"Kill Number One": a male blue-skinned Duros with a renowned career as a manipulator of women and a solicitor of every local cantina, a pastime of beating the shit out of his wife and kid so they would be too scared to run away, and a sense of humor that always stays with you.

"Kill Number Two": a retired Republican soldier-turned bounty hunter-turned headmaster of a boys' home, who didn't mind taking juvenile delinquents under his wing and training them up as long as they followed every one of his rules.

"Kill Number Three": a female Rodian bankteller who hit the security alarm even when warned not to by a certain Zabrak.

"Kill Number Four": Republican guard, stationed outside the same bank, seconds from taking out the getaway airspeeder.

"Kill Number Five": a Twi'lek who couldn't keep his nose clean.

"Kill Number Six": Human, male.

"Kill Number Seven": same Zabrak from before.

Eight...enemy of the Hutts.

Nine...ditto.

Ten...eleven...

Twelve—twenty—and so on.

Cad Bane no longer kept count.

Alone and wandering down a Nal Hutta street, his hand was rested calmly over the blaster at his side. The street reeked of organic waste and nicotine and hyperdrive fuel, but he no longer noticed the smell. Currently one of his eyes was catching a tangeringe orange sign that read "Plone's Apparel Shop".

He was glad to have them off his back.

The six professionals who bailed him out the boys' home—they had told no lies, but neither had they told the truth. Bane's success in helping them execute a bank robbery on Nal Hutta had revealed their true motives behind his rescue. Their leader, the Zabrak, got to make all the rules. Bane was now just an extra gunman behind their plots for money.

Nobody else could use him, much less know of his existence.

Some profession, some career.

"See it as payment for getting you out of the boys' home," they had corrected, the filthy, full-of-it Bantha-shits.

Sure. Hell in a different color with extra ammo was still Hell.

But Bane had decided long ago that he was no longer going to be anyone's victim.

And so, one standard month later, the tall pale-faced Zabrak made the fatal mistake of allowing Bane to pick out his own personal weapon from their oversized collection on Nar Shaada. Looking up at all the different forms of pistol, rifle, artillery, and more, stacked up against the walls of the abadoned warehouse, Cad Bane had felt a desire reawaken in him. It had been born when he stole his first blaster and hid it under his bed as a seven-year old. Almost a decade and a half later, he felt like the galaxy was at his fingertips.

During their second bank robbery, it had been Bane who came up with the idea of distracting security with perfectly-timed bombs thrown into an innocent bystander crowd. If he hadn't been able to rig the bombs so they couldn't be deactivated, the heist would have only been half of its success. As a reward, he had been given permission to carry thermal detonators at his side from then on. But never his own actual weapon.

He decided on a pair of double-blasters, telling himself that later when he could, he would customize them on his own. So they could be no one else's.

One of those blasters sent a laser bolt through a Zabrak heart. The other targeted one of the Weequays who walked in just in time to see the event unfold.

Boil it down to this, and you'll see that all that matters in life is your credits.

No hesitation. No emotion. No compassion.

Goodbye to the people who told him to kill his headmaster. Goodbye to the living hell. Goodbye to any thoughts of a future where Cad Bane could function without the desire for a blaster at his side.

Taking one of their ships as his own for his getaway was easy and done in a cinch. Of course, Bane also remembered to swipe the Zabrak's personal datapad, inside which was a cargo load of data and records on the latest bounties, crime lords, and mercenary hideouts and systems. Once he had hacked past the security, literally pages of names and locations spread out before him. He hadn't been able to hold back a gleeful giggle.

In minutes, it seemed as if a whole new world had opened up to Bane. He knew more about the Hutt crime family, the Bounty Hunter's Guild, and big names like Jango Fett and Durge than he had been able to scrape up in all his previous years.

Still. In the blackness of space, alone in an aircraft he barely knew how to pilot, a chill had run up his spine.

What are my options?

Now he was just a fugitive. A runaway from a boys' home, in a stolen ship, with a pair of double-blasters. He did not have many.

He could follow in their footsteps, of course. Steal. Rob banks. Pillage. Like back in the days where his own petty thievery of the local bakeries, butcher shops, and marketplaces was the only thing keeping he and his mother alive.

In that case, he would need a group of his own—a gang of wild, heavily-armed kids just like him. Probably all from boys' homes or the like. School drop-outs. Picked up some tattoos and cigarette addictions from a juvenile detention center.

Bane shuddered at the thought.

No.

He wanted to work alone.

It was the only way he knew how to work at all.

After all, anyone he had associated with in the past had either suffered for it or betrayed him over whatever trust there had been.

He had one choice left, then. To do whatever the next man up needed to be done that paid well. That kept the credits rolling in.

I could do that, he had thought as he read the contents of the datapad again. I could take on any job they offer. For the right price.

Why not?

And so, swallowing the fear and apprehension that clogged up his throat, he had set the ship's coordinates for Nal Hutta, the capitol of the Hutt empire, with no idea whatsoever what he would be walking into. The only assurance he had was that, on Nal Hutta, a list of bounties on the heads of certain Hutt enemies were all waiting to be picked up by the next gun-for-hire.

It was either that or starve. And he dreaded the thought of going hungry again.

Plus, perhaps this sort of life would make him busy and light on his feet—so much so that the nightmares wouldn't have time to return. He needed that.

One last time, he pleaded for forgiveness from the last remaining memories he had of his mother.