and is a prelude, if you will. Another note is that none of my other one-shots, no matter who is in them, are not related to "Space Bound" whatsoever, unless it is specifically noted that they are.
My goal was to depict the characters (especially Cad Bane) as much darker and edgier than the television show has allowed them to be. I wanted to see how far I could push myself in my portrayal of Bane, and it seems I fell over the edge into the abyss while doing it. But, it was fun. And I would do it again.
Also, you might notice I use 'Terran' profanity over Star Wars profanity, and that is intentional.
As always, feedback/comments/questions/praise/critique in the form of reviews are highly appreciated and welcome.
"Space Bound" is rated M for sexual content and themes, strong violence/gore, and Terran profanity.
"Space Bound"
Chapter One: A Night in Happyface
"Nobody knows me, I'm cold, walk down this road all alone
It's no one's fault but my own, it's the path I've chosen to go
Frozen as snow, I show no emotion whatsoever"
-Eminem, "Space Bound"
It must have been close to midnight.
Give or take a couple hours.
Starting yesterday he had stopped keeping track of the time as much as he usually did. The hours were blending together, slipping and giving way to the bottom of a bottle and the creases in wrinkled bed sheets. And frankly, he was all right with that. After having the Jedi on his tail for two months, it was a bit of a relief to not have to worry about every single minute and whether or not they were being put to good use.
Actually, in technical terms, the Jedi were still on his tail. They thought they were.
Because Jedi were naive in that way. They were illiterate to the ways of the bounty hunter. The mere concept of such a profession was a foreign language to the Jedi Code, and that was their major disadvantage. Jedi waited for him to come out in the open and surrender when he had had enough of the fighting and chasing. To say, I'm sorry, I'll take my punishment like the bad guy I am. However, nothing could be farther from the truth.
The bounty hunter doesn't have a job. He has a lifestyle. Jobs are things he can walk away from, call it quits on, and does for and only for the money. As soon as the choice is made early on, it is for life. After the first hiring, or the first kill, that lifestyle became not just permanent, but definitive. He knew what he did now was what he would be doing for the rest of his life, which could last anything from fifty years to two weeks.
The bounty hunter knows these things, and he can smell death when it is close behind him, a black creature ready to pounce out from the shadows. When the bounty hunter's trail is blistering with heat, and the prison cell still smells of his perspiration, he lays low. He lets the hours blend together, slip and give way. He has to be patient to let the storm pass.
And just when you thought he had given up and called retirement, he is back for yet another round in the ring. The bounty hunter never walks away—or rather, he cannot walk away. Instead of closing up the garage, he just decided to let the wheels cool off for a spell.
And that was exactly what Cad Bane was doing.
Two months ago, he was sitting in a Republic cell. His wrists had been numb from the stun cuffs, and his eyesight accustomed to the darkness. Back then, the Jedi thought they had gotten their revenge, that they had beat him to it. Two months ago. Not one Jedi had seen him since he escaped the prison.
Enough jobs in a row, Cad Bane had told himself. As much as he enjoyed the high-speed chase, the thrill of another victory, the ice-cold cash and the white-hot trigger, it was time to let those wheels cool off. After all, as long as the galaxy was populated, the cash and the bounties would be overabundant. Not to mention there were plenty of folks, some he knew personally, who could make good use of one-hundred-thousand credits—at least, that had been the bounty on his head once he escaped. It could very well have doubled since then for all he knew.
What the hell would a Jedi do with that kind of money?
He wasn't about to find out.
Anyway, back to the bounty hunter. The bounty hunter knows his geography like he knows his utility belt, and he can't be prepared for the next job until he can tattoo every major system on his drunk buddy's back. He has a list of names in his head he can go back to, a laundry list from his past. He knows how to get products on discount that the upper-class probably has never seen, smoked, or played with. There are places as well—where to find the underground leaders, where the best gambling takes place, and where to hide depending on the gravity of the situation.
If one asked a random citizen who kept up on news from the HoloNet, how many hideouts Cad Bane has, he would probably say, "Two, maybe three?" He had six.
His current residence of choice was Number Five. So far he had been here two weeks with little knowledge of the outside world and its happenings. His time spent in the Republic cell needed a chance to be forgotten and left behind. Number One was a ways away in a smaller, more condensed place. However, this one was crammed in the middle of the Coruscant underworld activity, the heat and the sweat and the dirt of blue-collar criminal work, and thus was the ideal place to stay secluded while also using the hectic crowds as a sort of defense mechanism. Number Five was also his personal favorite.
Why? Because it was closest to a place of which's name he had saved in the back of his mind for several years, now. Of all the cantinas in the galaxy he had attended to have a drink, an inaugural business chat, or to feast his eyes on that which the average person wouldn't see in sixteen lifetimes, one outdid them all. Hawke Noth Cantina was the name, a rare gem that could make the dirt shine with a bit of class, a quietly-spoken but widely-known secret among fellow mercenaries. When it was time to get off the road, recharge and cool off, a little spike of entertainment worked wonders. Yes. It was fascinating what only one night at Hawke Noth could do to a man, mentally and physically.
Cad Bane was pulled out of his thoughts when his comlink beeped. He flicked off the switch and glanced over the message. If it was one of his employers, he would have to refuse. Not out of timidity but pure logic of the trade, Bane had to keep business closed for at least another couple weeks. By then, the Republic's search for him would have winded down due to higher priorities, as what usually happened, and it would be clear enough to return out into the open again,
In a flash, he had shut off the comlink. After Cad Bane had donned his wide-brimmed hat, he stepped outside and locked the door behind him, returning to the neon, nicotine mess that was the Happyface neighborhood. To better shield his face, he lowered the brim of his hat a couple notches.
Happyface, an infamous name across this level of the Coruscant underworld, was renowned for its notorious stink of bile and rotten waste, as a heavy fix came by cheap and easily accessible on just about every street. A newcomer's green face and nonstop dry-heaving was easy to spot out, and with every night that passed in Happyface, one could learn to get used to the smell, as Bane had had to do. Aching, groaning buildings riddled with burn marks and graffiti overlapped the levels of traffic, and were sprawled out along the streets. Pulse neon lights flashed and danced overhead, forming shadows in the bleached alleys. The ground felt sandy and sticky under his boots. The soundtrack of the nightlife played out with the shrieking airspeeders, moaning drunkards, and the clinking liquor bottles. Someone nearby was lying unconscious, face-first in his own vomit. Another poor wretch sat on a rusty doorstep, asking anyone within arm's length for ten credits,
"Just ten credits, what more could I ask for? C'mon, man, I need a fix..."
Cad Bane scarcely heard him.
Finally some Trandoshan, who had been leaning against a wall with a drink not ten feet away, couldn't take the pathetic cries anymore. He pulled out a blaster and stuck it in the wretch's creased, soggy face, spraying brown saliva on his shirt as he hissed,
"I'll give you three seconds to shut up before I blow out your brains." The wretch barely had time to scramble to his feet before the Trandoshan growled, "One-two-three," and shot him between the eyes. After that, he finished off his drink and began picking at a scab just above his ass. The remnants of a crowd of passersby walked on like zombies. Like wasted, breathless rats.
Up above, the traffic whirred reassuringly as a reminder of a saner world above.
It took roughly fifteen minutes of walking, but Hawke Noth Cantina was soon visible on a dark corner of the street. Two cloaked guards blocked the entrance and bristled whenever someone walked past a bit too close. As Bane approached the guards, he held up his cantina pass. Only once they had taken notice of the pass did they step back and allow him inside. Not just anyone could be served at such a place, of course. Letting just any passing commoner in would make a once enjoyable setting terribly overcrowded.
He could hear the echo of his footsteps all the way down the flight of stairs. Far below, an electric drumbeat played to deep, rhythmic music, with occasional roars and hoots, screams and hollers, cheers and cries. Judging from the prolonged echoes, the Cantina was thirty to thirty-five steps downward, straight and veering slightly to the left towards the end. It wasn't as easy to tell since Bane hadn't been here in quite a while. In fact, he could not distinctly recall when he had last stopped at Hawke Noth. But that's what happens when a series of jobs disagrees with one's choice of residence.
Bane took another step. The darkness of the stairway, in spite of its familiar atmosphere, brought upon the recent recollection of his time in the Republic cell, and to say he'd rather not dwell in the memory was a gross understatement. They had questioned him every day about employers, the CIS, who he worked with, and he had said not one word the whole time. But that had been the surface of it. The guards in the Republic prison all held deep-seated grudges against the criminals they came across, for some reason. Maybe having a grudge was part of the training, or they were just bored—it didn't matter. Whatever their reasoning, the guards, given the chance, would disobey their orders from the Jedi, which was not to harm the prisoners in any way. That had been every day, too—day after day after day.
Sleemo assholes. Well, at least he had been able to savor a small taste of revenge. On the night of his escape, he had another prisoner, Acun Ragnos, had shared mutual enjoyment in electrocuting their least-favorite guard to death. It was too bad that during their escape, Ragnos fell behind and was trapped behind the doors just as Bane made it through. Just too bad. He had been a decent sharpshooter.
As Bane reached the halfway point of the staircase, a young Mandalorian clothed came up the steps, cursing under his breath. When his eyes caught the bounty hunter's, he stopped.
"Would you know," asked Bane, "if the Corrino brothers are here tonight?"
The young Mandalorian glanced back, as if expecting someone behind him.
"That's right," he answered. "I saw one of them there all right. Gasta, I think. What's it worth to you, stranger?"
"Gasta's weaker when he's alone. His brothers own his ass."
"Well, if that's what you're planning, you'd better consider thinking twice," said the Mandalorian, glancing back again. "Gasta is wiping out everyone tonight. The game is goddamn rigged."
"Is it Pazaak?"
"Sabacc," the Mandalorian hissed.
The bounty hunter nodded.
"Their favorite," he said.
"No shit. I lost five-thousand in the first round. Decided to call it quits before there was too much trouble."
"Well, you poor thing," the bounty hunter said, cracking a cynical, twisted thing he would probably call a smile. "I know how Gasta works when he's alone. If he's down there, I intend to make him swallow his own game." With that, he nodded and stepped down a few more steps, turning around only to say, "Take care, stranger." Before anymore could be said, the bounty hunter turned his back and disappeared into the darkness.
The music was loud at this point—obnoxiously loud.
As the steps veered to the left, lights began to flash rhythmically against the walls. A new tune rich with heavy, sensual drums started up, as he stepped into Hawke Noth Cantina. The air was thick with smoke and the smell of Dressillian beer. The music was so loud he could feel it shake the floor and brush back the edges of his coat. Round tables dotting the open room, and at the front was a long platform complete with poles and other delightful accessories. Four young Zabrak females clad in net costumes were currently in the middle of a dance routine that held a large majority of the crowd's approval. It was still fucking crowded as ever—looks like somebody had made good cash confiscating cantina passes.
Toward the far right, which hosted the game tables, Bane heard hisses of disappointment overcome by the laughter of a Boltrunian. Gasta Corrino. A round of Sabacc was just ending and the Corrino had won once again.
"Fucking rigged!" someone shouted.
But the Boltrunian was laughing and collecting his money, practically daring a laser bolt or two to be plugged right through him. Typical Corrino fashion.
Of course, thought Bane, it's still too early for a bar fight.
The outraged and indignant individual shoved his chair back, jumped up, and took off. As Bane made himself comfortable at an empty table towards the front, a Stennes dressed in a pewter-gray outfit walked up to him with a funny grin on his face. He tugged at his collar and said,
"You sure must have a good reason for coming here tonight, Bane."
A few nearby eavesdroppers glanced in their direction.
"I can't help it if I'm popular," Bane replied. He was, in fact, only half-listening to the Sennes. His focus was on the Zabrak dancers. Somehow his eyes couldn't stop dropping down to those pretty young thighs wrapped in the black nets—dark, tattooed, and full of experience.
"I hear there's a bounty on your head, old friend," the Sennes hissed through saliva-coated fangs. "Two-hundred thousand credits."
So, he had been right after all.
"At that rate, I should take it as a compliment."
"Lots of people could use that money, Bane. What's bringing you down here?"
Bane let out a long sigh of indifference, resting his hand on his left holster as if by second nature.
"I think that depends," said Bane, "on how well business is doing. Besides, on this street, isn't everyone on somebody's wanted list?"
"Sure, sure, but doesn't everyone have a blaster with somebody's name on it, too." Tukoga Noth tried stepping backwards, but all he did was stumble over and grab the back of an empty chair behind him with the elegance of a rancor, to which Bane just smirked. After he embarrassingly recovered, he added, "Well, I need to head back to make a few deals 'round the house for tonight. If someone asks for you, I'll tell you about it first." Tukoga paused. "Oh, and stay away from the Corrino brothers, why don't you. They're heating up a lot of dough tonight, and I heard Gasta's older brother Kel is coming later."
"Now don't start thinking you can scare me out of here," said Bane. "You should know by now that blasters with my name on it have to do a helluva lot more."
Tukoga, being yelled at from the other side of the room, slipped out from between the tables. Bane then decided to order his favorite drink, a Thuris Stout—darkly sensual, yet strong enough to kick the floor out if misused. Luckily, he had learned how to properly handle the stuff. His drink came back ice cold and frosted. He raised the glass to his lips and slowly swallowed, followed by an immediate rush of satisfaction running down his parched throat.
Then, the song playing in the background died out. The four Zabrak girls finished their dance and sauntered off the platform. A murmur for more soon commenced, which morphed into a growing shout. The sound surrounded him and consumed the whole cantina like a flood. Bane closed his eyes, his long fingers wrapped around the ice-cold glass, and he listened through his throat. In his deepest subconscious he carefully divided, chopped up, and sliced through that sound until he could hear every individual voice—every unique whistle, gurgle, chirp, crack, whip, roar, hoot, chant, and holler, all drowned in their own twisted levels of drunkenness.
And then all went dark. Shouting had never turned to cheering with such rapid fluidity in Hawke Noth.
The lights deepened to crimson and focused down on the platform, as three figures appeared around the poles, silhouetted against the beating, pounding red. They were Twi'lek females, and, in Cad Bane's opinion, one of the most gorgeous creatures in the galaxy. The two on the left and right were a pale, sickly-green color, and began twirling around the long silver chains fastened to their slave collars like scarves. In-between them was a skinnier girl with deep-red flesh. She was one of the Lethan kind, a rare one. She was dressed in nothing but a black leather bikini decorated with long white chains, a spiked collar, and a silver headpiece. In other words, she had little to hide. Bane had only seen a Lethan a couple times in his life, so he kept his eyes on her as the three began to dance. The crowd was ecstatic as the Twi'leks began a top-down routine on the poles, and accompanied by the loud as fuck drums, the technique was increasingly fulfilling its purpose. The Lethan flashed her round face in the beam of the spotlight and leaned in seductively to the lucky fellow sitting on the stool in front of her. Then she dropped to her knees and stole the show. As Thuris Stout ran down his throat, a silent smile slowly spread on Bane's face.
He glanced to the side of the room to catch a glimpse of who must have been the Twi'lek girls' slave owner. The owner was dressed in black clothes, his face invisible in the shadows. He waited with a handful of change credits. Bane saw a small group of males hand the owner a sum of money, and point to the two sickly-green Twi'leks.
These girls were prostitutes, he realized. Dancing for attention, making money off attention turned into pleasure.
He liked this. He liked the way his gaze couldn't be taken away from them as they continued their dance, especially the one in the middle. Her flesh was redder than human blood, hotter than fire. Every time he got a good look at her face in the spotlight, something in him pumped faster, something that had to be quenched right here, right now. She screamed luscious. She was a feast he wanted to gorge on, a world of color he wanted to explore. Maybe he should be paying less attention, but dammit, it was working.
Bane watched, sipping on his drink, as the fire-skinned Twi'lek took a step forward and claimed a dance all to her own. A feeling came over him as if he did not want to move a muscle, or maybe even could not move at all. She twisted one leg out and folded back the other; she crossed her arms over her head and the black leather stretched so tight he could see her tits beneath the covering. Her long chain fell down her side, along the back of her thighs and looped around the pole. At that, a unionized cheer erupted. Yes, he was paralyzed. The Lethan's face, for a moment, was suspended, and he could see it was full of greasy make-up.
He had to get under it and see what she was like without any of the decorations, the plastic additives, and then stay in that place to compensate what would have been a cold, lonely night.
Fuck it. He deserved it. He had earned a treat more satisfactory than a Thuris Stout. Even if her owner was unreasonable with prices, Bane would still have plenty of credits to play a couple rounds of Sabacc with the Corrino brothers. And after all, playing with fire was his delight.
So why wasn't he moving? Why did it feel like he was tied down to the chair?
Finish my drink first.
Bane stole another glance at the owner, who was still waiting for the highest bidder. It was then that Bane smelled a vile, repulsive odor of pink flesh, and salty crimson blood.
How did he not figure it out sooner? he wondered, perplexed at just how far he had allowed himself to go on a distraction track. Their owner was a Human.
Cad Bane did not like the smell of Human. Somewhere in some place it had rubbed off on him wrong, and like a bad childhood experience with a wild animal or a poisoned food, he could never put it away. It had always stuck. Yes, a few of their females had curves and a pleasant face, but he wouldn't fuck one if he was paid to do it. If he knew what it was he did not like about Humans, it probably would not be as much of a bother. Yet, it was.
Crossing his legs, Bane finished off his drink a bit quicker than he should have. Then he watched the Twi'lek's owner under the brim of his hat. The Human was waiting for the next offer or bargain, leaning against the wall, and fingering his change credits until they smelled of the yellow oil embedded in his pores.
And then...
Something inside Bane felt as if it had been shot, or opened its eyes for the first time. He looked back up at the red-skinned Twi'lek's greasy face.
Suddenly, it came to him. He saw something there he hadn't seen before. He saw something else. Something more. The hours no longer blended, but right then, they froze. And time just about stopped.
He had seen this girl before—a long, long time ago.
Revision Note:
Mostly just a polishing up of the prose, trimming here and adding there. Some grammatical stuff was changed as well, such as capitalizing "H" in "human" so it corresponds with other SW species. I changed one briefly-mentioned character's name because the original name resembled a canon one too much. Also, Bane's dislike for the Human species was originally going to be more of a major plot point, but in the revision I'm going to tone that down a bit, as it's merely a tool that will come into use during future chapters. I might add some backstory to it as well, but don't expect anything major (after all, we all have something we just "don't like").
