Chapter I-The Job
Der Kje had been in serious situations. And this was most definitely one of them. The mercenaries, many of whom had reputations for their deadliness, were all trying to kill him. After their employer was dead! It's not as if a dead man could pay them for their loyalty. Loyalty. That's what was causing these poor saps all to die. Der went through a routine as he ran away after he finished a job. He had gone through it so many times he could do it almost without thinking. He would dive behind some sort of barricade, jump up firing his blaster pistol-causing the mercenaries to duck-run until he heard them coming up again, and then dive behind a new barricade, and then repeat. Since he'd managed to survive so much, he actually had gathered a small reputation for surviving gangs of attackers. He jumped up, fired, and ran around a corner, where he promptly collided with a purple rodian, carrying a pistol. Before the astonished mercenary had time to lift his blaster, Der punched him square in the jaw, and then pulled the rodian's face right into his knee. The rodian immediately crumpled. Der shot the assailant as he turned back the right way, and continued running
He crashed through a door and ran up the first set of stairs he saw. He came out on the roof of the building, where he proceeded to jump across to another building. The roofs were mostly interconnected, giving him a much clearer path to freedom than the crowded streets had been. He continued running, until he was bowled over by a high-power blaster bolt hitting the ground beside him. He landed behind a crate, which may have saved his life, because the next shot hit the crate, giving him time to get behind a low wall. He drew his blaster from his side-holster, and fired in the general direction that the shots had come from. He knew he wouldn't hit the sniper, but it would incite the sniper into firing, and giving away their location. The ploy worked, and he saw the location of the attacker. He fired twice, giving a moments distraction for him to run while the sniper was ducking. He dove into a nearby stairwell to avoid the shot that had hit the roof where he had just been standing. From here, however, he had a much better shot of the sniper, and the sniper had a much harder shot. He raised his blaster, and set its end on the edge of roof. He took aim, and squeezed off several shots. One hit the sniper's long rifle, which was helpful-as it reduced the threat of the sniper-and another hit the sniper in the left arm. Satisfied that his assailant was incapacitated, Der climbed back onto the roof and kept running across the rooves of the small town.
As he came close to the spaceport, he saw that his ship was surrounded by mercenaries, hoping to ambush him if he came through the door. They hadn't tried to enter the ship yet, probably because they assumed it was booby trapped (which it was). They obviously hadn't considered that he might be coming from above, as they were all watching the doors, not the roof. His ship-a personalized Vigras Class Light Patrol, the Viscerdan-was parked with its elongated tail close to the edge of the wall-just close enough for Der to climb (quietly, so as not to be noticed) onto it. There were ridges along the edge of the tail, and Der used these to pull himself along the tail. When he got close enough to the roof of the main ship, he swung his legs around onto the roof, and then pushed the rest of his body along with it. This made a slight bit of noise, but only one of the mercs appeared to notice, and even he looked away after a few seconds. On the top of the ship, there was an emergency hatch, which Der opened quietly. He dropped down into the cockpit, and closed the hatch behind him. Instead of powering up the ship's engines, which would take time, and alert the mercs to his presence. Instead, he let a small flap on the bottom of the ship fall open. This elicited the curiosity of the Mercs, who began to come closer, weapons drawn, preparing for something to emerge. What exactly they though would emerge was different in the head of each one of them, however, none of them were imagining a rapid-fire, 6-rotary cannon to drop out. It sprayed laser bolts everywhere as it spun 360° around, to get everyone. After the movement stopped, Der retracted the cannon, and fired up his engines. He had hit the target, and made it out alive, which was a bonus. His reward was, like most of his jobs, not extremely lucrative, but was enough to get by, with a small amount of excess. But that didn't change the fact that it would be good for his reputation. Der programmed in Minna-Rinne Space Station on his navicomputer, turned on autopilot, and then leaned his seat back, and faded into a short nap.
The approach to Minna-Rinne Spacestation was a little bit hectic, just because one of the Viscerdan's primary engines had burned out slightly before he had intended to come out of hyperspace, leaving him travelling at extremely high speeds towards the station. He compensated by flying twice around the station first, killing most of his speed. By the time he was coming around to the docking point, he had killed most of his speed.
Minna-Rinne was the hub of most Bounty Hunters. If you needed a Bounty Hunter, Minna-Rinne was a sure place to find one. There were plenty hanging around, just wasting time and credits they had just earned. And if a Bounty Hunter needed work, there were always people arriving with jobs they wanted done. There varying levels of trustworthiness in both bounty hunters and employers to be found; some (both hunters and customers) you wouldn't want to do business with. On the other end of the spectrum, however, were the reputable customers-such as the Hutt Syndicate or the Empire Itself-and bounty hunters whose reputations preceded them; those of the likes of Boba Fett, or Dengar. Der was somewhere in the middle; reputable enough to stay away from the lower levels of Minna-Rinne, but not well-known enough to get high-paying jobs-yet. His reputation had indeed increased over the past few years. Since the Rebels had destroyed the Death Star, two-and-a-half years ago, available high paying jobs from the Empire had skyrocketed. He had been taking more jobs, and had completed every one. He had also been taking some better-paying jobs from the Hutts, and had even come close to claiming the Hutts' biggest bounty when he was on Ord Mantell a few months ago. His target had just escaped from another bounty hunter, who stopped Der from picking up the bounty, unfortunately. He hadn't managed to land that job, which was one of the reasons he wasn't yet so well known.
"Minna-Rinne docking control to Viscerdan. Minna-Rinne docking control to Viscerdan. Prepare your ship before the standard Imperial Search, which has been scheduled for three-and-a-half minutes from now." Der was jolted back out of his thoughts. He smiled, because he had noted how they said "prepare" yourself for a search, not just a "open your ship for boarding." It said something for Minna-Rinne's customer care, since bounty hunters and smugglers were among the few people who ever came out here. He had nothing illegal to hide, but he stowed his extra weapons inside of his oversized hyperfuel tank (he couldn't think of a time that he would ever have a billion credits worth of hyperfuel in it anyways), just in case the Imperials decided to confiscate his weapons on a whim.
He opened the hatch, and a few seconds later, a young Imperial officer and two Stormtroopers came onboard. They searched, and didn't find anything they disliked, so they left. Der left not long after them. His basic durasteel body armor covered only the most vital parts of his body, leaving his legs, arms & head exposed. His long-barreled blaster pistol hung by his side as he strode down the docking tube, towards the city. The space station was, for all intents and purposes, a city; it had housing sectors, business sectors, street vendors selling food, and all other parts of a city. Der bought a bantha-steak at a street-vendor, and then continued on. His employer for this last job was a well-reputed bounty hunting business, founded 10 years ago on Byss. The local office of "Cold Bounties Inc." was found on the third level of Minna-Rinne, and Der had little trouble getting there. He knocked on the door, and was received by a droid. The protocol droid led him down the hall, chatting the whole time, and eventually motioned for him to enter a door. The Minna-Rinne Representative of Cold Bounties was named Jif Jijifs (or so the plaque on his desk said). The short fat man looked up, and smiled widely at Der
"Der! Back so soon? I saw the news of the assassination on the holonet a few hours ago. Very well done, taking out most of the guards as well. We were paid quite well to find an assassin for him, and, as always, our chosen assassin, the overachieving you, gets one half of our initial payment. Now, remind me what we agreed upon before?" Jif Jijifs spoke very loudly and quickly, not pausing for breath in the whole sentence.
"I believe it was 45,00 credits, if I am not mistaken." Der responded quietly.
"We'll add another 5,000, just for the extra disarray you left his state in, most of his bodyguards completely gone." He handed over several high-denomination credit chips, and let Der count them. They added up to 50,000.
"Do you have any other jobs I could pick up while I'm here?"
"Not at the moment, no. Currently all our jobs are taken. It's very good for business. I'm sorry that we don't have any jobs for you right now. You're a good hunter, and I hope we can use you in the future again. If we get another high value job, I'll let you know. I would enjoy working with you again."
"Well, I appreciate that offer. Thank you very much." He stood up, and the two men shook hands over the table. "I hope I'll see you again." Der saluted the man as he left the room.
After spending most of his credits on a refuel the Visceradan (it had been three trips since he had last filled up, and was probably time to do it), and on a few more rations and power packs, he travelled back into town, to see if he could find another job. The more jobs he could pull successfully, the better jobs he could get, so he didn't waste any time.
He travelled most of the upper floors, not finding anything high-paying or close by, which were two very important factors in getting more jobs done faster. Eventually, he came to the Imperial Bounty Hunting Administration, on level three, where he had got many jobs before. The line outside was extremely short, which was probably a good indicator that there weren't many high paying jobs left. As he walked inside, he was surprised at just how few bounty hunters were in here. Usually, every single down on luck bounty hunter came looking for jobs here, where there were usually plenty. He walked up to a kiosk, behind which sat a very bored looking Imperial Cadet, probably on his way to becoming an officer.
"I'm looking for a high paying job." He was very matter-of-fact, and went straight to the point.
"How high?" the bored Imperial didn't even look up from his datapad.
"As high as you have." Der's experience had been that the highest paying jobs from the Imperials were never more than 50,000 credits, and he preferred jobs at least that high
"Well we have one, that's been sitting around for a few weeks now." Der frowned. If it was sitting around for two weeks, it must be insanely risky.
"What's the reward?" If it was really high, it might be worth the risk. That was what bounty hunting was all about, anyhow.
"3 million." Der's eyebrows raised. Doing a job with that kind of price tag would certainly boost his reputation.
"Why isn't it taken yet?" there had to be a reason, he thought.
"Well, because you'd have to be completely and utterly insane to take it! The Imperial Navy didn't want to take it." The Cadet looked up at him this time. The look on his face was saying "Duh!" very clearly.
"Why is it so dangerous?" Der was feeling adrenaline in his blood now. Just the words "10 million" had gotten his blood pumping, and he was ready to take on the galaxy to get that reward.
"Well, if you want to travel into the unknown regions, to capture a target alive, I'll shunt you back to my supervisor, who'll be happy to see you, I'm sure." The unknown regions. Those were dangerous. Without star charts, only one known hyperlane, to one planet-Illum-it was the perfect place to go missing without a trace. But for 3 million credits…
"Let me talk to your supervisor." He said, and the cadet smiled at him.