Author's Note: Hello again dear readers! Since I've got the Cad Bane brain rot again, I've got the motivation to write up a small little, spin-off of sorts. This is taking place directly after the Bad Batch episode, 'Bounty Lost' and will be heavily featuring my original character from Fistful of Credits. Because of that, there is already an established relationship between all of the characters here.

Anyway. I've greatly missed writing them. I'm thinking this will be short and sweet, with just a couple of chapters.

xxx

"Get us in the air", Bane ordered immediately upon stepping into the cabin of his ship. His metal lined boots echoed loudly against the flooring as he hurriedly moved through the enclosed space towards his chair.

Time was of the essence, and every second lost was like watching his promised credits slowly decline in value.

Todo was already at the controls, frantically trying to push any sequence of buttons that would actually get the system to properly respond. Time after time again, his yellow optics were met with a bleating 'error' message displayed in angry red letters back towards him - if he was even given that acknowledgement at all. Most of his attempts were met with the backhand of the ship not responding to anything at all with what he was trying to blatant issue pointed towards a slew of other problems that could be occurring within the spacecraft's inner workings.

Bane relinquished the hold he had been keeping on his injured stomach, and he quickly moved to sit down. He hardly acknowledged his droid as the flying piece of metal slightly moved to the side of his chair and remained floating there.

His mind was completely occupied by the need to get his bounty back.

When he had first gotten the contract to capture the young unaltered clone, he hadn't been expecting opposition from the likes of Fennec Shand. Her appearance at the previously appointed rendezvous had greatly soured his plans though, and he was none too pleased to have been bested in hand-to-hand combat when she decided to intervene within his business venture.

Because of Shand's interruption, his bounty was now on the run and he desperately needed to get back into the air as soon as possible. Even if the previous Kaminoan was dead and the briefcase of credits lost, he could always contact Lama Su again and demand an even higher payment given the updated ante of opposition.

"I am trying, but our systems are not responding", Todo replied with an exasperated tone as he held out his robotic limbs for further emphasis.

Bane's red eyes scoured the controls, looking back and forth between all of the various buttons as he tried a slew of different inputs to ignite the engines to life. He could hear the ship roar to life for a few hopeful seconds, before the engines suddenly plummeted to death again in a convulsing fit of sounds.

The bounty hunter stood up with sudden rage and slammed a fist down into the dashboard of the controls, the impact leaving behind a small crater upon the indented casing.

"They appear to have been… sabotaged", Todo remarked, watching the displeased looking mood emanating from his master.

Just out of the corner of the viewport, the sight of a retreating ship came into the line of vision and tore off across the blonde colored palette of the outside sky. It wasn't long before the cloudy atmosphere completely veiled the four blue engines of the disappearing vessel, and soon it was gone from sight entirely.

Bane's shoulders shook with anger upon recognizing that the fleeing ship could only belong to Shand herself, and the cause of sabotage to his ship was solely pointing towards her as well. He glared heatedly at the ship and snarled, his pointed teeth grinding against each other in such a strengthened way that it was threatening to give him a splitting headache.

She had been one step ahead of him in this little game.

There were few people in the galaxy bold enough to come between him and his bounties, and he was already planning for the day again when revenge could be justly given out to his newly appointed adversary.

He clenched his fingers tightly into his gloved palm and fell back into his seat again with a dispirited slump. Wordlessly, he reached forward to one of the smaller front compartments and pulled out a small box of cigarettes he kept in there for safe keepings. Reaching for the lighter as well, he quickly ignited a stick and brought it towards the cracked lips of his mouth, inhaling a much earned but deep inhale of smoke before expelling it again.

If there was ever a time that he needed a smoke, it was certainly now.

He simply sat there in silence, mulling over what to do next as his plans had been entirely interrupted with no hope of moving forward again. If the ship had been damaged enough to a certain threshold, then it would also mean that a speedy departure from this planet wouldn't be within the near future. He briefly glanced over towards the various warning signs displayed in the corners of the screens, the most alarming being that of the right engine.

That wasn't going to be an easy fix - at all.

Todo remained hovering there, the blue ignition on the bottom of his round metal feet slightly swaying to and from the side. He tapped his index fingers together in tandem, his processor mulling through different options of what to do next.

There was the possibility of calling someone for help, but unfortunately for the both of them, there weren't too many individuals that Bane actually got along with. It seemed there was only a select few other bounty hunters near the top of the ranking chart that he actually respected. And even if he did decide to reach out, Todo knew that Bane maintained a high enough ego that he wouldn't readily ask for help. Even if it were a life or death situation.

His master was terribly stubborn like that.

The techno-service droid dared a look towards his master, debating on the next set of words in his vocal processor. He knew from years of working together that the easily irritated Duros was in quite the sour mood right now, and that was usually substantial enough evidence to leave his partner alone.

But there was possibly one other option of who they could call.

"We could call Miss Scarlett for-" Todo began but was interrupted before he could even finish the suggestion.

"Not happenin'", Bane replied hastily, moving up to stand and prematurely snuffing out his cigarette on the end of the armchair. With no other words spoken, he headed back towards the singular door of the cockpit.

Todo sighed uselessly with a roll of his mechanical shoulders before plopping down into the now empty chair. The woman in question was one of the very few other individuals that Bane actually got along with quite well. Although the droid didn't quite understand the inner workings of how organic's fondness worked most times, he knew their relationship to be quite different compared to the other semi-friendly types of dispositions he had seen Bane display towards his fellow bounty hunters.

The droid also recalled how frequently the two communicated with one another between their in-person visits, whenever the time was allocated. Although Scarlett wasn't a bounty hunter herself and was in the midst of trying to sell her father's failing business, both of their jobs kept them fairly busy enough that the trips could still manage to be semi-frequent enough.

But those had been occurring less and less as of late.

Todo waited until his audio receptors could hear his master descend the small ladder into the lower belly of the ship and then out the side door before putting his plan into action. He reached forward towards the controls, his main digits going over the well-rehearsed sequence of buttons before a familiar picture for an outgoing call appeared on the screen.

Well, at least their communication relay hadn't been sabotaged. Some good news for them yet.

xxx

Outside some odd amount of hours later, Bane had been laying atop a rolling repair stool as he was beginning with his work underneath the ship's fuselage section to see if the power generators to each designated thruster had been damaged to any capacity. He had already spent a good chunk of time double checking that there weren't any nasty gifts left behind for him to discover. The last thing he needed now was finding a proximity mine nestled between some parts of the fuselage.

Although he certainly wasn't up to par with the more complicated craft of spacecraft repair, he knew enough to at least get him by. Anything that he couldn't repair on his own could be given to his butler droid instead. And if parts were beyond basic repair, then the next step meant calling in a roaming junk dealer to see if they could supply what they needed. Even if it was temporarily.

While working, his wide-brimmed hat had been removed and placed to the side just outside where he was propped up underneath the ship's lowest section. It was too much of a bother to wear while he was trying to repair things in this current position.

Somewhere in the far distance, the sudden sound of a ship could be heard entering the airspace near the abandoned facility of where they were situated on.

Bane paused in his work after prying open one of the ship's lower compartments with the tool in his hand. He tensed from his spot upon the rolling cart he was laying upon, listening for a few seconds to try and identify the type of ship slowly approaching from the far east side. Years of experience within this type of dangerous job had given him the ability to measure whether a spacecraft should immediately be acknowledged as a potential danger. He had enemies practically everywhere nowadays, and he could never be too cautious.

All things considered, this facility on Bora Vio was completely desolate. There wouldn't be any sort of immediate air travel within the area unless someone had incredibly specific reasons for being here.

There was both a slight sense of relief but also slight annoyance when he was finally able to recognize the familiar engine of the ship as it neared closer to the platform before pitching again and heading towards the next empty landing platform on the opposite side of the facility. He had heard those particular thrusters enough times over the years that the familiarity was near instant once it was close enough to distinguish.

He also should have known his droid would go against his simple but strict orders. The glitchy piece of equipment was making it a nasty habit as of late. But it also gave reason as to why Todo hadn't already called in for the unidentified ship coming towards their direction.

A frown found its way onto the sunken features of his face, but he continued with what he was doing, shaking his head in disbelief.

Xxx

Not long after the other ship had landed did he finally hear the approaching footfall of someone accompanied by two pairs of small metal feet atop the hard flooring. He listened acutely as the two droids following the person began to loudly comment about the condition of the ship once they got close enough to inspect it in full detail.

"Oh, I was expecting something much worse", a robotic tone voiced in a chipper-sounding noise.

"Much worse indeed! Though it could do with a bit of a cleaning…", the other sounded, equally as jovial about the matter.

"A 'bit' of cleaning? I think you mean a lot", the first replied again.

Bane ignored the three and continued with his work as he was elbow deep into the various conjoined wires from the open compartment he was working on. It wasn't until he heard the lighter pair of boots approach and stop right before his working space that he knew the confrontation was now going to be inevitable. Before he could even interject with a brazen undertone about showing up, one of the boots stepped onto the end of his rolling repair stool and roughly pulled him out from under his ship with him still laying atop the cart.

His line of sight was immediately shrouded by the image of Scarlett standing there with her arms placed across her chest. The woman seemed to look momentarily peeved to see him, but he could tell her initial worry seemed to ebb a bit once she could see he was still in one piece. Although a near-miniscule part of his hardened self appreciated that another person actually cared for checking up on his well being, he still found such affections a difficult task for him to grasp. It wasn't something he was sure he would ever grow used to, or ever for that matter.

"Glad to see you don't look too worse for wear", she said, letting out a sigh of relief and running a hand through her graying, tussled hair which was loosely pulled into a long side-braid.

When she had initially spoken to Todo with his random but urgent call in the middle of the night, the droid made it seem like things were far more dire than what currently appeared. She should have counted on the droid's affinity for overzealous theatrics whenever he spoke. Although she had been woken from a deep sleep, she quickly got her droids together and made headway to the coordinates given to her.

She continued, moving to put her hand up on her hip instead. "Your son called ahead and asked if I could come help. I brought along Gear and Grind so they could be of some help too."

Bane frowned, his lips curling back upon hearing what his droid was called. "He's my personal butler droid, nothing more; nothing less."

Without anything else said between them, he maneuvered himself back under the ship to continue with what he was doing before.

Scarlett rolled her eyes, almost expecting that he wasn't going to be too keen on the teasing right now. Not even a few words between them and she could already tell that he was quite bothered by something else on his mind right now. Although he was usually quite difficult to get along with even on his good days, this was a new headache altogether that needed to be dealt with. What that was though, remained a mystery.

Before she could delve into the task of getting him to open up about what was really bothering him, another robotic voice came from the lowered ramp of The Justifier's side door.

"Oh no…", Todo grumbled from the open doorway. "You actually brought them along?"

Scarlett hummed a small tune of amusement to see the sheer amount of disdain emanating from the tiny droid on the ship. Even though the three droids had all interacted together before, it was quite obvious from Todo's reaction that he wasn't too pleased about their sudden appearance now. At best, it seemed they merely tolerated each other's presence. Though one was far more one sided than the other two.

Gear and Grind peeked out from behind their own master's legs, the two DUM-series pit droids carefully watching their moody, robotic brethren. It had been quite some time since the three had properly gotten the chance to see each other again.

"Well then. Grievances aside, I thought you only reprogrammed them from being maintenance droids? How could they possibly be of any help to us now?" Todo asked, activating his hovering mode and flying towards the woman to stop just a few feet in front of her.

"I did reprogram them", Scarlett answered truthfully, kneeling down to pat the both of them reassuringly atop their rounded heads. Although the two looked nearly identical, one was missing its top antennae which helped to identify them. "I simply added a hardware chip to change them back to their initial reprogramming."

"Well, isn't that awfully convenient", Todo said with obvious contempt through his mechanical voice. He waved a dismissive hand, continuing to mumble things at a low enough volume only his audio processor would be able to pick up. "I guess I should be the one to give them a short tour of the ship. Miss Scarlett, you're welcome to join us as well, but I think you already know your way around quite well."

"That's alright, I'll head to the front controls to check on things up there", Scarlett answered, looking down to the right of her to spot something of important significance to the bounty hunter laying on the floor. She quickly reached down to snatch it up discreetly before making her way inside the ship.

Todo flew to the side as she passed, watching her exit before turning towards his current task of the other two droids again. "Now then, neither of you dare touch a thing, understood?"

The two DUM-series droids looked at each other with a silent understanding of each other before nodding their domed-looking heads in unison.

They already knew that order wasn't going to last long at all.

xxx

Not long after the four departed did Bane finally close the compartment of the section he had been working on. It wasn't going to be the final fix that would mend all of the sabotaged issues both internal and external within the ship, but it was at least a head start for things to come. He pulled himself out from underneath the ship again, putting the tool he was using back into the small makeshift toolbox at his side.

He pulled up his wrist comlink and opened a line of conversation to his droid. "Todo, did you get those two to start working on the ship yet?"

"I'm trying!" Todo called on the other line. There was an immediate scramble of noise interfering with the background which sounded like pieces of metal cutlery being thrown around the room. "I made the mistake of showing them the galley and they've been trying to organize it ever since. They said it was an utter disaster, can you believe that!"

"Just get 'em' to fix the ship", Bane snapped, shutting off the communication line before he could hear even an inkling of an excuse. He reached down reflexively without looking to grab his hat from where he last placed it, but he was surprised when his palm met the cold steel of the platform instead.

He glanced down with slight surprise at its disappearance, before looking behind at his ship and already knowing exactly where it went.

"Damn that woman and her clever little antics…" he thought before making his way back inside.