We reached the forest clearing where our ships sat and waited. We went inside the bounty hunter's freighter, and gathered around the main hold. There was a center table, large and round. I sat on a couch to the side, while the other bounty hunters sat at the table. Gorman stood leaning against the bulkhead, looking anxious.
"I need to tell Rajja about what's happened. He-"
"Doesn't need to know what happened." Irkchik finished Gorman's sentence. "Until we have Cassus bound and secured, we don't tell the Hutt anything."
Suuvarsh remarked something, and Terran eyed him with a nod. "Are all Ubese this agreeable?" Terran asked. Suuvarsh turned to him and said nothing.
Gorman relented, and the lot of them began arguing. As I sat watching, I thought about the situation and what I knew. Specifically, what they didn't know. Cassus was definitely here. His command style and strategies had changed some since the war – he didn't have legions of troops anymore – but it was him, orchestrating everything. His men were well trained, and were clearly ideologically aligned with him. They believed they were Neo-Crusaders, forging a new war machine for Cassus. A small band like that needed strong leadership constantly. Cassus was present during that whole debacle. Who else would have triggered that explosion?
I stood up and walked to the table. "You're accomplishing nothing here."
They all turned to look at me, irritated. Munshaan the Stereb said "And you have a better idea, Fett?!"
"I do."
"Don't waste our time, Mando. We have no leads. Cassus was nowhere during that whole shit show. What do you got that's so special?!" Terran shouted.
I circled around the group and put forth an idea. "Cassus' operation here was small time. He had a platoon's worth of men and no reinforcements. Those men were soldiers and mercenaries, not miners."
Irkchik said, "Yah, so?"
"Meaning he hired miners, either locally or offworld." I replied, continuing to circle. "It's not a stretch to think he has other mining operations in the system, maybe even the whole sector."
"It would take months to go through every system in the Kibilini sector." Palscho replied.
"Then narrow it down. What nearby system has an abundance of bored, unemployed miners and mercenaries?" I said back. The idea was catching on.
Suuvarsh the Ubese muttered something, and Palscho looked at him. "That's a good idea. We should search the local holonet for job listings."
Terran rolled his eyes and sighed. "Or we find one of the miners here and question him." He replied, tapping the side of his head with his finger.
I stopped circling and looked down at the group. "There's our answer."
/\/\/\/\/\/\/
Omman Minor was a lost cause. Cassus realized it was an ambitious project, perhaps too far reaching. Hiring miners, converting mercenaries to the Mandalorian way…still, Cassus resolved every failure was a learning opportunity. He had gotten too comfortable, stretched his resources thin. How had those bounty hunters found him to begin with? He thought the seals on his operation was air tight. Clearly somewhere there was a leak. It was time to play recluse again.
Cassus gathered what he needed from his nut, not that there was much. Most of the belongings in his forest home were property of Donnigan Reldarry, now out of work mining contractor. Still, it wouldn't hurt to cover his tracks. Just like the old days, just like Dxun.
Opening his bed's footlocker, Cassus retrieved a decently sized thorium charge. While most thorium charges could be remotely detonated, they could also be set to go off like a proxy mine. Tinkering with the fuse settings, Cassus carefully set the thorium charge back into the footlocker, closed the top, and backed away. It had a two minute timer before the proximity settings would kick in. Cassus did one last check, then quickly left. He needed to leave the planet, regroup, reconsolidate, and continue working on his plans from his base of operations.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/
Suuvarsh, Gorman, and Palscho had opted to stay behind and check the holonet, using the Hutt's ship the Ganks and Gorman flew in on. The rest of us went aboard the bounty hunter's freighter, and took off into the night sky. Omman Minor didn't sport a large population, so finding the miner's encampment wasn't difficult. Using the freighter's scanner, we picked up on several readings not far from the quarry. While Terran was piloting, Irkchik and Munshaan looked out the viewport as we passed over the camp.
"I think we spooked them flying in." Munshaan said.
"I think the explosion in the quarry did it." I replied. Irkchik growled something lizard like and turned to go to the main hold.
"We just need one. No killing!" The Saurin yelled back. Munshaan and I followed him back as Terran lowered the freighter onto the camp's landing pad. As we equipped our gear in the main hold, the loading ramp lowered onto the pad. Weak lights barely illuminated the landing pad.
"Let's go bag ourselves a miner!" Terran exclaimed as he walked into the main hold. Irkchik turned and pointed at him.
"These people aren't the bounty! We need information, not blood!" Irkchik said back. I was beginning to respect the Saurin.
"Yah yah yah, I was just kidding. Let's go." Terran replied.