You're Done

"I said you're done Luna," the older man reiterated. He ran his fingers through his long grey hair and continued to grumble behind his white beard and mustache. She'd only been in his office for a few minutes and the conversation had sped right along to the point she was afraid it would. She wasn't sure if dragging it out would have hurt any less but...she had to try.

"Come on Rus give me another chance, I can do this," she pleaded but she could see it written all over the old man's wrinkled face. She really was done. She'd screwed up so many times that they were finally willing to be rid of her. Her girlish charm had run its course and she was going to have to accept the simple fact that maybe she wasn't cut out for this lifestyle after all.

The Galaxy was a big place after all. Sure they had tracking pucks but and word spread surprisingly fast but...bounty hunting was still pretty tough. "Look kid you've already had about nine thousand second chances. You're lucky you've lived this long with how many bounties you've screwed up. Take your life and do something with it before you die for this for no reason," Rus urged her and waved a hand in front of his face. Get out of here already," he said dismissively and turned his attention back to his holopad.

Luna stood silently and took one last look at her guild badge before she ripped it from her chest plate and tossed in gently onto Rus' desk. "Yes sir," she breathed quietly before she headed for the door. The clear glass panel shifted to her right and she was out in the hallway of the Bounty Hunter's guild. She ran a mostly gloved hand through her long blue light hair and tried her best to keep her attention glued to the floor in front of her.

She didn't want to look at any of them.

None of the thugs that told her that she couldn't handle this job. None of the hunters she had been here just as long as that had turned in dozens...hundreds of bounties successfully. She just didn't wanna see it in their eyes. Didn't wanna hear the 'I told you so's'. She just wanted to get out of here as silently as she could, get back to her ship and fly away as far as she possibly could to a place where no one had ever seen her before.

The old pile of junk wasn't good for much but it could at least manage that...she hoped.

The hallways of the Bounty Hunter's Guild on Courescant were always packed with members though. The largest huh for the guild will tend to make that happen. Luna knew her way around well enough to get to only a few places within the giant maze of a building. All the hallways looked the same, glowing with blue light and Holo panels displaying bounties everywhere she turned. Different stalls and shops where you could buy anything you could ever imagine being necessary to catch a person of any size or shape. If you could afford it anyway. Which she couldn't.

Not completing entry-level bounties will do that to your purse. She could barely afford fuel for her ship at this point. Barely afford the bottom of the barrel diners around the city or food stalls on some of the lower floors.

She had no friends here, no family to speak of and now the only place that had ever given her the possibility of having a home was done giving her chances. She couldn't blame them. She was awful at this. They'd put up with her for years now. Her eyes flicked around the room quickly, betraying her orders to stick to the floor.

People she knew, or at least knew of, tons of zeroes, art pieces, and foliage reaching toward the ceil-...'wait,' her head spun around as she jerked to a halt. 'Wayyyyy too many zeroes,' she thought to herself as she scanned the walls for the figure she'd seen. It had to be. A mistake. A glitch in the system that told what bounties to be posted on which holo walls and when. Bounties that high didn't get displayed in the hallways with the rest of the riffraff. Only top-level guild members got access to the stuff.

There it was though. "Ten Billion," her eyes drew wide and her jaw fell slack. Just like that though, it was gone, cycled onward to the next bounty posting. She looked around again, eyes shooting from person to person in the hallway until she was sure that no one else was looking at her. "Sig," she breathed before she broke into a much faster walk. She wanted to slow down, to appear calm and natural but she couldn't. The idea was already finished working its way through her mind and she needed to see that listing again.

When she made it to Sig's office she pressed her thumb into the keypad and it opened swiftly. They hadn't deactivated her prints yet. Probably wanted to give her a chance to say goodbye to all the friends she didn't have before she had to make the walk of shame to the landing pad without a bounty puck.

"Luna?" Sig looked up from his desk. He was human, dyed, short forest green hair pulled out of his face for once. His dull brown eyes looked her up and down for a moment before he cocked his head to one side. "What are you in for kid?"

She hated that he called her that. Every time they saw each other it was always 'kid.' He was barely older than she was. At least that's what she thought. He couldn't be more than thirty. "I just saw a bounty in the hallway and I want to see if you can pull it up for me."

"Oookay," he said as he slid his chair across to another section of his desk, littered with monitors. "What's the name?"

"I didn't catch it I only saw the payout," she admitted and she saw Sit smirk to himself.

"Number got you stary eyed huh?" He chuckled before readying his fingers over the keys. "Never a good idea to pick out a bounty based on the payout alone but hey...not my job to tell you what jobs to take. What's the number?"

'He doesn't know I'm out…' she thought to herself and felt her breath hitch in her throat. It didn't hurt just to see the full listing...did it?

"Ten Billion," she answered quietly and Sig shot bolt upright in his chair.

"Excuse me, WHAT?!" He yelled back at her. "Wanna try that again I think you stutte-"

"It was Ten Billion. I'm serious Sig. It cycled through, out in the hallway."

"Well, it shouldn't have!" He said in Ludacris disbelief

He began to type in the bounty amount and the computer quickly narrowed down the search results to one bounty. "Jesus this is old," he said under his breath as Luna leaned forward on the counter to get a closer look.

"How old?"

"A decade,* he blinked as he kept reading. "No one's...nobodies ever tried it."

"Well that's...strange...isn't it?" She asked quietly.

"Not really. Imperials set the bounty. Sure some hunters are crazy enough to try something like this but, the Imp's coupled with the reward? Most hunters are smart enough to stay away from something like this."

Luna skimmed the info for a few more seconds before she found Sig staring at her. His finger pressed into a button and the bounty was gone from the screen. She stood bolt upright and tried to quickly memorize what she'd read. "Sorry," she breathed innocently. "Just curious."

"Leave it, Luna," he gave in a warning tone as he rests back into his chair.

"I said I was just curious jeez," she rolled her eyes for dramatic effect and headed for the door. She paused in the open doorway for a moment though and suddenly felt guilty.

She couldn't say goodbye to him.

If she told him that she was out of the guild then she could be arrested just for having him pull the bounty up for her. She had to act normal despite the fact that she'd probably never see him again. Even if she managed to catch the bounty she couldn't turn it in here. She'd have to go to another branch of the guild or even through a third party to collect the reward.

She hadn't ever been that close to him but he had been decent to her during her time here. He never talked down to her like the rest did. Never stared at her through sideways glances while spreading gossip. He was just a regular guy...and to Luna being a regular guy was a bit spectacular compared to what she had become accustomed too.

"See you," she said softly as she continued through the door. She thought she heard him give an uninterested grunt of agreement as he turned back to his setup but she wasn't really sure. It didn't matter. She had a chance.

Luna tried to focus on the floor in front of her as she snaked the maze-like layout of the building down to the hanger. She could feel eyes on her the entire way and she thought for a moment that maybe this was for the best after all. She'd gotten sucked up into this life and given it everything she had. So what if it didn't work out? Maybe she could do something else? Maybe she might actually find something she was good at?

Or maybe...that Ten Billion would set her for life.

Luna shook her head to shoo the thought away as she pressed the ramp release on the lower hull of her ship. The switch stuck in its housing though and she had to slap her hand into the outside of the housing to free it before the cargo bay door finally opened and the ramp came down to greet her. The blow from her gloved hand echoed through the hull for a moment and her shoulders sagged as she climbed carefully up the ramp and into the small cargo area. It was missing steps here and there and it wasn't terribly level.

Empty rust bucket.

That's what the ship's name should have been. She didn't even really know what it was, even after all this time. She bought it from a second-hand lot for cheap and was told it would be easy to fix up once she started making bounties. Those small fixed became big problems and she still hadn't made a single credit that stayed in her account for more than a day. For now, though it didn't have a name, and if she made that Ten Billion it never would. She could buy a new ship, or settle down somewhere that she'd never have to leave. No need for a ship.

The ramp retracted and she climbed the ladder inside the loading area up to the cockpit. The ship was small to be sure. She'd spent more than one night sleeping in the empty cargo space for lack of a better option. No kitchen, a small bathroom and no room for a bed. She was lucky the bucket had a hyperdrive on it at all.

It had been sold to her on the assumption that the hyperdrive was beyond repair. One of the Bounty Hunter Guild techs had looked at it for all of thirty seconds before he'd recognized that it was just wired up wrong. This junk dealer hadn't known his junk very well because later the same day it had been fixed and the ship seemed to have at least one positive quality to it.

Now she could barely afford fuel. Fuel she would need to find her secret target. She wasn't even sure if she had enough to break orbit from Coruscant. Every last credit she had would need to be used for one more meal and a full tank of gas.

She was really going to do this.

To Be Continued