A half-hour later and they were blasting their way out of the planet's atmosphere, Vhetin's ship shivering angrily as the space outside the cockpit glowed red-hot. The shields flared to protect the bulkheads, blurring the scene of black space outside. The deck rattled and the interior lights flashed red to warn of deflector damage. Vhetin was pushing the engines harder than necessary, obviously eager to tunnel out of atmo and get underway.

Jay tightened her hold on the copilot's seat armrests. She'd always hated ground-to-space takeoffs, even when she'd been in the Navy. One of the first safety films she'd seen while training was a mini-documentary on how many things could go wrong while the ship passed through planetary atmospheres. The different explosions shown in the vid still haunted her to this day.

Just put me in a Star Destroyer's hangar bay, she thought, behind the stick of a TIE Interceptor, and I'll be just fine. I can do vacuum flights with my eyes closed. But this is too bumpy a ride for my tastes.

She let out a sigh of relief as the space outside Void dulled and she finally saw the vast expanse of stars glimmering in the infinite distance. It was currently the weekend planetside, so the usual mess of ships flying to and from the planet was subdued and sluggish; no one really wanted to go anywhere, and there was much work to be done dirtside.

But despite the lazy atmosphere, the sharp, angular Star Destroyer Indomitable was still orbiting the planet, posted to Mandalore for a month more till the end of their mid-rim patrol assignment. The sight of the giant Imperial dreadnought still sent a tingle of fear through Jay's system; she was still a fugitive from Imperial forces, after all.

Vhetin was obviously just as displeased with the Destroyer as she was. He cursed quietly as they passed by the huge capital ship. The cruiser's bulk cast them into shadow, blocking the light from Mandalore's sun. "Hold on. I have to sign in with the Imps. Keep your head down; we don't want any passing TIE pilots to see you through the cockpit viewport."

She nodded and hunched her head low over the command console, covering her head with both hands in what had become an almost second-nature tradition. If she was lucky, the dimmed lights of the cockpit would blend with her dark jacket and keep her hidden from any unfriendly eyes within visual distance. She noticed how Vhetin had polarized the viewport, dimming it to a near-solid shade of black just in case.

Her partner punched the blue intercom button to send out a hailing channel. "Indomitable Space Command," he said, "this is freelance transport Void, requesting hyperspace clearance along sector Grek-eight-nine-nine-four. The destination is Triple Zero, Imperial City."

"Roger, Void." the Space Command officer oversaw incoming and outgoing ships as long as the Indomitable was in orbit and as a result he'd grown to relish the power he'd been given. Ori'buyce, kih'kovid, as a Mandalorian would say – all helmet, no head. "What is the nature of your current departure from the Mandalore sector?"

He wasn't technically supposed to ask; that question was usually left to the customs agents at their destination. But Vhetin played along, not wanting to start any trouble just yet, and responded with his usual reply. "Private investigations and personnel requisition. Got a contract to fulfill."

"Roger, Void." There was a pause over the comm, then the Space Command officer said, "Preliminary scans are showing two life forms aboard your ship. Who is your copilot?"

Jay's heart nearly froze, her mind instantly filled with images of stormtroopers boarding the ship and taking her back to prison and a quick execution. But Vhetin quickly replied, "No copilot. Just an old strill tagging along in the back. You wouldn't believe the smell."

The officer was silent, and nothing but a hiss of static filtered over the comm. Jay glanced over at her partner, her hands still covering her head, and mouthed, Strill? He shrugged and motioned for her to stay down.

After a few long moment, the officer came back with a message. "Void, you are cleared for hyperspace travel. Proceed to escort point Besh-Echo-nineteen, and make the jump. Any deviation-"

"-and we will be fired upon, yeah, yeah, I've heard it all before," Vhetin interrupted. He signed off the comm and took the controls as two TIE fighters swooped in to escort them. The pod-like starships screeched ahead of them, leading them to the predetermined hyperspace lane. Vhetin shook his head at the sight of the TIEs and muttered, "Karking babysitters."

Jay was still staring at him, eyebrows raised. "Seriously? A whole galaxy full of excuses and you decide to call me a strill?"

He let out a dry chuckle as he guided the ship to the hyperlane entry point. "My other idea was telling them I had a Twi'lek passenger. But if I'd said there was a Twi'lek onboard, the troops would definitely board us to get a look at her. At least the threat of the smell warded them off."

"But a strill?"

"Look, they left us alone so my little trick worked. A few more months and you won't have to worry about them at all, and I won't have to make up stupid excuses on your behalf. Just keep your head down so the pilots don't see you and prepare for lightspeed."

The TIE fighter escort swiveled around and roared past them, heading back for the Indomitable as the freelance ship reached the jump point. Vhetin turned control over to the automated navicomputer and Void rotated to match up with the hyperlane's coordinates. Then the Mandalorian pulled back a lever and the stars blurred to streaks. With a detonation of blinding white light, Void shot forward and everything morphed into the whirling tunnel of hyperspace.

Kassh's hideout, Imperial City

Kassh was pacing back and forth through the cramped, dirty supply room that served as his personal quarters while he was staying on Coruscant. Formerly a hastily-converted storage bay, the room was currently packed with sealed durasteel crates carrying all manner of illicit materials: weapons, engspice, stolen Alderaanian artwork, contraband engineering materials, and countless other trinkets. It was very literally worth a not-so-small fortune.

A reptilian akk hound was currently sniffing around the crates, searching for items of interest. It shuffled its nose along the edge of a storage container, then looked up at Kassh and barked; a retching akk akk sound that made his lips curl in a disgusted grimace.

His idiot brother Killik looked up with wild eyes, his attention drawn to the sound. "Huh? Akkie smell something?"

With a sigh, Kassh kicked the beast aside and inspected the crate the hound had found so fascinating. With a wrench, he yanked the lid free and let it clatter carelessly to the floor beside him. As the akk hound ruffled its scales and continued its perusal of the room, Kassh found something very interesting indeed hidden within the durasteel box.

Laying coated in flexifoam was a long, black cylinder with a ridged handgrip and glowing status lights scattered around the shaft. Its housing was polished to a near-spotless sheen, though the heat warping near the emitter suggested the device was in fact very old. Inside was a hastily-scrawled note: The Force chooses the wielder. Let this blade travel where it may.

Hearing Kassh's reverent intake of breath, Killik scurried over and peered inside, clasping the edge of the crate with his twin mechanical hands. His nose and lekku twitched simultaneously. "What that? Akkie bark at stupid glowlight?"

Kassh shoved his neurotic brother away. "This isn't a glowlight you idiot."

Killik sniffed. "Look like a glowlight."

"No," Kassh said quietly as he lifted the device out of the flexifoam with fingers that were almost trembling with excitement. The polished chromium metal was cool to the touch, and seemed to carry an almost electric current. "This is far, far more important. This, my dear idiot brother, is a lightsaber."

"Lightsaber? That don't work like glowlight."

Kassh sighed and flexed his hand around the hilt of the weapon. The scum I must put up with these days...

Killik sighed, flung himself down on one of the cots in the corner, and put his mechanical arms behind his head. "Stupid glowlight. If we had one, we maybe be able to see in here. What use is lightsaber?"

Kassh suddenly whirled and slashed at his brother. The lightsaber kicked in his hands and a pulsing green bar of light sprang to life with a loud crackle-hiss. The blade hit the wall only inches from the Twi'lek's brainless skull, sizzling and melting the duracrete in a long red-hot slash before Kassh yanked it away.

Killik scrambled away from the blade and fell onto the floor with a grunt. His eyes were as wide as training remotes as he sputtered, "Light... l-light... glowlight dangerous."

Kassh felt a smile play across his lips, illuminated with emerald light by the saber's pulsing blade. "Yes... yes, glowlight very dangerous."

He thumbed the deactivation stud and hooked the weapon to his belt, enjoying the steady weight of the blade on his hip. It almost seemed to give him authority, making his chest swell with pride and his walk become more of a swagger. "This beauty isn't for the black market. This is going to stay with me."

"Gotta pay for it."

Kassh debated whether to attack his brother again and not miss this time. But the last thing he needed was a dead body gumming up the works, even if it was someone as worthless as his brother. So he kept his hand away from the weapon and silently walked for the door. The akk hound was now curled up and slumbering near the entrance, its scaly red nose twitching as it snored. He made sure to kick it again on his way out.

No sooner had he exited the door than someone else accosted him. But this time it wasn't his idiot brother or his infernal reptilian pet; this being was almost twice Kassh's size and encased from head to toe in gunmetal gray assault armor. The being's very footsteps seemed to shake the ground underfoot as he deliberately lumbered into Kassh's path, blocking the entire four-meter-high door. His dirty and burned armor, specifically designed to support his massive frame, sported more weapons than any normal mercenary could hope to carry.

"Durge," Kassh greeted him.

"Sir," Durge boomed, clenching a huge fist larger than Kassh's head. The alien's armored helmet and full-face breath mask made his voice echo, giving a slightly metallic tinge to the sound. "Rumors have surfaced that Prince Xizor and Jabba the Hutt have posted a bounty for your capture. A large bounty."

Kassh nodded, unsurprised, and slipped around the huge bounty hunter. "As expected. Xizor believes me a threat. By eliminating me, he silences the only viable voice of resistance among the galaxy's crime lords."

Durge turned around with three huge footsteps that shook dust from the ceiling. "Other reports claim the bounty has already been taken up by Cin Vhetin. A Mandalorian."

That made Kassh pause. "Vhetin? How does he know so quickly?"

With a creaking shrug, Durge growled, "Who cares? Hyperspace transit records show that he left Mandalore this morning, headed for Coruscant. He is coming for you."

Kassh stroked his chin as he left the room, moving down the hallway. With huge pounding footsteps Durge followed. His dirty gray-purple armor glinted in the darkness and made him look every bit the monster he truly was. The eye-slits in his helmet glowed red, only hinting at the beast that lurked beneath his contoured mask.

"I could take care of him. I could shoot down his ship before he ever got close to finding this place."

Kassh shook his head. "It's too public. The only way I can win over the hearts of the other crime lords is by convincing them Xizor is the true threat, not me. I can't let it seem like I'm afraid."

Durge growled in frustration. The noise thundered within his helmet like the snarl of a predatory Rock-lion. "Then what? Just let him track you down?"

Kassh shook his head. The stump of his severed lekku slapped against the back of his neck. "No. I will leave the planet and retreat to our base on Tatooine."

"Run away?" Durge sounded incredulous. "From a Mandalorian? That will only cause more harm. It will make you look more than just afraid. It will make you look like a coward."

"I will leave," Kassh repeated forcefully. Sometimes it was best to deal with his hired help as if they had suffered a debilitating brain injury. "Vhetin is too clever. He will find this place. But when he does, you will be here to stop him. Permanently."

"Nothing would please me more," Durge rumbled. "But if we strike now, if we wipe his filthy existence from the galaxy..."

"That is what could only cause more harm than good," Kassh snapped. "If the other crime lords believe me to be afraid of a single bounty hunter, even one with whom I share such a long and colorful history... they will immediately know that I can be intimidated, and therefore, I cannot be trusted."

He turned to the tank-like bounty hunter and folded his arms across his chest. "But if you manage to kill this hunter here, it will be an effective act of self-defense. And if I am off-planet, on an unrelated business trip, it will only make Xizor's lackeys seem all the more incompetent."

Durge grunted.

"You will wait here," Kassh continued, "and you will stay here until Vhetin discovers this place. Then I want you to kill him. Slowly. Painfully. I want you to make absolutely sure that he will never ruin our plans again. I want you to make him cry for mercy, make him scream for the mother that brought him squealing into this galaxy, and then I want you to crush his skull against the bottom of your boots."

The hulking mercenary stared at him for a moment, then began to let out a series of deep rumbling laughs. His hidden eyes blazed with fire. "It would be my pleasure."

"Good. Contact me when the deed is done."

Durge nodded, momentarily satisfied, and Kassh strode into the next room, heading for the balcony that overlooked Coruscant's smoggy industrial district. The Gen'dai stared after him for a moment, then stomped off towards another area of the base.

Vhetin was persistent, Kassh could give him that. But he was also predictable and relentless as a kath hound. The bounty hunter would gallivant across Coruscant, hoping to track him down and fight him in a one-on-one brawl. He would do a good job, of course, and no doubt track him to this very base. Little would he know that he would be walking straight into his prey's trap.

The hunter becoming the hunted, Kassh thought. Poetic justice indeed.

Freelance Transport Void, exact coordinates unknown, hyperspace tunnel en route to Coruscant

"By the time we get there he'll be long gone?" Jay asked. "What do you mean? Why are we even going to Coruscant, then?"

Vhetin tapped a series of buttons to put the sublight drives into stasis mode. "I mean that Kassh will know we're coming before we even reach the planet. He has too many contacts. Too many mouths whispering to him all across the galaxy."

"So what're we going to do? If he's already left-"

"We're going to do the same thing as if he was still there," Vhetin said quietly. "We're going to talk to people. Gather information. But instead of asking where he is, we're going to find someone who knows where he went. Everyone, even gangsters, leave a trail that can be followed."

"And what if he stays on Coruscant just to slip you up?"

Vhetin chuckled. "I think you're overestimating the criminal mind, even one as slippery as Kassh's. Trust me, he thinks he's a step ahead, which works right to our advantage."

"So we're just going to try and find where he was staying on Coruscant and then track down what planet he disappeared to? In a galaxy this big, that's a pretty long list."

"I never said bounty hunting was quick or easy."

Jay folded her arms and sat back in the copilot's seat, staring absently at the control panel. She tried again to force down the nervousness that rose in her gut at the thought that she was actually hunting down her first bounty. What if she screwed up? What if she was shot? Maybe she would have the chance to catch this Kassh character and she would lose him!

She shook her head, hoping to clear it. If there was anything she remembered from her past training with Vhetin, it was that distraction equaled death. If she had her mind fixated on the long list of potential pitfalls, she could run the risk of overlooking critical clues that might keep her alive. She had to be on the top of her game both physically and mentally.

Vhetin transferred the ship's controls to the navicomputer and sat back, putting his hands behind his helmeted head. He put his boots up on the edge of the command console, careful not to accidentally press any buttons. If Jay didn't know better, she would have thought he was trying to doze off.

She frowned at him and cocked her head. "You seem pretty calm about all this. Why?"

He shrugged and didn't shift from his position. "There's no reason to be worried. Nothing's happened yet."

"You're the only one here with that mindset." Jay let out an anxious sigh and rubbed her hands together, staring down at her boots.

Her partner shrugged again. "This is pretty simple as far as bounty missions go: find the guy, capture the guy, then deliver the guy to another guy. Many hunters would kill for a contract as straightforward as this. You will too before long."

"It may look easy from where you're sitting-"

"I never said easy," Vhetin interrupted, glancing over at her. His helmeted head tilted slightly as he regarded her with his hidden gaze. "When we get down on the ground, I'll be just as tense as you are. But right now it does me no good. So I don't bother with it."

"You just... don't pay attention to it?"

He nodded. "It does you no good to worry about things over which you have no control. A hunter needs to learn to pick his battles, control what he can, and adapt to what he can't."

He returned to his earlier position, his helmet tilted down toward his chest. "Kassh can't hurt us while we're in transit. And we can't do anything to harm him. So we might as well relax while we can. It does me no good to worry now, so I just don't."

Jay sat back in her seat, running a hand through her hair as she thought over his words. He simply chose not to feel nervous? Ignored all the same butterflies that were roiling in Jay's stomach? That would explain his continuous ice-cold attitude; in this line of work, the ability to ignore human emotion was probably very helpful.

But it was also dangerous. Sure, it would help in times like this, when her nervousness was eating away at her, but what about after that? What if it became an unconscious habit, consuming every emotion until...

She glanced over at Vhetin again, cautiously now. This was a side of her friend and mentor that she didn't really want to see. Could he really throw aside his emotions as easily as a spent blaster clip and choose to feel nothing at all? Perhaps that was why he'd been able to shoot her at point-blank range without batting an eyelid during that first sparring match, seemingly a lifetime ago.

She shook her head again and thought, Now isn't the time for this. She had bigger things to worry about than the emotional state of her clearly untroubled partner. She had to stay focused on the task at hand, keep her head, or else…

She licked her suddenly-dry lips and cleared her throat. "I'll, uh… I'll catch up with you later, Cin. I'm going to get some sleep before we arrive."

"Good idea." He nodded absently and shot her a lazy salute. "I'll wake you when we get to Coruscant. Sleep well."

She stood and left the cockpit, heading back toward the sleeping quarters where she would have a quiet place to think. With a glance over her shoulder, she keyed open the door to her room and slipped inside. As soon as the door slid shut, she ran her hands through her hair and let her feet carry her anxiously back and forth across the cramped room.

She wished that she'd had more time to train before she'd been thrown into all this. Everything was happening too fast for her comfort. Barely a month had passed since that Stunball match, and she was already marching into a live-fire mission! And hunting down a deadly gangster, no less?

I guess, she thought to herself, it's just working outside my comfort zone. Again.

She sighed and sat down on the edge of a cot, pulling her pistol from its holster and staring at it. Looking at it, she felt a small sense of comfort wash through her like a gentle, warm wave. It was a tiny grain of certainty that eased her nerves the slightest bit.

This pistol meant that she was ready. A month ago, she had been plunged into a situation she hadn't been prepared for, yet somehow – miraculously – she'd come out on top. She had beaten the odds once, and she could do it again. She could come out on top of this as well and prove to Vhetin and everyone else that she could make it as a bounty hunter.

Still, she couldn't help but gulp and add, I hope.

She tried to get some sleep, but found herself tossing and turning aimlessly for the better part of an hour. The usual nightmares of Corulag and the events that took place there were thankfully absent, replaced now by fitful daydreams of losing her target and facing down an angry and disappointed Cin Vhetin. The image alone made her guts clench with shame and anxiety.

It was only when the ship around her suddenly jerked and decelerated that she sat up in her cot again. She glanced around her sparse quarters in confusion, eyes falling on the chronometer on the wall: only an hour and a half had passed since she had left the cockpit. Were they there already?

She stood and headed for the door to her room. It slid open before she got there and her partner stood in the doorway.

"I need you up in the cockpit," he said, jerking his thumb over his shoulder. "We've got a hit."

"What?"

"We had to temporarily drop out of hyperspace." He gestured for her to follow. "I just now got a message from one of my contacts on Coruscant. He sent me a location where someone sighted Kassh just a few days ago. We're heading there as we speak."

Jay nodded, taking a deep, calming breath. She strapped her gun back to her hip and set off after her partner, feeling the tingling sensation of adrenaline coursing through her veins. A hazy sense of disbelief came over her as she settled into her seat in the cockpit and waited for Vhetin to brief her on what he'd learned.

This is it, she thought. No turning back now.