The Justifier
Aside from the beeps of computers, the whirring and humming of machinery, and the hiss of TODO's boosters, all was quiet aboard the Justifier.
At the present moment, the techno-service droid hovered into his master's quarters. Bane was fast asleep, hat pulled down over his eyes and duster draped over his body.
"Mr. Bane."
The Duros grunted and reached out from under his improvised blanket, lifting his hat slightly.
"This better be good, TODO," Bane growled as he squinted at the droid with a half opened eye.
"We have almost reached our destination," TODO replied.
"That so?" Bane said as he got up and threw on his duster.
Within minutes, the Duros was in the pilot's seat, watching as hyperspace faded and a planet came into view. From what his scanners were able to indicate, it was mainly tropical, with it's mountain regions being more temperate.
"According to the ISB's data, we are in the star system's outer fringe," TODO explained.
Bane checked on one of the ship's monitors and confirmed that they were indeed in the outer fringe.
Turning to a monitor showing a scan of the planet, Bane remarked, "There's lots of life forms, but not much in the way of cities or technology."
"It does appear to be rather primitive," TODO added.
"In any case," Bane said as he stood from the chair, "We'll leave the Justifier in orbit to run topographic scans and take the Xanadu Blood in for a closer look."
"As you say, Mr. Bane."
The two of them left the bridge and went all the way to the ship's stern. Within the hanger bay was a green Rogue-class Porax-38 starfighter.
Along with triple of Bane's usual rate, the ship, which had been outfitted with upgraded laser cannons and a cloaking device, had been payment for a job the bounty hunter had done a few years back for the Sith Lord, Darth Sidious. One that had involved the theft of a holocron from the Jedi temple and the kidnapping of Force-sensitive children.
Bane pushed those thoughts aside as he opened the fighter's cockpit and climbed inside. After running the preflight checks, the Duros pressed a button on his wristcom and watched as the hanger door opened.
As the Justifier continued to orbit the planet on autopilot, Bane took the Xanadu Blood into the planet's atmosphere. After passing through the cloud cover, the bounty hunter found himself gazing at a jungle canopy.
Bringing the fighter down lower, Bane could make out a hollow with several quadruped reptiles milling about. Curiously, they were staring up at his ship, something that did not go unnoticed by TODO.
"It's difficult to tell from up here, but those creatures appear to be intelligent," the techno-service droid commented.
"Indeed," Bane concurred, "They're not acting like this is the first starship they've ever seen. Which tells me that there's at least one technologically advanced planet in this system.
Bane's attention was grabbed by what appeared to be a humanoid statue. Only this statue seemed to be waving at the ship of it's own accord, in spite of the fact that the Xanadu Blood's scanners showed no technology powering it.
"What a strange place," TODO surmised.
"Guess we have to expect the unexpected," Bane put in.
A beeping from the console pulled Bane's gaze away from the statue.
"There's something to the northeast of here. Let's check it out," Bane stated as he punched the throttle.
The jungle soon gave way to a mountain pass, one that reminded Bane of the surface of a moon. He continued towards the signal and soon found it's source; A ship that neither he nor TODO recognized.
It was black and crimson in colour and had four wings in an X pattern. Bane was vaguely reminded of an ARC-170 fighter-bomber.
After circling a few times and seeing no sign of an owner, Bane set the Xanadu Blood down beside the strange ship. Getting out, the Duros bounty hunter put his hat on and stuck a toothpick in his mouth.
He did a small check around the other starship, quickly determining it to be a fighter. What really caught Bane's eye was the emblem stenciled on the ship's fuselage. It looked like a red canine head with writing below it.
Star Wolf
"That appears to be the High Galactic alphabet," TODO droned.
"We'll assume nothing," Bane replied, "Save that into your memory banks and send it to my wristcom."
"As you wish."
For the next few minutes, Bane and TODO walked through the mountain pass. Suddenly, they heard voices up ahead and took cover behind a rock formation.
Peering out, Bane caught sight of four beings. One was grey furred and primate in appearance. They were wearing a blue suit and a black jacket and seemed to be in binders.
The other three, presumably the primate's captors, were just as strange looking to Bane. One was canine in appearance with white fur, floppy ears, and black spots. Another was simian in appearance with brown fur. The last was feline in appearance and also had brown fur. All of them were armed and dressed in vaguely military attires.
What really intrigued Bane was the words that came out of the canine's mouth.
"You're going away for a long time, Hoffman."
"So," Bane mused as he flicked away his toothpick, "They speak Basic around here."
"Come on, TODO. Let's meet the locals."
…
If he had been given a week, Algy Hoffman would not have been able to come up with the sight that was currently headed towards him and the three bounty hunters who had him in custody.
"Take a look at this." said the lead hunter, a Dalmatian.
"Well I didn't know they were shooting a cowboy movie on this planet." said another hunter, a baboon.
But as the figure in the duster and the wide brimmed hat and the strange robot floating beside them drew closer, the bounty hunters' bravado seemed to evaporate.
"What the hell's going on here?" murmured the third hunter, a bobcat.
Finally, the strange being, a male unless Algy missed his guess, stopped walking.
"Well, hello there." the strange man said.
Although he had his head tilted down, obscuring the top of his face with his hat, Algy could tell that the man was not Lylatian.
"Yet he speaks Cornerian Basic," the lemur mused.
"The fuck you want?" growled the Dalmatian.
The stranger let out a huff. It was then that Algy noticed what appeared to be a breathing apparatus on his neck.
"I'm sort of new around here," the stranger explained, "I was hoping someone would be able to show me around."
"Do we look like tour guides to you, cowboy?" the baboon scoffed.
At that point, the stranger finally looked up and met their gaze.
"Nope. Definitely not Lylatian," Algy thought.
The alien looked a lot like the ones from B Grade horror movies in centuries past. He was blue skinned, had two red eyes, and a pair of nostrils on his scarred and lined face.
"What's the matter?" he spoke, "Never seen a Duros before?"
"I don't think they have," droned the robot.
The Dalmatian, meanwhile, let out a chuckle.
"You know, boys. Between O'Donnell's goon here and these two freaks, we're gonna be set for life."
Even as the bounty hunters laughed, there was a change in the stranger's demeanor.
With a smirk, he said, "Son, I wouldn't be so hasty if I were you."
The alien punctuated that by moving back his duster, revealing a holstered blaster. The bounty hunters stopped laughing and tensed, readying their weapons.
A few seconds passed, and then Algy's captors went to raise their blasters.
But the alien was quicker.
It seemed to almost be a blur to Algy as the stranger drew his weapon and fired. Three blaster shots screeched, followed by screams of pain as the bounty hunters were cut down.
The lemur was awestruck at the scene, but quickly took note that the alien still had his weapon pointed in his direction.
"Well, you sure made mincemeat out of those bounty hunters," he said.
The alien tilted his head to the side.
"I'm in the same business, shorty. And I don't work for free."
Ignoring the remark about his height, Algy began searching the Dalmatian's corpse, soon finding the key to his cuffs. After freeing himself, the sportive lemur took the chance to retrieve his two KLB Spyder machine pistols, slowly and carefully setting them back in their holsters lest he join the dog in the afterlife.
Last, but not least, Algy took the canine's wallet and tossed it at the stranger's feet.
"Whatever's in there is yours, same with the other two."
The alien bounty hunter seemed to agree, for he lowered his weapon and had his robot pick up the wallet.
As the primate went about searching the other two corpses, Bane took a credit chip out of the wallet and had a look.
"These numerals are very similar to Aurebesh numerals," TODO commented.
"Aur what?" the primate remarked as he came over with the other two bounty hunters' wallets.
"Aurebesh," Bane replied as he took the wallets and pocketed them, "It's a common alphabet where I come from."
The Duros tapped some buttons on his wristcom and brought up a hologram of Aurebesh characters. To his surprise, the primate's red eyes widened.
"You know about this?" Bane asked.
The primate shook his head.
"Not exactly. There's carvings of hieroglyphs like those in all sorts of ancient ruins across Lylat."
"That so?" Bane mused as he made a point of memorizing the name Lylat.
"That brings me to my next question,"
Bane brought up his wristcom and changed the hologram to the emblem on the ship he had found earlier.
"I assume you recognize this."
"I ought to," the primate replied, "I'm part of that team."
"So that's your ship back there?"
"Yeah."
After a brief pause, Bane asked, "What's your name, kid?"
"Algy. Algy Hoffman. And who might you be?"
Before Bane could reply, he heard footsteps behind him. Turning around, Bane caught sight of a trio of beings.
The one in the lead was canine in appearance, though unlike the bounty hunter Bane had just plugged, he had grey and white fur and pointed ears. In place of his left eye was some type of digital lens. Clothing wise, he was wearing a purple jacket and black pants.
The second being was lizard-like in appearance with green scales and was dressed in a dark purple suit. He seemed to have a shifty demeanor.
The third man was feline in appearance with black fur, a blue suit, and silver armor. He had a scar under his right eye.
"Algy," the canine sputtered, "What the hell is going on here?"
"Well, Wolf. Long story short, I've made first contact."
"Really?" the lizard remarked as he glanced at the three corpses.
"Did you do that, Algy?"
"Not me, him." Algy replied while pointing at Bane.
"Nice work," the lizard said with a wicked grin.
"Wasn't much work." Bane dryly replied.
The canine known as Wolf cleared his throat, getting the Duros' attention.
"I see you've already met Algy, so I suppose introductions are in order; I'm Wolf O'Donnell, leader of the Star Wolf team."
He pointed to the lizard.
"This is my second in command, Leon Powalski."
Wolf then gestured to the feline.
"And this is Panther Caroso. Which leaves only one question; Who are you?"
"Cad Bane." the Duros replied with a tip of his hat.
Just then, the group felt tremors and heard the sound of giant feet pounding the rocky ground. Soon, a large, bipedal lizard walked into view and let out a roar.
"Shit, that Redeye must have smelled the bodies!" Algy exclaimed.
"And we don't have the firepower to take it down!" Panther put in.
"Allow me." Bane said as he began walking towards the lizard.
The members of Star Wolf stared in awe as the alien walked right up to the Redeye. The carnivore let out a growl and then thrust it's head down, intent on making lunch out of the bounty hunter.
Bane merely raised his right arm and activated the flamethrower in his wrist gauntlet. The Redeye roared in pain as it's snout met the stream of flames. It made another attempt to devour the Duros and was greeted with more flames.
Seemingly deciding that this prey was more trouble than it was worth, the Redeye let out a final roar before turning and lumbering off in the opposite direction.
All the while, the gears were turning in Wolf's head.
"This guy could be just who we need to put the pup in his place."
Once he was certain that the Redeye wasn't coming back, Wolf walked up to Bane.
"I've got a proposal for you."
"I'm listening." the bounty hunter replied as he stuck a toothpick in his mouth.
"There's a team of mercenaries called Star Fox. They've been thorns in our side for years."
"Go on." Bane said.
"Well," Wolf explained, "Here's the deal; You help us with our jobs and get a cut of the profits. When Star Fox inevitably does show up, you help us take them down."
Bane thought on that before sticking out his hand.
"Deal."
The two of them shook on it.
As the group began walking back to their ships, Panther asked the question that was on all of Star Wolf's minds.
"So, Bane. What brings you to Lylat?"
The Duros took the toothpick out of his mouth and absentmindedly waved it around as he replied.
"I'm on the run from the law. Lucky I made it here, the Unknown Regions are very treacherous."
They came back to the spot where Bane had landed and found three more ships identical to the one that belonged to Algy.
As for Star Wolf, they couldn't help but admire the Xanadu Blood.
"Now that is a nice ride." Algy commented.
"She's a Rogue-class starfighter," Bane stated, "Elite weapons, cloaking device, the works."
Taking note of the excited looks on his new associates' faces, the Duros elaborated,
"I've got another one in orbit. A mothership, if you will."
After an exchange of nods, the group of outlaws mounted up and took off for outer space. Bane typed a command onto his wristcom to summon the Justifier.
After docking the Xanadu Blood, Bane headed towards the bridge and took his spot in the pilot's seat.
"Bane," TODO spoke, "We should keep an eye on that lizard. He doesn't seem to be wired right."
Bane let out a grunt.
"I'm keeping my eye on all of them, TODO."
As it turned out, Bane wasn't the only one feeling mistrust at the current arrangement. Within the cockpit of his Wolfen, Algy opened a private channel with Wolf.
"What's on your mind, Algy?"
Shaking his head, the lemur replied, "I think there's more to our new pal being in Lylat than he's letting on. We should watch our backs."
Wolf nodded before responding, "My thoughts exactly."
The five ships boosted into hyperspace.