Author's Note: Since watching the newest Bad Batch episode and seeing who made a last minute cameo, it gave me the push to post this. This came from the idea of a 'grumpy space cowboy vs pompous southern belle' because it refuses to leave my brain.

xxx

A steady stream of smoke was spilling from one end of a brightly lit cigarette, its end briefly glowing in a bright orange color before dulling to the dead-grey ashes once more. A few stray remains fell carelessly to the hard cement floor below, long since forgotten among its other brethren of unlively cinders.

Within the cramped and drab looking apartment space, sat the renowned bounty hunter, Cad Bane. Currently his booted feet were propped atop the desk in front of him, and he lounged back in the chair while he worked on cleaning one of his LL-30 blaster pistols. His signature wide brim hat which he was rarely ever seen without, was sitting atop the nearby unmade bed.

The male Duros used this location whenever he was within the vicinity of Coruscant, and he used this specific apartment as one of his temporary hide-aways for when the need came up. Rare were the occurrences he ever needed to stay in one place for a long period of time, and he had long-since learned to adapt efficiently to the lifestyle of moving around frequently.

It came with the job when one was going around various planets and galaxies to collect and deliver bounties.

The room of the apartment was quite bare looking, it's furniture only consisting of a single bed, a desk and a couple of chairs. To say that the room was well-kept, would have been quite the stretch given the cabinet spaces were littered with varying marks of graffiti and questionable looking grime. The space was incredibly dark, with the only exception being that of the fluorescent lights from a nearby building trying to bleed it's obnoxious commotion into the room.

On the desk in front of him, sat an activated hologram from a communications device.

"I have an opportunity for you, if you'll have it", the well-dressed display of a Bothan began. The hologram flickered briefly, casting a dancing light across the dark room.

"I'm listening", Bane answered back simply with his scratchy and nearly robotic sounding voice. He didn't even bother with looking up at the hologram while he continued to work on cleaning his weapon.

Cad Bane had developed a motto he lived by when it came to making a potentially profitable deal: If his clients didn't get to the point within the first minute of conversation, he shut the damn thing off.

He was reputed as one of the top bounty hunters throughout the many of countless galaxies, and it was for very good reason. His price was outlandishly high to those seeking out his talents and he was known for taking up any and all jobs, but only if the price was right.

Modesty aside, Bane was exceedingly good at his work and he knew it very well.

He didn't work for cheap, or for free.

But highly acclaimed praise aside, that also meant that a large amount of unimportant people who simply had a stupid amount of credits felt they could seek him out for menial jobs because they were fortunate enough to be able to dangle money in front of his face.

Most times when those ludicrous offers came about, Bane just turned off the communicator half-way through their bothersome explanation that their proposed job would be worth the credits and his time. He had learned pretty early on within his bounty hunting career of how to judge whether someone was valuable enough for a potential business proposition.

After being in this line of work for so long, the experienced Duros figured he probably could have retired at least a dozen times over if he had a thousand credits for every time some pompous noble requested him for some unproductive task of theirs.

It also raised the question about how these idiots continued to find ways to track him down and contact him. He figured there would need to be questions leveled to the Bounty Hunter's Guild at some point in time.

He glanced at the formally speaking Bothan on the other line, the question rearing its ugly head once more while he listened to the figure speak.

"I know your patience is limited, so I'll try to keep it simple" the client continued, tipping their head in the visual of their hologram image. "I need you to deal with a large, growing thorn in my side. You see, a rival business has been slowly commandeering my own, and I need to turn the tide to my favor."

Bane was already feeling his patience beginning to dwindle. He reached towards the desk, shifting the cigarette to the other side of his mouth and grabbing one of the already dirtied rags to clean with. This was beginning to sound like the same old song and dance every unsuitable client began with, and he was just seconds away from flipping the deactivate switch.

The Bothan's hologram shifted from foot to foot, clearly looking uncomfortable with the lack of immediate acknowledgement from the intimidating bounty hunter, but he continued. "After studying our foreseeable financial numbers, I'm afraid my own competing business won't last much longer unless something drastic is done."

He continued. "This is where my offer comes in. You see, his daughter is the key to solving my problem", Edeeksi answered, his hand moving to something on his monitor so he could change the projected image. On the hologram was now a display of a female human. She appeared to be mid-aged, her dolled up appearance and attire speaking volumes of her wealthy financial status.

"So, you want her taken out?" Bane asked, red eyes glancing up to the proposed image of his target for only the shortest of seconds before returning to his previous work. "Sounds like mediocre work for someone of my talents. A lousy politician isn't going to put up much of a challenge for the likes of me."

"Not taken out, but rather sold away to someone else...", the other man said, the hologram switching back again to his figure. He neatly folded his hands in front of himself again.

Bane finally decided to divert his attention to the hologram speaking to him. "And that's going to be the solution to saving whatever mediocre business problems you've been havin'?"

"Exactly the reason I want her sold away rather than just simply killed", the client continued with a nod, speaking a bit more excitedly to see that he had garnered some possible interest for the job. "It's no secret to anyone that even as a full fledged adult, his spoiled brat of a hellspawn is that man's pride and joy. I predict he will do anything to get her back once he learns of her abduction."

The bounty hunter hummed at the new information, already thinking things over more closely. Kidnapping wasn't one of his most favorite types of jobs, but he wasn't too keen on the details of it so long as he got decently paid. It would be an easy enough job for him, but it was still leagues ahead compared to the other slog clients like this usually asked from him.

"How does that save you then?" Bane asked, still wondering how the details of the assignment were to be played out.

"Because that floundering rival of mine would undoubtedly throw all of his credits away trying to get her back", Edeeksi explained with clear-sounding disdain behind his voice. "While he is a worthy business man, the credits he has behind him are not endless. It'd only be a matter of time before he goes downhill from the grief, and by then I will have the chance to rush in and aspire to far greater heights once more."

The bounty hunter brought a calloused-looking hand to his chin. "Yer' telling me, I kidnap this woman and simply sell her away to be someone else's problem. Sounds easy enough, so long as the credits are worth it."

Edeeksi chortled, placing his hands behind his back. "I can assure you Cad Bane, the credits will be more than worth the job. I can send you the rest of the details in an encrypted message after we end this call."

"You've got yourself a deal then" Bane replied with finality and a sharp-looking coy smile.

xxx

"Close yer' tab, aye lass?" the Cerean bartender asked in a scratchy enough voice that made it actually questionable if there wasn't shrapnel lodged in his throat.

"Yes, please", the female politician behind the other side of the counter replied with a resigned-sounding sigh of her own.

Scarlett frowned, resting a fatigued head upon her hand while idly browsing the patrons of the bar in one last but hopeful search for any other eyes looking back towards her way. Her well-manicured hand drummed against the sticky countertop, its noise drowned out by the cacophony of the bustling and lively area around.

A live band rested in one corner of the dim-lit place, their music barely above that of the commotion and idle gossip of talk. A few brave folk dared themselves to dance on the floor in what little space was available to them currently, though it looked quite awkward given the lack of room. Most people in the bar were lounging about the area while they nursed their drinks, the popular place filled to the brim and likely overfilling the maximum capacity limit of the large room.

Towering empty cups that were stacked atop one another littered most every available surface, and it was any wonder that not a single one had been toppled over by the drunk occupants that swayed past them. Tables were filled with no immediate view of any open seats available, and those that didn't have a seat were instead placed atop the lively laps of their choosing.

Above the surrounding heads of various folk lay a dense fog of cigarette and hookah smoke. It had only seemed to grow more heavy as the night went on. The place was a grotesque mixing pot for various smells, and it was near impossible to put a distinctive finger on any sort of one.

The woman sitting at the bar looked about as out of place as a Bantha on Hoth. You could take the upper class politician out of the office, but you truly couldn't hide their identity when they lounged around in an unnerving environment such as this. The polite and presumptuous mannerisms that had been drilled into her mind since a young age could never truly be hidden by the keen eyes lurking around.

For many of those patrons that were chasing tail tonight, they simply had little interest in going after a pompous brat from the upper levels of the city. Trust was already a difficult enough thing to acquire in the slums of the undercity, but if you were a high-class citizen, you were already standing on shaky ground for most of the untrustworthy folk down here.

All work and no play, they would often say.

A Twi'lek woman suddenly came bounding up to her friend at the bar from the crowd, seeming to be bouncing on her feet with the aid of one too many alcoholic beverages helping her along.

"Oh, hey! You're not leaving so soon already are you?" she asked, leaning back against the counter when she noticed her friend looking to take leave. Her pink skin was practically shimmering in the little light that the overhead lights provided, the display aided by the copious amount of potent body spray that had been applied before the two women went out on their explicit outing for the night.

Every so often near the end of a busy work week, the group of three close friends would adventure off into the lower levels of the undercity in hopes of chasing something that was more on the exciting ends of things. They craved a hard contrast against their usual strict norms of office life. The group would contest that their previous outings had grown stale and dull in the more richer-area scenes, and they complained there were rarely interesting people among the bundle of other dull white-collar workers.

The peers at their office often said it was an incredibly dumb idea. And it was just a ticking-time bomb for something inevitably bad to happen to the seemingly naïve group.

"Yeah, I think so", Scarlett replied with a draw of her dark brows. "Besides, it's still a work night anyway, and I should get back before father worries about where-"

"Really now?" the Twi'lek asked, her face completely in a deadpan. "You can't keep using 'dear daddy' as an excuse to get out of everything. You're coming up on what, thirty two? Would he really get that upset with you if he found out where you've been?"

"Yes", Scarlett said back in a blunt tone while grabbing the receipt from the grimy-looking bartender who had finally brought it back to her. She shuddered at the writing utensil she had been given as it seemed to have been coated in a permanent sheen of grease. Briefly she dug around in her bag for something more sanitary to write with instead.

The Twi'lek rolled her eyes at the sanitation antics, crossing her arms across her chest with a disappointed sigh. "Aw, come on now. You're no fun sometimes, you know that?" she said. "What's a lady like me to do now?"

"There's plenty to pick from. Though to be honest, I didn't really have much fun last weekend with the random guy from here. He passed out on his couch when we finally got back to his apartment", the other woman commented with a dry-sounding tone and an upturned nose. She frowned at the less-than savory memory from how much of a bust that particular escapade had been.

It was just about the least-most exciting thing she could have possibly received.

Her friend's mouth formed a tight line, and she hummed aloud at the recollection. "You probably put him to sleep with all your boring office talk about law and political gossip."

"Says you", Scarlett replied back with a raised brow and a smile towards the light jest from her friend. She looked down to her holowatch, observing the displayed time on the device. "Anyway, I better get going. Make sure Jynna gets home alright, okay?"

The Twi'lek raised a brow and looked across the room of the poorly lit bar to see their other friend in question. She was currently smashing her face against some random Gamorrean fellow on one of the couches and was practically already in his pink skinned near-human made a quick judgmental look towards her cohort before looking back to the person next to her.

"Yeah, I think she'll be just fine", she said sarcastically. She moved to envelop Scarlett in a quick departing hug. "You know I'm just poking fun at you though, yeah? Don't take it too personally. Maybe we can get you laid tomorrow night instead."

"Wishful thinking", Scarlett replied with a warm smile. "I'll message you on my communicator when I get home, okay?"

With one last goodbye wave to her friend, Scarlett carefully weaved her way through the thick crowd of people towards the front entrance of the bar. Along the way she muttered polite amendments, though such pleasantries were merely ignored or retaliated with some other colorful words that would have made even a Hutt blush. She could feel her soles sticking to various substances that coated the floor as she progressed, and she made a mental note to possibly throw these particular shoes away when she got home.

No amount of disinfectant wipes from her purse were going to save her expensive brand-name shoes now.

She looked down to her holowatch while she walked around the last of the canoodling couples, typing directions into an app for a vehicle to come pick her up from her current location.

Just as she was about to escape through the door that led into a narrow hallway lit only by a single busted fuse, a small droid seemed to come careening out of nowhere from an adjacent hallway and he nearly ran straight into her.

"Oh, pardon me", the techno-service droid apologized, backing up a bit on his wheel to properly address the person he had nearly bumped into. "Silly me, I didn't see you there!"

Scarlett was a bit taken aback by the sudden politeness coming from someone other than herself for once in this hellhole of a bar in the undercity. She blinked, trying to comprehend if what she had heard was real, or she was still tone-deaf from the obnoxiously loud music still playing in the other direction.

She looked up and down the space of the narrow hallway, looking to see if anyone else was around to witness this particular spectacle between the two of them right now. The noise from the live band was more muffled, and the sound of the buzzing light fixture from overhead was a constant annoyance to anyone listening. Torn wallpaper was crudely hung atop already decaying metal walls in a poor attempt to mask the already decomposing state of the building.

It seemed to just be herself and this small droid for the time being.

"Are you some kind of butler droid or something? Or maybe you're working for the bar?" she asked, turning her head quizzically, kneeling down to get more on eye level with them. He was a small thing, with a rectangular head and a more circular-looking body.

The droid put his hands on his hips exasperatedly, looking genuinely offended at what was said to him. "Excuse you, I'm a techno-service droid. Not a butler droid or some awful bartender droid like you suggested."

The woman was shocked at how much expression could be shown on a being that had no facial-movements to work with. She put her manicured hands up defensively. "I'm... sorry about that, it was rude of me to judge so quickly like that."

"It certainly was!" he exclaimed. He pointed to himself. "My name is Todo 360, and I am a techno-service droid. But enough about me, back to important matters. I was given urgent information by your parental unit to bring to you."

Scarlett frowned at that last part, her face contorting to that of deep-looking confusion on her makeup-ridden face. She glanced down at her holowatch briefly, looking to see if there were notifications of a message by her father.

There was nothing listed on it.

"My… father sent you?... " she asked slowly while trying to hide the concern in her voice, looking from her wrist device and then back to the droid. Her father potentially sending a droid to tell her of an emergency had been incredibly unusual, and possibly even a first for him.

But even at thirty two years of age, she was still a daddy's girl at heart. The news was an immediate tug at her heartstrings to hear something like this, even if it was coming from a complete stranger.

"Yes, and gauging from the timeliness of his message, it sounded quite urgent!", Todo continued, pointing a single finger in the air for emphasis. He peered around the person in front of him briefly, looking down the hallway to see that no one was still around before tapping something into the side of his head.

He continued, his beady yellow eyes looking up to the person. "We really shouldn't dally here much longer, I have already procured transportation for you so we can leave with the utmost of haste."

A stagnant pause awaited between the two.

There was a sense of unease that washed over Scarlett then, almost as though something was nagging the back of her mind. Something wasn't quite right here, though she couldn't quite get a grasp of what exactly it was. The explanation from the droid had been incredibly brief, and there wasn't much detail to express exactly what was going on with her father right now. Was she really about to just accept his word and follow him to some vehicle?

Not only that, but it was also incredibly late at night which likely would have meant her father had already been in bed for hours by now. The man was quite the heavy sleeper, and Scarlett knew well enough that there would be few emergencies he would pull himself out of bed for at this hour.

Whether it was work related or not.

She looked back down the hallway once again where the bar lay, wishing now she had the company of her friends here with her. Briefly she wondered about heading back down the same way again and searching them out.

The female politician certainly didn't know this droid, and she had never seen him before tonight. Even with a polite disposition from his hardwiring, for all she knew, he could have been straight lying to face. And given the amount of red flags she was receiving, she was beginning to believe that something else quite heinous was afoot here.

She made up her mind and stood her ground, pointing a defiant chin upwards in the air. She was smarter than this. "I would like to see this supposed message from my father then. Surely you must have it on you?"

Todo toyed with the indentations of his fingers joints for a second, his programming whirring for what to say next. Or rather he was listening to a one-way conversation only he could hear right now. "Ah yes… in fact I do. Here's the message exactly as sent."

Scarlett watched as Todo typed in something on his wrist and it brought up a visualized holo-display of the message. She closed her eyes shut at the sudden brightness of a displayed screen intruding her vision, and she blinked wearily at the harshness before her eyes could properly adjust against the dark outcrop of the poorly lit hallway.

Just as she began the intense struggle of reading the first line of words, she could quickly discern that it wasn't a message from her father at all. Rather, it looked to be some random garbled words of nonsense that looked as though someone had key-smashed their console in a poor attempt to create words. Before she could protest what this situation was really about, a heavy boot slammed into her lower back while she was still kneeling down to the droid's eye level. The force sent her face forward into the dirtied floor below.

The approaching stranger knelt down before the woman had the chance to roll back around on her feet, and he activated the stunner on one of his gauntlets while grabbing one of the ankles of his prey. The jolt of electricity was quick and effective in its work, and it knocked his target out quickly enough.

Todo hummed, and walked over to the target to poke her a few times in the side for good caution to see that she didn't stir awake anytime soon.

"Well, that could have gone a bit smoother, don't you think sir?" he asked, tapping the bottom of his head with hand. He activated his hovering ability, flying upward to be at eye level with his bounty hunter master.

"Yeah, no thanks to you though", Cad Bane spat back with a robotic tone, clear-annoyance behind his voice. His plan hadn't gone quite according to plan, since his bounty hadn't taken the bait like he originally thought she would.

Perhaps there were more brains in this air-head of a politician than he originally thought.

He moved down, grabbing the woman's unconscious body and hauling her over his shoulder with a grunt. "Let's go. Don't need strangers poking their business where it doesn't belong."