Brimstone Tapcaf, Imperial City
Vhetin surveyed the shabby outside of the Brimstone Tapcaf and hooked his thumbs into his belt. The deep bass thump of muffled music filtered out through the entryway, which was lit with dull, flickering red lights. A host of humans, aliens, and even droids were milling about outside, talking or drinking or even fighting. It was a scene more suited for the Outer Rim colonies than the capital world of the entire galaxy.
As he and Jay disembarked from their speeder taxi, a burly Gammorean bouncer had hurled a horned Zabrak man head-first through the door, sending him crashing into a stack of waste bins and spilling their contents over the duracrete ground. A trio of chattering monkey-lizards quickly swarmed over the inebriated man, snatching anything of value — including his credit pouch — and quickly scurried off into the dark.
Normally a patrol of stormtroopers or Coruscant Security officers would be patrolling such a rowdy area, keeping a careful eye on proceedings and ensuring things didn't get too out of hand. But they were strangely absent, and had been since they had set off into the undercity; it was clear the Imperials didn't bother trying to wrangle the locals here. Vhetin couldn't blame them.
"I should have known," he muttered, shaking his head at the sight. "Twice I've caught word of Kassh skulking around in here. I think he's attracted to the strobe lights."
Jay frowned as she too observed the cantina. "Something tells me this place isn't quite as friendly as the Oyu'baat back on Mandalore. You think their drinks are any better?"
Vhetin shrugged and set off toward the building. "They can't be any worse, that's for sure."
Jay giggled despite the nervous worm crawling in her gut. "Don't let Aramis catch you saying that."
Her partner placed a single finger to his helmet, over where his lips would be. "I won't tell if you don't."
As they entered the small entry tunnel that led into the cantina, however, Vhetin brought his partner to a halt. He glanced over his shoulder, then leaned closer and lowered his voice. "Watch your back in here. It can get a little rough, and the locals aren't too welcoming to outsiders. We're trying to keep a low profile; the longer we can operate without Kassh knowing we've hit the ground, the closer we can get to him without a fight."
Jay nodded and casually placed a hand on her pistol, making sure it was well within view of any who might want to mess with her. "I understand."
"Good." Her partner leaned back and adopted a calmer, more conversational tone for anyone who may have been listening in. "Just mind your manners and we'll be through with this waste heap before you know it."
A second later the entry door slid open with a hiss, revealing a dark bar floor lit intermittently with strobe lights and a stage where several performers – human and otherwise – were playing eerie, otherworldly music. The building was crowded with all manner of beings, from humans to Trandoshans to aliens Jay had never seen before. It would certainly be easy to keep a low profile inside; disappearing within the crowd would be as easy as taking a single step in a particular direction.
"Let's split up," Vhetin said, raising his voice to be heard over the music. "I'm going to talk to my contact. Keep an eye out for me."
"Just don't take too long," she replied as they split up. "This place creeps me out already."
Vhetin nodded and melted into the throngs of people, drifting towards the back of the crowded cantina and the bar set up there. Jay headed the other way and skirted along the edge of the stage. She was barely able to hear herself think over the strange, warbling music.
Suddenly everything exploded into a loud Strap beat and a voice screamed out of nowhere, punctuated by the gravelly roar of an electric flixer. Jay jumped and screamed in surprise, but her voice was lost in the thunder of sound and the cheers of the crowd as the night's entertainment began. A Dug bounced past her on his spindly backwards-facing legs, hopped up onto the stage, and began screaming into the amplicoder. She just barely stopped herself from covering her ears; she was sure disrespecting the local band was one of the quickest ways to offend the bar's patrons and get her in very serious trouble.
And Vhetin likes this kind of music? She shook her head to clear the ringing in her ears and moved away from the stage. It took only moments to slip into the crowd, and she kept her eyes peeled for potential trouble.
She was instantly overwhelmed, penned in on all sides by beings of all shapes, sizes, colors, and ages. A fat Bith stared at her with large black eyes as she passed, then turned to his buddy and whispered something, pointing at her. She noticed the bulbous-headed alien was carrying a large, dangerous-looking sword on his hip so she changed course and drifted toward the booths along the western wall. She pointedly avoided a quivering mass of hair, eyes, and teeth that elicited a low growl as she approached.
Further on, a shirtless Zabrak with strange gray tattoos covering his face and chest was sipping quietly from a mug, froth running down his dusty, yellow-hued chin. As the strobe lights flashed she saw the man's eyes were both artificial, gleaming a harsh red and blue in the darkness. He seemed to feel her stare and turned his dead mechanical gaze on her, raising an eyebrow in challenge as she drew near. Jay picked up her pace and left the alien man to his drink, trying her best not to dwell on how quickly his hand drifted toward his blaster as she passed.
Sitting in the booth behind the Zabrak was a beautiful red-skinned Zeltron female, apparently trying to put the moves on a human spacer sitting across from her. From what Jay saw, the Zeltron's charms – and her powerful pheromones - were working flawlessly: the spacer, looking a little wobbly even while seated, ordered another round of drinks from the serving droid and slid a stack of credits to his red-skinned companion.
Everywhere she looked there were more sights, sounds, and smells to discover. The sheer diversity of life packed into the crowded space was almost overwhelming, reminding her of her arrival on Mandalore and her first visit to the Oyu'baat.
But before she could get too lost in her perusal of her surroundings, Vhetin appeared through the crowd and motioned for her to follow. He seemed to drift effortlessly across the packed cantina floor, melting through the throngs with surprising grace; Jay assumed he'd had much practice in maneuvering crowded bars while searching for information from the locals.
Jay was not so inconspicuous in her traversal of the tapcaf floor. She scowled as some of the bar's more inebriated patrons began whistling and calling rowdily to her as they passed. She tightened her grip on her pistol as one of them reached for her with a slurred, "Hey, baby. How 'bout you ditch this crowd an' get with a real man?"
Vhetin shoved the man back into his seat. "Settle down, vod. She's with me."
"So?" the man drooled. "Din't your bucket-head mama teach you to share?"
The group laughed uproariously, but Vhetin paid it no mind. Jay gritted her teeth as they passed by the raucous group, glaring pointedly at the man who had spoken first. He fixed her with a leer and blew her a kiss.
"Can I shoot just one of them?" she growled.
"As entertaining as that would be, you should probably keep your weapon holstered. Leave them to be mugged by rogue feminist gangs. That'll teach them."
She huffed and turned away from the knot of drunkards. "Killjoy."
They slipped through the crowd toward the bar, where a paunchy, four-armed Besalisk bartender was serving three different customers at once. The stout reptilian man managed to somehow pour three separate drinks and wipe down the bar with a greasy rag at the same time he was conversing with a pale-skinned Rodian patron. His sharp yellow teeth flashed as he let out a booming laugh, his multiple arms dancing across the bartop as he served his patrons.
"Kexio!" Vhetin called to the Besalisk. "Kex!"
The tender glanced up, his gullet pouch expanding as he barked, "Eh? What, whaddaya want?"
Vhetin took a seat at the bar, Jay remaining a short distance away. She wanted to keep on guard and not get too comfortable. The longer they spent in the cantina, the more she felt like they were in danger already. Like they were both being watched by unfriendly eyes.
The bartender seemed nonthreatening, at the very least. He sniffed, gullet pouch wobbling as he poured Vhetin a drink and growled, "Figured I'd see you here. Y'made good time from Mandalore, even by your standards."
Vhetin pointedly ignored the drink offered to him. Kexio didn't seem surprised. "You sent me a message that you had intel on Kassh."
The Besalisk let out a low rumbling noise from deep in his throat. He shook his head, like an akk dog drying its wet scales. "Maybe I did. Who wants to know?"
With a flick of his fingers, Vhetin produced a hundred credit data chip seemingly from nowhere. He raised it into the light, letting the bar's illuminators flash against its gold surface, then slid it across the bar toward Kex.
"Let's just say it's a concerned citizen," the bounty hunter said quietly.
One of Kexio's hands, this one wiping down the bartop with an old rag, slid over the credit. When the rag passed, the chip had disappeared.
"Alright," the reptilian alien grumbled. "What do you wanna know?"
"Kassh. When was he here last?"
"Two days ago. He showed up outta the blue and barged in on a meetin'. No invitation, nothin'. Just walked right in like he owned the place. Punched one of my bouncers right in the proboscis." He shook his head, ruffling the flaps of his gullet pouch. "Bad manners, that. Even in this neighborhood."
"What meeting?" Vhetin inquired.
Kexio glanced around himself, then leaned closer and lowered his voice. "Big meetin'."
"Who was there? I need names, Kex."
Kexio looked around himself again, as if worried someone was listening in. His beady eyes flashed in the dim lighting. But most of the bar's patrons were too fixated by the scantily-clad Twi'lek dancers that were now moving across the band stage. No one could care less about the bartender and his Mandalorian companion.
The Besalisk turned back to Vhetin and hissed, "Viiro-vari. Yuriq. Kallop. Sekha. Mintashi. Rotta. Jabba. Kammna. And Xizor showed up at the end."
Vhetin nodded thoughtfully. "And when Kassh left, did you see where he went? Did you get a speeder registration number or anything?"
Kexio shook his large, knobby head. "Nuh-uh. Sorry, Vhetin, but I can't help ya there."
Vhetin nodded, thanked the bartender, then flipped him thirty more credits. As he turned away from the bar, Jay heard her partner mutter a curse under his breath. She quickly trailed after him as he made his way back through the crowd, heading for the exit. They were clearly done here.
"What's wrong?"
"That meeting Kexio was talking about was between the leaders of some of the largest criminal organizations and gangs in the galaxy," he said. "There were even some major bigwigs like Sekha and Jabba the Hutt. And with Xizor there... well, that places our employer at the scene with the bounty. And that's never a good sign."
"So what? What does that mean?"
"It means something big is going down very soon. It's my guess that Kassh plans to screw it up. And when he makes his move, we have to be there to stop him."
"But first we need to find out exactly what's going on?" Jay volunteered.
"Got it in one," Vhetin said, swerving to avoid a hulking Gammorean. "One of the members of this meeting – a Twi'lek named Sekha – is based here, out of Coruscant. We'd do well to question her and see if we can't find out what these organizations are planning."
"Are you sure we can safely do that? Investigate such a large criminal organization?"
"I can pull a few strings to land us an audience with Sekha herself. We go back a long way."
"What do you mean?"
He shrugged. "A long time ago, back when... well, back before I was a freelance hunter, I was told to investigate a narcotics smuggling ring based out of Munnilist. When I finally tracked down the ringleader-"
Jay only partially paid attention. Most of her thought was drawn to the four black-clothed humans who had just emerged from the backstage door. They were all sporting large vibroswords and blasters. When they saw her and Vhetin heading for the exit, they began talking among one another and pointing at them.
Mercenaries, her instincts screamed. Hitmen.
"Sorry to interrupt," she interrupted, "but it looks like we have visitors."
"Uh-oh," Vhetin muttered. A single hand clenched into a fist. He gestured to the pistol on her hip. "You've been practicing?"
"Every day," she said, unclipping the safety strap that kept the gun in its holster.
"Good."
The mercenaries began moving toward them as she and Vhetin approached the door to the outside. As soon as they were close enough, the group stepped in front of Vhetin and blocked their exit. Jay hung back a few paces, hoping to get a better angle with her weapon in case things got out of hand. Her partner, however, just folded his arms across his chest.
"Can I help you?" Vhetin's voice was low and unnaturally calm.
One of the humans, a true giant of a man with a nasty-looking scar across his forehead, glared at Vhetin with a dangerous look in his single functional eye. "You been askin' a lot o' questions around here. You're nosy, bucket-head. And nosy outsiders don't last long in d'Underworld. So we're thinkin' about rippin' your nose off. That'll teach ya."
Vhetin sighed quietly and said, "Are you sure you want to do this? You might be taking on more than you can handle.
The man grunted out a laugh and gestured behind him. "Eight of us against one Mando and a little girl? I think our odds are just fine."
Eight? Jay's heart was pounding now. There must be four more outside.
Vhetin shifted a bit, looking only mildly tense. But Jay saw his fingers close around the long staff hooked to the side of his jetpack. The motion was disguised by his folded arms, and to the untrained eye he looked just as nonchalant as ever. Jay tensed; whatever was about to happen would happen in seconds. It would only take a single spark to light this fuse.
She glanced around and saw other patrons beginning to take notice. People were turning in their chairs to watch while others moved discreetly away to avoid being caught in the crossfire of a fight. Jay found herself wishing she could do the same.
"Last warning," Vhetin said, his voice barely audible over the band's deafening music. "Back off or get hurt."
The huge man laughed and shoved Vhetin in the chest. The exact wrong move. Before Jay could step forward to intervene, she heard a loud, sizzling snap-hiss. There was a flash of blue and a scream.
The man suddenly had no hands.
What remained were red-hot cauterized stumps where his hands should have been. The severed appendages fell to the floor with quiet thuds, still twitching. Jay stared at them, eyes wide and mouth falling open. She had blinked and missed her partner's first attack.
The music instantly died and several patrons gasped or screamed. Vhetin spun his ignited weapon swiftly and slammed his boot into the man's chest in a powerful kick, sending him sprawling back and crashing through the front door. The man collapsed to the ground, staring at the stumps of his hands and screaming.
The pike spun blindingly fast through Vhetin's hands again, then was suddenly still as he straightened, the shimmering blue blade of the weapon pointing toward the ground.
Everyone in the bar froze, staring at the ignited staff with a mixture of horror and awe. There was silence except for the electronic hum of the weapon's blade and the pained whimpering of the now-handless man. Then one of the human mercenaries let out a shout and jumped forward into battle.
The entire bar erupted into pandemonium. Jay drew her pistol and shot the man twice in the gut before he could take two steps toward Vhetin. The gun kicked in her palm once, twice. The man doubled over with a shout while Vhetin spun his staff deftly between his hands and tripped him with the beskar shaft of the weapon. Bar patrons went running everywhere – some screaming, others just hunkering down where they sat and putting their hands over their heads. The band seemed to decide to make the most of the situation and went right back to playing their deafeningly loud music.
Vhetin planted a foot on a chair and kicked it towards his opponent. The man batted it away, only in time to see Vhetin advancing on him. The bounty hunter's blade sunk into the man's chest with an electric sizzle and the mercenary crumpled silently.
Jay squeezed off a shot at a mercenary that charged at her with a roar and an activated vibrosword held high. She pumped three bolts into the man's stomach, but he didn't even stumble. When he was too close for comfort, her mind reverted to her military training in hand-to-hand combat. She ceased her fire and pistol-whipped him across the face. He staggered, surprised and struggling to regain his balance. She pressed her advantage and kneed him in the solar plexus, then slammed her elbow hard into his forehead.
That got him.
The man's eyes rolled back in his head and he crashed to the ground, unconscious or dead. Jay didn't really care which.
She looked up and saw that Vhetin had already taken the fight outside, leaving three dead or wounded mercenaries in his wake. She dashed through the open door, picking her way around the handless merc that had started this whole mess.
She emerged into the thick, muggy air of the Coruscant underworld and quickly spotted her partner near the speeder parking zone, fending off two mercs at once. Both thugs were using vibrosword weapons that seemed to deflect his lightsaber blade. The other two remaining men were cheering their comrades on. Jay watched with wonder as Vhetin fought, momentarily too stunned to move.
It was clear now that all Vhetin's skill in the sparring ring had only been a shadow of his true abilities. He had been holding back to train her. His sapphire blade was flashing through the air, painting the darkness around him with neon light that flashed and sparked every time he hit his opponent's weapon. He pivoted and jumped, rolling the pike behind his back to knock one opponent's sword aside without even looking. He elbowed the man in the face before bringing his weapon to bear on the one in front of him. His pike hummed violently as he swung it, buzzing and hissing with every slash and stab. The illumination from the blade seemed to linger on the air, enclosing the black-armored warrior in a cage of pulsing blue-white light his opponents could not hope to penetrate.
The man in front yelled and tried to slash at him, but Vhetin hopped back, smashing the shaft of his weapon into the rearward merc's stomach, again without even looking. The man crumpled with a grunt and Vhetin spun and whipped the end of his weapon into his opponent's skull, knocking him unconscious.
But the other merc was still advancing. Vhetin turned on one foot and fell into a defensive posture, parrying the incoming attacks. But despite the Mando's best efforts, several brutally powerful blows managed to penetrate his guard. She saw him wince slightly as the vibrosword scored a long bloody slash down his right arm. Splatters of red arced into the air and pattered against the ground. Before the merc could press his advantage, however, Vhetin pulled his trump card.
He leaped forward with another of his unbelievably high jumps, pivoting in mid-air as he did, and planted both boot heels in the man's face. His heels connected against the thug's chin with a sharp crack and there was a short splash of blood. The man was knocked clean off his feet, vibrosword clattering to the ground as he collapsed into an ungainly tangle of flailing limbs.
Vhetin landed hard, his boots thudding against the duracrete ground and pike grasped tightly in both hands. A few steps away, his opponent groaned and clambered back to his feet again, reaching for his weapon. The man's nose was clearly broken, blood staining his lips and chin. But he seemed determined to continue the fight.
Vhetin didn't give him the chance. Before the merc could grasp his weapon, the Mandalorian took two steps forward, raised his weapon, and swung it through the air like a long, thin club.
Jay covered her mouth in surprise, anticipating what was going to happen a second before it did.
The lightsaber blade at the end of the staff decapitated the man cleanly, slicing through flesh and bone with an synthetic sizzle and a shower of sparks. The merc's arms fell to his sides, his vibrosword slipping through quickly-slackening fingers. There was a last dying hiss of crackling plasma, fading away into shocked silence. And just like that, everything was still.
Then, seemingly in slow-motion, the man dropped to his knees and his head fell free, rolling across the duracrete parking zone. A second later his body crumpled to the ground, twitched, and fell still. Blood stained the ground around the corpse.
Jay's stomach lurched dangerously at the sight. If Vhetin was as disturbed, he didn't show it; he instead flipped his weapon through the air, only to skillfully catch it near the blade emitter. He swung it down so the beskar shaft hit against his right shoulder blade, the saber pointed toward the ground in an open combat-ready position. He silently turned to face the final mercs.
The entire fight had lasted less than twenty seconds.
The two remaining thugs stared at Vhetin, looking every bit as horrified as Jay felt. Then they simply turned and ran as fast as they could. They sprinted for two large transport speeders parked near the edge of the large dropoff shaft that led deeper into Coruscant's underworld. Jay could hear them whimpering as they fled.
She started, the sound of their terror managing to shake her from her own heady shock. Once the mercs reached those speeders they'd disappear for good, taking any information they had with them. She jumped into action and moved to give chase, bringing her pistol to bear.
Her partner had other ideas. Vhetin's gloved hand fell on her pistol, gently pushing her weapon down toward the ground. "Let them go."
"What?"
"Let them go," he repeated, his voice rasping out over his vocoder in short, pained gasps. He sounded exhausted, and his grip on his pike was shaking dangerously. "They can't do any more harm to us."
"But-"
"Let them go," he said more forcefully, and watched as the two mercs piled into one of the speeders. "Sometimes mercy can be a more powerful weapon than any blaster. Besides, enough blood has been spilled today. The locals will be talking about this fight for months to come. That's enough for one round."
"I…" she hesitated and bit her lip. "I guess you're the boss."
The Mandalorian sighed and deactivated his lightsaber pike, hooking it back against his jetpack with trembling fingers. Jay stared at his shaking hand, then stepped closer with a worried frown; his glove was stained with blood. Lots of blood.
"You're hurt."
"I'll be fine," he said, his voice tight and curt.
Jay examined the gash on his arm closer, touching the torn fabric of his flight suit. "No you won't," she said. "That cut went down to the muscle tissue. You'll need stitches, at the very least. If you don't, that could get infected or—"
He pulled his arm away. "I'll be fine," he snapped. "I've been in worse scrapes than this. And since when did you become the resident med-tech?"
She flinched away from him, hurt by his angry tone. She didn't risk saying any more. Instead, she stepped away to put some distance between them and holstered her pistol, her gaze lingering on her boots.
"R-right," she said. "Sorry. I just thought… never mind."
He stared at her for a few moments through the expressionless faceplate of his battle helmet, then sighed. His shoulders slumped. "Look," he murmured, "I'm sorry, all right? But you don't need to worry about me. I can take care of myself."
"If you say so…"
"Let's just get back to Void. We can get a good night's sleep and get back at it first thing tomorrow morning. Those mercs will report back to their bosses and prove that we mean business. The ball is in their court now."
She nodded slowly and folded her arms. "Okay."
He nodded back and moved to put a hand on her shoulder. He seemed to think better of it, and his arm fell back to his side, the bloodstained gloved hand clenching into a fist.
"You did well during that fight, Jay," he said. "You held your own and managed to watch my back."
He hesitated again, then added a terse, "Good job," and stalked off without another word.
She didn't bother watching him leave. Instead, her gaze wandered down to the body still splayed at her feet. She stared down at the decapitated mercenary, her eyes lingering over the blood and lightsaber burns. Her stomach crawled at the sight and she found herself fighting away a powerful wave of nausea.
Is this really all that bounty hunting is? She thought to herself. Is this really what a good job looks like? Mayhem? Death? Murdering others because they were stupid enough to cross you? At least in the military we had a reason to kill. A cause.
She remembered she did have a cause. She was doing this to get back at the people who had unjustly branded her a traitor. Them and everyone else like them.
But that excuse suddenly sounded very hollow to her. And she wasn't sure why.
Why did you choose to come with Rame and me instead of traveling on your own? Vhetin had asked her during their first sparring match. I need a more in-depth explanation than just 'I want to punish those who punished me.'
I think I know now why he asked me that, she thought. Revenge is a great motivator, but only for a short time. After a while, it just... evaporates. Leaves you with nothing but a lot of questions.
So why did she want to become a bounty hunter? The decision had seemed so right when she had first made it that it was impossible to say that it was for revenge alone.
She thought about it during the entire silent ride back to the ship. By the time Void's spearhead shape came into view in the distance, she still didn't have an answer. She was still fighting with herself as they approached the transport, nestled safely in its spaceport docking bay. She would have to keep thinking about this, and keep thinking hard.
If this is what it's really like, do I really have what it takes? Can I really be a bounty hunter?