Preface

What? Oh, it's you again. Back for more, huh? Wasn't satisfied with what I've already told? I don't blame you. I left you with a pretty crazy cliffhanger last time. I guess I'll have to keep going, but... where to start now?

I guess I should start from the beginning. As you may already know, my name is Jay Kolta and I'm a bounty hunter. I was – am – the partner of a Mandalorian known as Cin Vhetin. Vhetin rescued me a little over a year ago after I was thrown in prison by Imperials for a crime I never committed. After he rescued me, I decided to become a bounty hunter like him. He agreed, a little reluctantly at first, and taught me everything I now know about hunting down criminals for profit.

Oh, don't make that kind of face at me. It sounds worse than it is and I only go after criminals who really deserve it. I'm not like those other hunters who would shoot someone for a handful of credits. Vhetin taught me better than that.

Anyway, Cin and I worked together for a year. I trusted him, even though he was very mysterious. He never removed his helmet around me and he never talked about his past. He had some weird form of superhuman abilities, like being able to run faster and jump higher than normal humans. He never explained that either. It was frustrating, but that was just the way he was. I was willing to accept that.

We made a pretty kick-ass team and over the course of our partnership we found ourselves pitted against Imperials, terrorists, Barabels, even Sith Lords. We had some crazy adventures and we became good friends. In fact, he was one of the best friends I've ever had.

Then everything came crashing down when Vhetin was attacked by a vicious Imperial agent known as the Tracker. The Tracker hunted Cin down with brutal, ruthless tactics and pushed us all a little over the edge. We both did and said some things we didn't really mean.

Eventually, Vhetin decided to face the Tracker alone, but not before he finally came clean with his past: that he was in actuality a near-human species of Kiffar who didn't remember anything about his past before he was found half-dead in the wreckage of a starship crash on Mandalore. He told me that the Imperials wanted to capture him to try and do something with his blood and his DNA. He thought they wanted to find a way to transfer his Kiffar abilities to human beings via some kind of serum or medical gene therapy technique.

He told me to leave him while he fought the Tracker, that if he succeeded he would return to Mandalore. While I was retreating, though, the entire spaceport where he was fighting was blown sky-high. It was... difficult to see that and believe he was still alive.

But I believed it all the same. I refused to think that my partner and my best friend was dead. I promised that wherever the Tracker had taken him, I would find him and free him.

So I tracked that bastard Imperial agent down, subdued him, and forced him to tell me how to find my partner. He revealed only the first link up in the chain from him, his commanding officer, who might know where to go from there. After that, I don't care what happened to the Tracker. Last I heard, he was rotting away in the Keldabe City Prison, but I wasn't really paying attention at the time. Like I said, I didn't care. I was obsessed with finding his commanding officer so I could follow the next lead.

First I went to the cops. Like a fool, I thought that Imperial Law Enforcement would actually care about a psychopath kidnapping an Imperial subject. But they just said that it was beyond their jurisdiction. That they had orders from the top to keep their noses out of it.

Negotiations past that point were less than friendly, and two law enforcement officers were put in the medcenter before I left. I was almost arrested, but I was able to get out before anything unfortunate happened.

Next, I went to the military. I tried to get the Department of Military Investigations to look into the Tracker. I knew he used methods that Imperials would disapprove of, but they wouldn't listen. They said that the methods of agents in the field were not a civilian's concern. Unfortunately this office had stormtroopers with rifles, so I wasn't able to argue my point further.

I honestly tried every legal source I could find, but they all turned out to be osik'kove. So, naturally, I turned to my own sources. Sources that felt most at home operating outside the law.

My first ally was Sekha, the leader of the Bloody Dawn criminal syndicate. As distasteful as I find it working with her, she likes Vhetin and she was willing to spend quite a lot of money and manpower to find him. I'll probably regret going to her later, but she was an invaluable ally.

Using Sekha's contacts, plus my own allies in the bounty hunting industry, I was able to find a few more leads. Nothing of consequence, but I slowly made progress. Vhetin's captors seemed to fade away like smoke whenever I grew close enough to find anything. It wasn't entirely unexpected, but they were everywhere and nowhere at once. As soon as I tracked down enough of their men, the people in charge of the operation put a price on my head.

I didn't care. All I cared about was finding my partner. With Sekha's help, I managed to track down an Imperial Security agent by the name of Kriska. As soon as I found him, the man squealed like a Gammorean. He told me all he knew about what they were doing to my partner: experimental conditioning techniques, biological testing, torture.

That was three months ago. I've found the Tracker's commanding officer and followed up the next lead. And the next, and the next. I've come across some things I'm sure the Empire wouldn't be proud of. I've done some things I'm not proud of. But in the end it all doesn't matter, because I'm going to find my partner if it's the last thing I do.

And now I'm back on the job, following a new lead, hopefully to the biggest prize: Vhetin himself.

Maybe I should explain. Yesterday, shortly after midnight, I received a comm call. I remember groggily rolling over in bed and muttering, "What the fierfek?"

I answered the comm, shaking hair out of my eyes, and muttered, "Whoever this is, you'd better have a damn good reason for calling."

It was one of my contacts, one of the many people I begged or bribed to help me in my search. They said only five words, but those five simple words jolted me awake faster than a cup of steaming caf.

"I think I've got him."

In an instant I was up out of bed, pulling on my clothes and frantically grabbing for my pistol on the bedside table. "I want security footage, reports on local Imperial forces, and coordinates, and I want it ten minutes ago. How'd you find him?"

"I have my ways," was all my contact would say. I nodded and thanked him, signing off and booting up my datapad to wait for the information. I ran a hand through my messy just-woke-up hair, staring at the datapad screen intently while I waited for the info to download.

A window popped up on the screen and a progress bar signaled download. My heart was pounding in my chest and my breathing had increased. As soon as the progress bar had filled and the download had completed, I snatched the pad and scrolled through the reports my contact had sent me.

Imperial medical facility... heavily guarded... Darth Vader and other high-ranking Imperials seen entering facility on several occasions... sounds like the place.

I heard a grumble and the covers shifted slightly. A sleepy voice murmured, "Wha... What's going on?"

I smiled slightly and crawled back over the bed. "Progress," I whispered, then kissed the man in bed next to me. "I have to leave for a few days, baby. I'll be back as soon as I can."

He blinked his bright blue eyes and said, "You've found him?"

"I hope so."

He sat up in bed, rubbing his eyes. "Well... good luck, I guess. Be careful, yeah?"

I kissed him again and said, "Aren't I always?"

He smiled a little and said, "It's only because of my level-headedness that you haven't gone to prison in the last months. I'm serious. The Imperials guarding him... they aren't going to be messing around."

"Neither will I," I said, scooping up my protective armorleather jacket from the floor next to the bed. I pulled it on quickly, tucking my comm and my datapad into the pockets. "I'll be fine. I'm not going to lose him again."

"Oya, then."

"Oya." I nodded as I half-ran down the stairs that led down into the rest of my apartment. I yanked open the door and stepped outside, ready to head out into the galaxy once more for the most important hunt of my career.

That was yesterday. After that, I linked up with some friends and now we're all heading to the coordinates my contact sent me. It may be nothing but osik – as some of my Mando friends would say – and it may even be a trap. But I don't care. My partner may be there, and I've gone through too much to give up now.

The navicomputer lets out a chime, signaling that we've reached our destination. I reach forward and pull back a lever. My ship, Vengeance, explodes back into realspace, the stars going blurry for a moment before resolving back into their normal twinkling pinpoints. I check in with the others, who have also just come out of hyperspace, before turning my attention to the green-black world hanging in space before us.

That's the place. If my info is right, there should be a medical facility down on that planet. And in that medical facility is my partner.

If you're there, hang tight, Vhetin.

I'm coming for you.