He looked around the bridge and chuckled. The highest-ranking officer left on the bridge was the Comm Officer, a lieutenant. Carth himself technically didn't even have a rank, he was actually just a special advisor for the Republic Fleet now. In the chain of command, he was the equivalent of a pilot commander, the same rank he'd held in the Mandalorian Wars. Partly by choice, largely by regulation, he had been taken off the active duty lists several months ago. He'd been fighting practically nonstop for almost ten years, from the start of the Mandalorian Wars all the way to the present Sith war. Republic Fleet regulations stated no soldier was allowed to serve that long in a frontline role. So it was either 'retire' and become an advisor with less pay, or get stuck behind a desk. It was an easy choice for him, especially after Telos.
Telos… it feels like a lifetime ago. But I'll get justice for you, Morgana, I promise. Saul will pay for what he did…
Carth sighed. Since the Sith razed Telos he'd become nothing but an empty shell, returning to the front just fighting and waiting to die. While most soldiers dreamt of life after war, he had only one wish: To avenge his wife's death before he was inevitably struck down in battle. Being a veteran, he was well respected by the other men, but most kept their distance from him. There was something about the empty look in his eyes that many found unsettling.
"Sir, we're inbound on Taris, we'll be in range of their scanners in twenty minutes."
Just three months ago Taris had been well behind Republic lines. Now it was home to a Sith garrison. If this mission was going to save the Republic, they didn't have much time. At the rate the Sith fleet was advancing, Coruscant and the Core Worlds would be under assault in less than a year.
"Change our heading and get one of the Taris moons between us and the planet. Hopefully it'll give us some cover."
A few years ago he would have been nervous, being so close to the enemy in his backyard. But with all the losses the Republic was suffering, practically the entire galaxy outside of the Coruscant Core was the enemy's backyard.
Carth pulled himself from his seat and stood by the large viewing windows. The blue-gray ball that was Taris was coming into view. So far, so good, there wasn't a Sith vessel in sight. They probably weren't expecting Republic ships this far behind their lines.
He frowned, noticing a few glimmering specks in the sky, moving too quickly to be stars. Carth dropped his coffee mug, the hot contents spilling down the front of his flight jacket.
"What the… Damnit! Sound general quarters! We've been ambushed!" Carth shouted as a formation of tiny, delta-shaped Sith fighters screamed in at him on a strafing run, veering away at the last possible moment. Two massive Sith dreadnoughts uncloaked from nowhere, bearing in quickly as wave after wave of fighters streamed from their hangers.
"Ensign, turn this heap around and get us out of here!"
A third dreadnought uncloaked behind them, cutting off their escape. Carth slammed a fist into the palm of his other hand as the Endar Spire's senior officers spilled onto the bridge, their eyes still foggy with sleep. The captain, a grandfatherly looking man in his seventies, looked Carth directly in the eye.
"What's going on Onasi? What's our situation?"
"They jumped us from nowhere, sir! They were waiting for us, they knew we were coming!"
A broadside salvo from one of the Sith ships struck the Endar Spire, knocking out the main turbolaser batteries. The captain cursed loudly and called Carth over.
"You better find that Jedi princess and get her out of here. I've got a feeling in a few moments we're going to have Sith troopers swarming all over us!"
With a quick half-salute, Carth ran off to find Bastila. He burst through her door to find her kneeling on the floor, her eyes closed.
"What the hell are you doing? We have to get out of here!" he shouted, grabbing her arm. Bastila's eyes fluttered open and she glared at him as she tore her arm away.
"I'm saving our lives."
Carth looked at her incredulously.
"By praying? I hate to burst your bubble sweetheart, but no higher being or deity can save us now!"
Bastila seemed to be staring daggers right into his chest.
"I am using my Battle Meditation. Now please leave so I may concentrate."
Carth shook his head and grabbed her arm again. Again the young Jedi glared at him and pulled away.
"Your Jedi magic can't save us now. My orders are to get you to an escape pod. If you don't come with me voluntarily, I'm going to have to carry you…"
Seeing the Republic soldier wasn't going to budge, Bastila finally rose to her feet.
"You will do nothing of the sort. I am a Jedi, and your orders don't apply to me. But since you are so annoyingly insistent, I will come with you."
Leading her to an escape pod, Carth half pushed her into it before slamming the hatch shut.
Good riddance.
Revan's eyes flew open as the Endar Spire was violently shaken by a turbolaser salvo. Klaxons blared throughout the ship, sounding the alarm. This was no drill. Revan heard the distinctive clanking sound of boarding craft docking with the Republic battlecruiser. The door to his cabin slid open and a young man wearing a Republic uniform ran in, brandishing a blaster.
"Come on! We've been ambushed by a Sith fleet and the Endar Spire's under attack! We have to get to the bridge to defend Bastila!"
Revan said nothing, simply strapping on his armor and grabbing his helmet.
Bastila… I swore I'd lay my life down to protect hers if it ever came to that. I suppose now I have the opportunity to see if it comes to that…
Slinging a heavy rifle under his arm, he gestured towards the door.
"After you."
The young soldier nodded, brandished his blaster and ran into the hall. Two blaster bolts almost tore off his head. Revan pushed him to the ground, pulled his repeating rifle from over his shoulder and raked two Sith boarders with heavy blaster fire. Grabbing the dazed soldier by his armored vest, he pulled him into the corridor.
"Move it, soldier!"
As they rounded the corner towards the elevator, a flurry of bolts struck the bulkhead behind them. The soldier instinctively ducked for cover but Revan danced around the bolts, sensing them through the Force. A squad of Sith troopers poured from the elevator, right on top of them. Swinging his rifle like a club, Revan landed the butt under the chin of an onrushing attacker, snapping his neck instantly. Knocking aside a vibroblade jab by another, he pulled the dagger from the scabbard in his boot and plunged it into his assailant's chest, pulled it out, and slashed it across the neck of another trooper in one fluid motion. As a last trooper tried to bring his rifle to bear, Revan kicked him in the chest and flicked his dagger with one hand between the two armored plates protecting the soldier's torso. Retrieving his dagger, he wiped it off and replaced it in his boot. The Republic soldier looked at him in stunned silence but Revan ignored him.
"There isn't much time, the bridge crew won't hold out long."
Carth fired two bolts into a charging Sith soldier and sealed the blast doors to the bridge. Half of the crew was already dead. The Sith boarders swarmed the ship like flies over a carcass. Breathing heavily, he noticed most of the escape pods were gone. Taking his advice, most of the Jedi had already left. He realized in horror Bastila's was still docked. Running over, he tore open the hatch. She was kneeling on the floor of the pod, meditating.
"Why are you still here? The battle's already lost!"
Bastila ignored him.
"I'm buying you some time."
Furious, Carth slammed the hatch shut and activated the pod's release manually.
"Not anymore you're not."
Revan's companion grabbed his arm, holding him back.
"Dark Jedi! This fight is too much for us. We'd only get in the way!"
One of the Jedi accompanying Bastila was fighting for her life with a fallen Jedi. The Dark Jedi managed to catch her off guard and knocked the weapon from her hands. Before she could react, he'd plunged his lightsaber into her stomach.
"Shit, run!" the soldier shouted. Ignoring him, Revan pulled another dagger from his belt and twirled the two blades around, approaching the Dark Jedi. The Sith smiled evilly, like a kath hound eyeing a steak.
"You fool! He's got a lightsaber!"
Revan didn't even turn his head. As the Dark Jedi attacked, Revan sidestepped his attack, rolled, jumped to his feet, and with a flurry of slashing attacks, cut through his enemy's defenses and plunged both daggers into his chest. Bending down, Revan retrieved the crimson lightsaber and clipped it to his belt.
"How did you do that?"
Revan just smiled grimly.
"Cortosis weave. Lightsabers can't cut the blade."
"No, how did you…"
Revan gestured to the beeping comlink on the soldier's belt.
"This is Carth Onasi on the bridge. Bastila Shan has left the vessel. Anybody receiving this message, get to the escape pods immediately!"
Carth put down his comlink and glanced at the ship's life support console. Every member of the crew of the Endar Spire was wearing an emitter showing his or her location and status. From what he could tell, everyone was dead. Just as he was about to get into the last escape pod and leave though, he saw a blinking light. He sighed and punched his comlink.
"I'm reading you on the Endar Spire's life support system. You'd better hurry. Now that Bastila's gone, the Sith aren't going to hesitate to blow us into dust."
Revan reached the bridge and forced open the blast doors to be met with an entire swarm of Sith troopers. Spinning around in a dizzying flurry of blades, Revan quickly cut them down and turned to look for his companion. The young man was lying on the deck, his chest torn open by a blaster bolt. Revan murmured a few last words for him, pulled the combat blaster from his belt, and put him out of his misery before running towards the starboard escape pods. As he burst through the door, he found himself staring down the barrel of a blaster. The man behind the blaster slowly lowered it as he realized Revan wasn't a Sith.
"Finally, I almost left without you!"
Carth eyed the filthy creature standing in front of him and a grim smile formed on his face. The man's clothes were torn and he was covered in blood and grime. Judging from how he was carrying himself though, Carth was guessing the blood wasn't his. Suddenly, the man grabbed him and threw him into the escape pod. Carth turned back in shock as three blaster bolts struck the spot where he had been standing just seconds earlier.
"Give me your blaster!" the man shouted. Carth quickly tossed it to him and heard it discharge several times. Two Sith soldiers dropped to the floor. Tossing the blaster back to him, the man ducked into the escape pod and slammed the hatch shut.
"Get us out of here!"
Carth strapped himself in and pulled the release lever.
"Hold on, this is going to be a bumpy ride!"
"What's the status of the battle?" Captain Rellius asked, standing on the bridge of his ship, the Sith battlecruiser Avenger.
The crewman grinned widely.
"We've cut them off sir! They've got nowhere to run! All that's left is the Endar Spire and boarding parties report they've almost got the entire ship under control."
Captain Rellius shook his head.
"What of Bastila? Have they secured her?"
The crewman pushed a button on his console.
"Lieutenant, has your strike team captured Bastila Shan?"
There was a crackle of static and then the response of the Sith commander on the Endar Spire.
"Negative, Avenger. We've secured the ship and I've ordered a full search but there's no sign of her. All of the escape pods are gone."
Captain Rellius' blood ran cold as he ran to the front of the ship, looking down at several tiny specks streaking towards the surface of Taris. In the chaos of battle, he hadn't even noticed the escape pods being jettisoned. They were too far out of range of his ship's guns now. Taris was under Sith occupation but the planet was densely populated, its entire surface almost covered in urban sprawl. If Bastila escaped to the planet below she could disappear into the planet's lower levels and hide indefinitely. He turned pale.
"She's down there."
"Sir?"
"Bastila's escaped. It was our job to cut off any escape attempt towards the planet… Lord Malak will not be pleased."
The captain felt his legs buckle beneath him as he crumbled into his commander's chair.
"Helm, set a course towards Republic space and get us out of here! I need every ounce of power you can coax from the hyperdrive or we're dead!"
Malak stared coldly out at the fleeing Avenger, well aware of Bastila's escape and Captain Rellius' failure.
"Redirect all our fire onto the Avenger."
The Leviathan slowly turned, leveling its massive turbolasers on the deserting Sith battlecruiser.
"You may fire when ready."
Carth gritted his teeth as the escape pod plunged through the Taris atmosphere, its surface glowing red hot from the heat of reentry. His pilot's instincts taking over, he began looking for a place to land the speeding pod. Two escape pods in front of them tried to land on a platform in the upper city but missed, skidding off the walkway and plunging into the depths of the urban landscape. Taris, like Coruscant, was a massive metropolis, layer after layer of urban sprawl piled on top of itself, built up over centuries. The upper city was where the rich and powerful lived, where gleaming skyscrapers arched majestically into the pinkish sky.
Also like Coruscant, as you went down into the lower levels, the surroundings became less and less appealing, going from penthouses to slums to… worse. If he couldn't get the escape pod down into one of the upper levels, they would plunge all the way to the bottom depths, possibly even into the lower city, ruled by vicious swoop gangs and ruthless crimelords. If they were particularly unlucky, they would continue to fall until they reached the planet surface, the undercity, a miserable place completely devoid of light, home only to wretched outcasts banished from the upper levels and terrifying, flesh-eating mutants called rakghouls.
"See anywhere we can land?"
His companion nodded towards a broad walkway down below, past a heavily built up industrial area.
"That should serve our purposes."
Taking a deep breath, Carth guided the escape pod down. With no control surfaces, 'flying' an escape pod was difficult to say the least. The only way to maneuver was by manipulating the thrusters, pushing the pod one way or another. Once out of fuel, the pod was nothing but a metal can, plummeting from the sky like a rock. The fuel gauges were hovering near zero.
As they soared over a group of skyscrapers, one of the thrusters suddenly gave out, dropping the tail of the pod slightly. Carth felt the pod shake violently as it clipped a building.
"Damnit! Hold on!"
He tried to regain control but it was hopeless. The damaged pod spun wildly, dropping towards a dark chasm. Out of the corner of his eye, Carth noticed his companion's eyes closed. He smiled grimly. Religion, the last thing men turned to when faced with their own mortality.
Whoever you're praying to, say a prayer for me too.
Revan wasn't praying. He'd calculated their approach from the moment of reentry, knowing the chances of being able to set down in the upper city were slim to none. When the pod had clipped the skyscraper, he'd immediately realized maintaining the façade of helpless passenger would do nothing for him. Or Bastila. Calling upon the Force, he slowly steadied the craft, setting it back on course towards the walkway he'd spotted before. It was a difficult, nearly impossible task as the pod was in a freefall and 'wanted' to plummet straight down, but Revan was able to hold his concentration long enough to push them back.
"What in the… we might be able to make it!"
It was like the pod had taken a life of its own. Just when Carth had thought all was lost, the pod had seemed to 'jump', changing direction just before clipping a platform and veering back on course.
"I'm going to initiate the landing sequence. As soon as we hit the ground, we've got to get out. The Sith patrols will be all over this pod in seconds… shit the computer's been damaged! This is going to be a bad landing!"
Revan heard Carth's words faintly, as if through a dream. Waiting until he was sure they would make it onto the walkway, he opened his eyes just before contact. The pod smashed against the platform surface, bouncing across the walkway like a rubber ball. He had averted a near disaster in getting them into the upper city, but the pod was bouncing towards the edge of the platform. All the effort he'd expended before would mean nothing if they rolled over, plummeting to their deaths a few hundred stories down. Reaching out with the Force again, he put all his strength into stopping their momentum. Sweat pouring down his brow, he felt the pod begin to slow down. The question now was whether he could slow it down enough to save their lives. Just as the pod finally tore over a railing, Revan was able to fully stop it. The violent motion of the pod crashing against a wall tore him from his restraints, smashing his head against a bulkhead. The last thing he remembered was the world getting dark…
Canderous Ordo grabbed the terrified man by the throat and threw him against the wall.
"Where's the credits, Ras?"
The man struggled to free himself but it was hopeless. The Mandalorian's massive hand was clamped around his neck, forcing him to stare into Canderous' emotionless gray eyes.
"I…I… just give me a week… I promise I'll have a down payment!"
Canderous tossed him like a rag doll.
"Davik doesn't take down payments. You were supposed to have the full amount a month ago. Davik's been plenty patient with you, giving you an extra two weeks. Too patient if you ask me. It's the end of the line for you."
He pulled a massive Mandalorian combat blaster from his belt, putting it right to the man's head.
"Please, I have a family! Just give me a week, Canderous! Just a week! It's just a thousand credits, I'll have them!"
Canderous lowered the barrel of the blaster slightly, then suddenly brought it up and blew away the man's knee. As his victim screamed and grabbed his bloodied leg, Canderous holstered his weapon.
"You have three days. Come up with two thousand credits or I'll come back to personally ensure you a very painful, drawn out death."
As he sauntered away, he shook his head. The stupid merchant wouldn't have the money. He'd probably try to run off and hide. Canderous climbed into the airspeeder, lowering his muscular frame into the seat and cursed. They were all the same. Fools running to Davik, thinking the Exchange crimeboss was some public bank, then trying to skip town when it came time to pay the loan back. That was where he came in. It was his job to hunt down the idiots and either squeeze the money out of them or leave big, smoking blaster holes in their mutilated bodies.
Davik paid well but he hated his job. Less than five years ago he had been one of Mandalore's most senior commanders, leading Clan Ordo to sure victory at Malachor V, the most glorious battle in Mandalorian history. Canderous laughed bitterly to himself. The most glorious defeat as well. The Mandalorian clans had been shattered in the battle, almost completely destroyed. That was how he had been reduced to this, hitman for an Exchange crimelord, little more than a common thug. The Mandalorian slammed his hand against the side of the speeder, startling his driver.
"We're done here. Take me back to Davik's estate… what the hell is that?"
The Republic escape pod dropped out of the sky, plunging through a flimsy lower city durasteel platform before smashing into the side of a building, a few stories below them.
"Republic escape pods… they must be from that battle overhead. Davik's going to want to hear about this."
Bastila heard someone groaning as she opened her eyes. As she undid her restraints and tried to pull herself up, she realized that someone was herself. The escape pod had crashed through what felt like every story of urban Taris, finally coming to a rest in what she was sure was the undercity.
It certainly smells like the undercity.
The pod's landing thrusters had malfunctioned and the pod was sitting on its nose, meaning she was bent in a very awkward position. When she undid the last strap holding her in her seat, she gave a yelp as she tumbled into the front of the pod.
"I hope the Sith haven't managed to track me," she muttered to herself, fiddling with the escape pod's crude communications suite. Republic escape pods were equipped with rudimentary scrambling equipment for their communicators, meaning any transmissions she made should be relatively safe.
"If anyone can read me, this is Bastila Shan of the Republic ship Endar Spire, come in please."
There was nothing but static. She realized the urban jungle of Taris must be obscuring any transmissions to other survivors. If there were any. Bastila sighed.
No sense in waiting here for the Sith to collect me.
Crawling back towards the exit hatch in the rear, she tried to look out the view ports to see her surroundings but she couldn't see anything in the pitch black of the undercity. When she reached the exit hatch, she pushed against the release. Nothing. The hatch was jammed. The pod must have been lodged against something during its descent. Bastila felt something warm trickle along her forehead and grimaced as she wiped away blood. She wasn't seriously injured, but besides that, there wasn't much to be thankful for. She was stranded, alone, on an unfamiliar world, trapped in an escape pod with no way to contact anyone.
The hatch is only a few inches thick… perhaps my lightsaber…
She reached down to her belt and panicked as she realized the long, metal cylinder was gone.
Carth sat against the wall, cleaning the grime from his blaster. After their miraculous landing, he'd managed to drag the other soldier from the pod just before the Sith patrols had descended like vultures on carrion. The past few hours had been spent frantically dodging patrols, looking for a place to hide while keeping an eye on his semiconscious companion. He recognized the soldier as the 182nd commando he'd pointed out to the two young crewmen on the Endar Spire. The man had been drifting in and out of consciousness, muttering incoherently. Carth wondered what demons the young man must be staring down in his dreams. Every time he himself closed his eyes, he was plagued by nightmares. No doubt the dreams of this commando were no less vivid.
He can't even be twenty-five but he's got the eyes of someone who's lived into their triple digits.
The young man stirred. Grabbing a canteen from his side, Carth went over to check on him. Before he could react, an iron grip tightened around his throat and threw him to the floor as a long, thin dagger appeared from nowhere at his throat.
"Easy, easy! We're on the same side!"
The blade slowly disappeared back into its sheath and the hand around his throat relaxed. The man's piercing brown eyes examined him for a moment before he fully released him and offered a hand up. Carth took it and was surprised by how easily he was pulled to his feet. The soldier standing before him was above average in height, a bit short of two meters. He had an athletic build and looked like his body was in flawless condition, as Carth would have expected from a commando. His was a muscular frame, but not overly so.
"Good to see you up instead of thrashing around in your sleep. Do you remember me?"
The young soldier's eyes went around the room as he tried to regain his bearings.
"Carth, the one on the communicator. Yes, I remember… what happened? Where am I?"
"The Endar Spire was ambushed passing through Taris. The ship was destroyed but we managed to escape before it exploded. We're in Upper Taris right now. You were knocked out but fortunately I was unhurt. I pulled you out of the pod and dragged you to this abandoned apartment. You've been slipping in and out for the past few days."
Revan nodded slowly, the events before his losing consciousness gradually coming back to him.
"I suppose I owe you my life. Thanks."
Carth waved him off.
"Don't mention it. I've never left a man behind and I'm not going to start now. You got a name, soldier?"
"Lieutenant Qelas Stasia, 182nd SRG. Call me Qel."
Carth tossed him the canteen and Revan took a long swig before handing it back.
"Well Qel, now that you're up, I'm going to need your help in figuring out what we're going to do. Heh, as you can probably tell, we're not in a very good situation but I've seen worse. Taris is under the control of the Sith and we're pretty deep behind enemy lines. I salvaged some supplies and the communications equipment from the pod. I've tried using the communicator to get in contact with other survivors but…"
"Bastila."
"What?"
Revan closed his eyes momentarily before rising to his feet and slinging his blaster belt around his waist. He had to get off the planet, abandon this ridiculous façade the Jedi had forced on him and stop Malak. Maybe charter a private ship to take him on a quest to recover his lost memory. But Bastila…
"You said on the Endar Spire that Bastila escaped. I saw you tracking her pod on the way down, where do you think she may have landed?"
Carth frowned as he tried to remember.
"I'm not sure. The scanners went out shortly after we entered the atmosphere – I'm guessing that's because her pod went down over the horizon. From the looks of its trajectory though, it didn't look good. I've got a feeling she may have landed in the undercity. In any case, I'm not so sure we're safe here. The Sith are likely actively looking for us as well. We can't do anything for her by going out there and getting caught ourselves. But if the Republic loses Bastila, this war is already lost… We should try contacting the Republic."
Revan emptied out his pack, taking what he needed and throwing the rest back in before prying up a floor panel to bury it.
"Contacting the Republic won't help us. If they don't already know we were ambushed, they will soon. We're too deep behind enemy lines for them to help us. We're on our own. We have to find Bastila."
Carth thought about it. He had been fighting for a long time and knew the ins and outs of Republic protocol like the back of his hand. What the young soldier said went against everything in the book. But Carth doubted the training manuals on escape and evasion behind enemy lines had been written for a situation like this, with Bastila Shan, the Republic's last hope compromised as she was.
"You're probably right. But finding her isn't going to be easy. Taris has a lot of different levels. In some places it's almost as bad as Coruscant. The Sith only control the Upper City so if she landed in one of the lower levels, she shouldn't have to worry too much, I guess."
Revan could remember Taris well. Taris had been the last Republic world his small fleet had journeyed to before leaving for the Mandalorian Wars. Shiny and pristine on the surface, the glittering cityscape of Upper Taris was just a shell for the rotting decay underneath. In the process of trying to restore order to the planet, Revan had deployed troops to the lower levels to reinforce Republic patrols. Between the rakghouls, swoop gangs, and the Exchange, casualties had been horrendous. He told himself Bastila was one of the Order's brightest pupils but the thought of her down there sent a chill all the way to his core.
"Don't underestimate the dangers of the Lower City. I fought here in the Mandalorian Wars and… it's a horrid place, a despicable hive of lawlessness and villainy. If Bastila is down there, we had best start looking for her."
Carth tore the Republic insignia badges off his leather flight jacket with a knife.
"Alright. But the Sith have posted guards at all of the turbolifts leading below the third level of the Upper City. We're going to need to either get our hands on some security papers or find some other way to get past the checkpoints."
Sato took careful aim with his sniper rifle, taking short, shallow breaths to keep his hands steady. His target, a balding man in his fifties, stepped out of a high class Coruscant cantina, tucking a small package into his expensive coat. Waiting for his bounty to walk into the little red aiming dot of his tri-power sights, he began reciting the details of his target.
"Senator Crade Tarvish, fifty-eight years of age… elected to senatorial position as representative of Tanaab seven years ago, after predecessor was found dead of a heart attack… foul play suspected but case was mysteriously dropped by Coruscant authorities…"
The political backstabbing and corruption amongst the senators of the Galactic Senate had never failed to amaze him. The power games of Coruscant made the never-ending infighting of the Sith seem like child's play. The senator walked out of the crowded area in front of the cantina, creating a clear shot for Sato. His finger tensed against the trigger of his rifle slightly and he felt the butt push against his shoulder as it discharged. The senator dropped to the walkway. Sato spoke into the comlink clipped to his collar.
"The package is ready for delivery."
Keeping one eye on the motionless body, he relaxed and lit a death stick, putting it between his lips. Taking a long drag, he blew a smoke ring in the air. Work as a bounty hunter was dull and meaningless, though often dangerous. He hated it but there was little else a man of his skills could do. His employer for this contract hadn't identified himself, choosing to communicate only through an intermediary. But he paid well and it didn't take a genius to figure out the client was one of Mr. Tarvish's many political enemies. As a crowd gathered around the fallen senator's body, a speeder marked in the colors of a Coruscant ambulance pulled up and two ambulance attendants jumped out. Sato glanced at his chrono.
"My, oh my, Coruscant medicare must have improved drastically since last I was here. I never realized medevac was so efficient," he muttered to himself with a smug smile. If the uniformed men were 'ambulance attendants', he was a Hutt's mother. This was a routine kidnapping mission, nothing more. Taking one last drag on the death stick before flicking it aside, Sato disassembled his rifle and put it back into his bag, slinging it over his shoulder and disappearing back into the bustling crowds of the Coruscant upper city.
Another day, another contract. Hailing a taxi, he made his way to the pre-established rendezvous location where he would be paid. His contact, who he'd known only by voice would be waiting in a cantina, not like the classy establishment his victim had frequented, but one of the dingy, rundown watering holes whose clientele was made up primarily of the shadier members of Coruscant society.
"Bartender, give me a shot of Batinarr whiskey."
Casually glancing around the cantina, he picked out a short, stocky man coming towards him. Even in the dim light of the cantina, he was wearing dark goggles that hid his eyes. The other denizens of the bar moved aside to let him through, giving him a wide berth. Even without his reputation as one of the most fearsome bounty hunters in the galaxy, the pair of oversized Mandalorian combat blasters slung in quick draw holsters on his belt were an unspoken warning that Calo Nord was not a man to be trifled with, despite his diminutive stature.
"Care for a drink?" Sato asked casually as the bounty hunter reached him. Calo set an envelope on the bar, sliding it over. If his client could afford to hire Calo Nord, Senator Tarvish must have either very desperate or very powerful enemies, Sato thought to himself. Taking the envelope, he checked the datapad within, proving the credit transaction. The bounty was much more than usual but Sato had no doubt Calo's cut was significantly larger. In the bounty hunting world, there was an unofficial hierarchy. The best and most experienced of the bounty hunters had connections that spanned the galaxy, meaning they knew about the most expensive bounties almost the moment they were posted. If the bounty paid enough, they might take it themselves. More often, they would contract the bounties out to lesser bounty hunters, giving a small percentage of the bounty and keeping the rest. Sato may have been a deadly killer, trained at the hands of Revan himself but he had no connections, making him little better than the countless amateurs working the galaxy. He was an unknown commodity, but in time, the connections would come. For now though, he had to pay his dues to the heavy hitters like Calo.
A life as a bounty hunter. I hunted scum like this for sport as a Republic commando and now I'm one of them. It seems fate has a cruel sense of humor indeed.
"You're short five thousand credits."
Calo looked at him disdainfully.
"Administrative fees."
"I want the full amount we agreed on."
Calo looked the much taller Sato up and down, sizing him up. Either this man was very brave or very stupid. It didn't make much of a difference. Brave and stupid were essentially the same.
"What would make me give you an extra five thousand credits?" Calo smirked. Sato shrugged.
"I know you haven't been paid yet. Payment won't come until the bounty is delivered. Seeing as I was given orders to use a tranquilizer, it would seem your bounty is useless to your client dead. You should know I fabricate all of my projectile ammunition myself. The tranquilizer I used on the senator has an inactive toxin in it. It will activate itself if I send the proper code on an encrypted frequency to a receiver in the tip of the dart, buried somewhere in the bounty's anatomy. If you attempt to kill me, my transceiver has a dead man's switch which will also activate the toxin. It's very simple, Calo; if you don't pay me the rest, I terminate the senator and you get nothing."
Calo Nord smiled, knowing he had been beaten at his game. Sliding a stack of thousand credit chips across the bar, he got up to leave but stopped, as if remembering something.
"You're not like the rest. You do good work and you're going to go places in this business. I normally work alone, but even I call up a posse every once in a while for the juicier prizes. If you'd like…"
Sato flipped the bartender a ten credit chip for his drink.
"You have my contact information. When you get back from your business on Taris, we can discuss our collaboration again."
The smile disappeared from Calo's face.
"How did you know I was going to Taris?"
It was Sato's turn to smirk.
"I have my ways, Mr. Nord. Permit me to give you some advice: In the future, expand your list of aliases when making travel arrangements. A good agent knows he can never use the same alias twice."