Chapter 4

When we heard the knock on the loading ramp we froze. I immediatly ran into the room with the bunks in it and I hid in an empty locker. I overheard their conversation with whoever this person was. I hid because I knew it could be trouble. Then I realized that they would probably want to inspect our ship. I tried as quietly as I could to open up my locker but I made a loud noise and heard, "What was that?"

"I don't know." Kor said.

"Can I go take a look around?" the unknown person said.

"Um...sure."

Then I knew I had to move. I shifted a few things around and found a trapdoor in the floor. It led to a cargo hold. It had a vent on the top so it didn't look like a trapdoor.

They came into the room with a person in a uniform. Maybe it was an officer. He had a blaster on his belt. Merr-Sonn Model 44 blaster.

"Well I think that's all I need to see. Thank you."

He left, but I wasn't so quick to leave. I looked around and found a body. A body. It took me a second to realize that this person was dead. They had been tied up and obviously been forgotten about. I was amazed to find someone in this place.

When I finally got out I asked, "What did he want?"

"He said that there was a stolen airspeeder that was landed in the bay next to this. He wondered if we knew anything about it."

A stolen airspeeder parked in the bay next to this.

"That was my airpseeder!" I said.

They all looked like they saw a ghost.

"The Guild gave it to me! I didn't know anything about it before I got it."

"Well it's probably best that you don't have it now. If you got caught with it that would just complicate things." Mark said. We all knew he was right.

Over the next few days Mark seemed to change. He seemed a little more rough around the edges. More violent. I don't know if he knew that I found that body or if something was bothering him.

"Is something wrong, Mark?" I asked him.

"No. Everything is fine." he said and he walked away.

Something had to be wrong.

The next day we continued our search for the bounty hunter. I went back to the Guild in my armor and all and found the head bounty hunter.

"Is there a way to find out who other bounty hunters are?" I asked him.

"Why do you want to know?" he replied.

"I'm looking for someone."

"The most recent way of knowing is the kill sheet. It shows the target, their bounty worth and who collected the bounty. You can find it in the room down the hall."

I ventured down the hall and went in the room. There was a big glass screen with a giant list on it. Every now and again a new name would pop up. I looked at the collector's names. I tried to find the most frequent ones. The only problem is that there were a lot of people. I scanned the list a few times and found three names that popped up a lot. A rodian named Doda, a trandoshan named Ssuurg, and a quarren named Tsillina. I now knew the names of three potential threats. I hoped that one would be the one we're looking for. I went back to the ship and it was just Kor and Neesh.

"Mark's gone." Kor said.

"Mark's gone? Where did he go?"

"We don't know. He took the airpseeder too." Neesh said.

He took the airspeeder. That could complicate things a little.

"Well on the bright side I found names of the three biggest bounty hunters on Nar Shaddaa."

That was good news I thought. Now the big test was to find them.

"Well the last thing we should worry about is Mark. I'm sure if he's that mad then he'll continue being mad until he calms down. When he does we may or may not be here. That's his problem."

I suited up my armor again and put my blaster in its holster. Neesh and Kor decided to come along with me just in case I get myself into trouble.

"What do you guys do exactly?" I asked them.

"I am a pilot and when I don't do that I'm a soldier. Neesh is a sharpshooter." Kor told me. That would explain their rifles. We unloaded from the ship and I looked in the bay next to ours and saw the airspeeder surrounded by armed guards, and police. I don't think they wanted anyone messing with something worth 15,000 credits. We headed out into the city and I went to the Guild to see if I could talk to an employer. A little extra money wouldn't hurt. I was lucky enough to find one. My goal was to find a duros named Kir Vinta. The information that I got from this man is that he likes to drink. He goes to cantinas a lot and gets drunk enough to fall down most of the time. That was all I needed to know. I knew where to go. I remembered the night that we saw the two trandoshans and the twi'lek pinning a duros to the ground. Could that be him? It was time to find out.

"Let's go back to that cantina that we were at on the night we got here." I said.

We got there and it was still a little early in the day, but we were going to take our chances. Sure enough there was one duros in the cantina. There were others there, but he was the only duros.

"Excuse me, are you Kir Vinta?" I asked.

"Don't let them get me! I didn't do nothin!" he yelled. He obviously hit the cantina kinda hard already.

We walked away. We knew it was him. We camped outside the cantina until he left. We were prepared to wait a while. Kor and Neesh went up to the roof while I waited near the door. People went in and out all night. There was only one person that we wanted to come out. Kir Vinta was the last person to come out. He drank so much that he fell down after he fell out of the door. I grabbed him and pulled him into the alley.

"Help! I'm being attacked! Help!" He yelled. That was a problem. Two policemen ran to the scene. I already had out my blaster and it was pointed at his head.

"Drop the blaster!" one policeman yelled.

I didn't move. I was debating what to do.

"Drop the blaster!" he repeated.

"No."

Then it was on. I pulled the trigger, and burned a hole in Kir Vinta's head. The policemen were shocked. I had my helmet on so they couldn't see my smirk. They pulled out their blasters and I knew I was in for some trouble. When I gave the signal to the guys on the roof the policemen hit the ground. I just made sure they were dead when I gave them each an extra shot. I pulled them into a dumpster and left them. I grabbed Kir Vinta and then we were off. By then Kor and Neesh were down from the roof.

"Don't you feel bad about killing three people?" Neesh asked me.

"You guys helped."

"That's true."

That was where the conversation ended. I didn't feel bad to tell the truth. I knew that I was going to have to eventually. When we got to the Guild I went to my employer and dropped the body on his floor.

"This is him."

"Good work. Here is your pay. Two thousand credits."

He handed me a credit chip with two thousand credits on it. I could do quite a bit with two thousand credits. It was exciting to hold that much in my hand at one time. I haven't held two thousand credits all at the same time on Tatooine except for that time that I bought a few things to do some repairs on some ships I was working on. Now that I think about it, I could probably make my own ship. Now that I'd need to. Or I could make an airspeeder since Mark took the only one we had. He still hadn't returned. It was late, so we decided to go to bed.

The next day we got up again, and I went to the Guild.

"Is there a way I can find where some people are?" I asked the head bounty hunter.

"Who do you need to find?"

"Doda, Ssuurg, Tsillina." I said.

"Oh, so you are looking for other hunters. That's a lot easier. Doda is on his homeplanet of Duro. Ssuurg is on Bothawui and Tsilina is on a special mission on Korriban."

"Korriban you say?"

"Yes, Korriban."

Korriban, home of the Sith. Also the home of the Sith Academy.

That would be our next stop. First we would have to look for Mark.