"Darien Power."

I looked up, taking the cold cloth away from my face. I hadn't been very close to the explosion, but I was close enough to get a little flash-fried. Standing over me was a hulking iotran IPF officer, whom I knew all to well. "Hello, captain, what brings you down from your lofty heights to the scuzz holes of Spacer Town?" I asked Haris.

The iotran glared down at me, ignoring the flurry of police activity going on around him. "So, I receive a call half an hour ago," Captain Haris hissed at me. "And I'm told there's been some action down at The Guzzler's Nook; a bunch of civilians injured and Qort Teeno dead on the sidewalk with a hole through his skull. And do you think I was surprised when I hear Darien Power's name mentioned?"

Standing, I held the cool cloth to my cheek. "I'm going to guess, no."

"What's the story, Power?" Haris asked. "And don't feed me a line of urechk, you know I'll see it coming a kilometer away."

Haris, of course, was right. He was a damned good police officer and had one hell of an eye for a fib. Call it sixth sense, call it creepy iotran intuition, the police captain could see a lie as easily as I could look up in the morning and see the sun. In all my years of dealing with Haris, I had never gotten one by him. Not that it wouldn't keep me from trying, though.

"Ah, come on, Haris," I said, trying to look plaintive. "I was just enjoying a drink at my favourite bar, here, when…"

Haris's glare cut me off. "Try again – or do you not want to keep your investigator's license?"

"Jyergo Huthis," I said through a grimace. "I'm trying to track him down."

Haris rocked back a bit at the mention of Huthis's name. Jyergo Huthis was the self-proclaimed kingpin of crime in Kol, the capital city of this nation of Iotra, my hometown and Haris's jurisdiction. The huge criminal was a herglic – a giant, muscular race notorious for their lack of smarts. Huthis had, somewhere, come across a xenologist who decided that this herglic would be good to practice an experimental intelligence-boosting project on. It worked, and with startling results. Jyergo's intelligence shot up beyond expectations and through wise investments and physical intimidation, he became the head of Kol Mining Conglomerates, the largest and most profitable corporation in this sector. However, KMC wasn't the only source of Jyergo Huthis's fortune. Violence was in the herglic's blood and crime was in his heart. Huthis was rumoured to be involved in numerous racketeering schemes, illegal spice trading, slavery and restricted weapons dealing. I wasn't about to tell Haris, but the blaster tucked under my jacket had a few of Jyergo Huthis's after-market modifications.

So, why was a two-bit private eye like me going after a big man like Jyergo Huthis?

"So, why is a two-bit private eye like you looking for Jyergo Huthis?" Haris asked brusquely after regaining his composure.

A med-tech stepped up to look at my facial burn. He shielded my eyes with a gloved hand and sprayed my cheek with something cool and soothing. The medtech muttered something about it taking a few hours to heal, entered some information on a datapad and walked away. I waited until he was out of earshot before I replied to Haris's question. "We both know Huthis likes to get away from it all for a while – sometimes months, right?" I said. "I've been hired to track down one of his personal entourage by someone who has a vested interest in his whereabouts."

Haris glared at me with his dark eyes while EMR officers sprayed the ruined speeder with a final layer of fire retardant before hauling it away. I could clearly see the stain left by Qort Teeno on the duracrete sidewalk. "You know," the iotran captain said calmly," I could just as easily take you downtown and hook you up to the…"

"Alright, alright!" I surrendered. "My client is the fiancée of this member of Huthis's gang. She's paying me some good creds to track down where Huthis has them all holed up and make sure he's still alive. Apparently that's in question, and she's worried. That's it. Plain and simple."

Haris narrowed his eyes in my direction and mimicked with his hands what the device he was talking about could do to me.

"Come on, quit busting my ass, Haris… it's the truth!" I snapped.

"Captain! You've got to see this, captain, we have a body!"

I'm sure Haris swore out loud and would have told me not to move, but I was already gone.

My office was on the edge of Spacer Town, near the merchant district of Kol. It was on the third floor of a run down tenement building, sandwiched between an after-hours dew house and a dance studio. From the street I could see the large windows of my rented space easily, my name emblazoned in glowing neon letters over the proclamation of my occupation; private investigator. I stood across the street from my building, staring at those letters.

My little business venture wasn't doing so well. I had relocated to Kol from Coret City on Corellia rather abruptly about three years previously. My employment with Corsec was cut off suddenly and my only viable option seemed to be to get out, and to get out fast. In the time I had been operating on Iotra, I had yet to turn a profit. What at one time was a substantial amount of savings was now a depressing amount of creds. But there was a light at the end of my tunnel, and she had walked her long legs into my office only a few days earlier.

She had shown up in my office, an absolute wreck. Despite the tears, which I'm a sucker for anyways, she could still pass for any holodrama starlet. There weren't too many humans living in Kol, and I generally knew who most of them were. This dame wasn't a local. She arrived with a dark blue protocol droid on one side, and a female iotran porter on the other, practically screaming that she was made of creds. Dressed in a flowing fur-trimmed jacket that made it seem as though a thick fog was following her around, she swept her luscious frame into my office.

"Mister Power," she said quietly, "I think my fiancée may be dead."

It was a standard opening – not as shocking a revelation to me as it must have been for her. She poured out her story while I poured out some drinks. I watched her intently, wanting her to understand I was interested in what she had to say, but not finding it difficult to stare into her bright hazel eyes. Chestnut brown hair cascaded in waves over her strong shoulders, stopping midway past her shoulderblades. When she removed her jacket, I found her to be wearing a sensible two-piece suit underneath, the diving neckline giving me the slightest but tantelizing glimpse of her cleavage. The suit jacket fitted tightly against her waist, accenting the curve of her hips. The pants were snug against her legs, and again I was impressed by her shape.

"I've lost touch with him," she said. "He was always so good at keeping contact with me, given what he does he felt it was necessary to keep me from worrying. He travels a lot, but he used to call me once a week by holonet."

Holonet, I thought. Someone does have a lot of creds to throw around. I tapped some data into a terminal built into my desktop. "I need to ask you a few questions, miss…?"

"Oh, yes, of course," she said. "Teryn Aeries," I was told. The iotran porter shifted slightly, trying to nonchalantly take in the layout of my inner office. The protocol droid simply stared straight ahead.

I tapped her name into my data terminal. Digital trackers immediately went to work, storming the 'net, digging up any information they could find on the name she gave me. It sounded familiar, but I couldn't place it. "And your fiancé? What's his name and occupation?"

"His name is Trey Sandstar, and he works for Jyergo Huthis."

It had taken all the self-control I could muster not to fall out of my chair when she mentioned Huthis's name. I had made my way across the street to my building and was on my way to my office. It was late, but I still had a lot of work to do. The club was in full swing, and I could hear it easily as lift ascended away from the second floor and slowed to a stop at the third. I stepped out into the long hallway, the door to my office about ten meters straight ahead of me, doors to utility closets and other rental spaces to my left and right as I made my way down the hall. Even from this distance, I could see my door had been forced, and was still slightly open. There were no lights on inside, so it wasn't as though Nanse was working late. Even in the odd situation I found myself in, that image still made me smile.

Nanse… working late… hah.

I slid my blaster from its holster under my jacket and approached the open door cautiously. As I reached out toward it, I could see that the code lock next to it had been jimmied open and put back together hastily. I began to push the door open ahead of me, and it was then that I heard another door open behind me.