"Hayter... so nice to see you again."


I stared balefully at the large, burly man standing in the darkened doorway, who observed me as I approached the dilipitated building deep in Coruscant's darkened underground.

"What, no greeting for your old friend Cadjic?" The burly man asked, giveing me a smiled full of rotten teeth. As I got closer, light from a half-broken nearby lamp post illuminated part of his face. It was unshaven, with thin hair partially obscuring it. His nose looked like it had been broken - then repaired - more than once.

I still didn't answer, even as I came to a stop a few feet away. Cadjic stared at me for a few more minutes before moving aside to allow me entry, "The boss wants to talk to you. You'd better hurry, he's in a bad mood."

"So am I." I replied flatly, moving past Cadjic and into a darkened corridor. At the end was a door with another guard - like Cadjic - watching me carefully, his right hand inside his jacket.

As I approached, the man sneered and pushed open the heavy, rusty door, which creaked loudly as it opened to reveal a large room with a single round table in the center. Sitting at it was a small, fat, balding man, with a long cigarra haning out of his mouth. There was also another fellow slumped over the table, sabacc cards still cluched in his frozen hands.

<i>Typical gangster</i> I thought as I stopped a couple of paces from the table, sabacc cards littering it's surface.

"What happened to him?" I asked as the little man took a long drag from his cigarra.

"He won." The little man said as another of his henchmen walked up to the table, "Jotham, he got away."

Jotham didn't look at the man, instead focusing his eyes on me. I stared right back at him, unflinching.

"I have a job for you. One of my cleaners - Jari Soneji - got a sudden attack of guilt. He took some of the dirty money he was handling, and plans to turn it over to the local security authoritites. This I can't have." Jotham said, taking the cigarra out of his mouth and twirling it around in his fingers.

"Where can I find him?" I asked, sighing to myself. <i>When can I get something interesting?</i>

"One of his local hangouts - The Dive in East Sector." Jotham said, standing up and walking over to the dead man slumped over the table.

Cadjic came from behind me and handed me a small card with the photo and discription of an older man of around 40 with a clean shaven, friendly looking face.

Without another word, I turned and headed back to the door.




<i>Another day at the office...</i>





*




Jotham is a local gangster that I've known for a few years now. He controls a decent portion of the smugglers and contraband that goes in and out of Coruscant's dark underworld. He also runs a small mercenary/bounty hunter guild... the kind of operation that turns green recruits into killers.


Like me.


When I met him I was about eighteen... I had ten credits in my pocket and an empty blaster at my side. My father was an addict and an alcoholic, spending most of his life in and out of prison and my mother worked in a cantina as a waitress, also fighting off brushes with the law.

I grew up on and off the streets, occasionally spending time in homeless shelters with my mother, who split with my dad when I was five - I never saw him again.

But my mother couldn't take care of us by herself anymore. But by the time I turned 18, I went looking for work. Thats how I met Jotham. He taught me how to fight, and sent me looking for his enemies.

I've been doing it ever since, although now I don't work exclusively for him. My reknown has spread, and I get other contracts now and then, though Jotham is my principle source of credits.


Perhaps one day that will change.
<br>
<br>

I remember the first time I killed another person - my first job for Jotham. I remembered the light drain from his eyes... the way the blaster fell from his outstretched hand as he stared at me with rapidly deadening eyes.

I remember the sickening thud as he hit the ground.

I remember the blood spreading from the blaster wound in his chest.

That was when my future dissapeared.



But I will make no apologies for my lifestyle.

I live my life the only way I know how. However flawed that statement might sound.

I don't live for the money, the killing, the women, or the thrill of my job. I live for the moment.

I live <i>in</i> the moment.

It's the way I prefer it.



*


I have been to this establishment before. The Dive is a popular dance club deep in the underground, lightless areas of Coruscant not shown in the pro-Imperial media, which is designed to glorify the city-planet. The club thrives on the vermin - gangsters, prositutes, smugglers - that populates the aforementioned area.

I have found my quarry more than once at this very place. And each time the sight and smell of it disgusted me.

As I walked into the place, I quickly checked the card Jotham gave me with Soneji's face on it. I began discreetly checking the faces of each of the people I walked past. The club reeked of all types of sentients, Ithorians, humans, Shistvanen, Twi'leks, Rodians...

My face was partially covered by the low cap I was wearing tonight. I had never met Soneji, but that doesn't mean he hasn't heard of me.

I saw a few of the regulars sitting at the bar, including one that I knew...

His name is Dovan, a Twi'lek smuggler who can always be found at the gambling tables. I spotted him at one of the darkened sabacc tables in the corner of the room, opposite the expansive dance floor.

I walked up behind him, one hand in my long overcoat, gripping the handle of my DL-44 blaster. I immediately saw something near Dovan's arm, which was partialy hidden under the table. It was rectangular, attached to his arm. A sabbacc skifter card carrier. The end of if was sticking out of his sleeve.

There was a small crowd around the table, apparently this was a high-stakes game. Dovan wore his sabacc face, with a small smirk at the corner. The rest of the players were your usual assortment, all intently staring at the large pot which I estimated to be around ten thousand credits.

I leaned in to Dovan.

"I see you've brought some help today, Dovan."

His lekku twitched, signalling nervousness, "What, Hayter?" He asked in a low voice.

"Do you know this fellow?" I asked, quickly offering Dovan a glimpes of the card.

"No."

I snatched the skifter from his forearm quicker than he could react but I didn't let the other players see it, "Tell me Dovan, or your friends here will find out your a cheater." I said coolly.

Dovan glared daggers at me. I returned his look flatly.

"His name is Soneji." Dovan said quietly.

"Where is he?"

"I don't know. Talking to some woman at the bar an hour ago. I don't know where they went." Dovan said, his lekku twitching.

I turned to the other players, who stopped paying attention to the pot and were taking interest in our conversation.

"Gentlemen, I have discovered evidence..." I started to say before Dovan stood up and stared at me.

"Upstairs." He said.

I steped toward him and punched him square in the jaw, my other hand moving toward his arm.

Raising my voice, "Don't ever look at my woman wrong again!" I yelled.

Dovan looked up at me from where he had fallen. He quickly checked his carrier, and found the skifter had been replaced, "Okay! Okay! I swear it'll never happen again!"



Without another word I turned, and headed for the stairs.





I really do hate my job.
<br>
<br>

<br>
<br>
I got a few glances - and glares - as I made my way through the throngs of people in the dance club. The place smelled, and was dirty. Why would anyone want to come here? I doubt the owners ever cleaned it... or perhaps the owners have never seen it?

Nevertheless I made my way through, untill I came to a grimy staircase, which led to the upper "private" rooms of the clubs. God knows what goes on up there, although it isn't hard to figure out.

I assume the woman Soneji left with was more than your atypical woman whom you might meet at a bar. This place, afterall, was filled with prostitutes.

I came to the top of the staircase and entered an empty corridor with six rooms, three to each side. There was light coming under the door from only one of them. The area was silent - odd.

Pulling my blaster out of my inner coat pocket. I crept up toward the door, listening carefully to the voices on the other side.


<i>"...this is all of it?" A female voice asked.

"Yes. All I could get from Jotham and his petty thugs." A male voice - almost certainly Soneji - said.

"How much?"

"Thirty thousand." Soneji said, "As you requested."

"Where is he?" Asked the female voice.

"South of here. In a grey building marke..." Soneji's voice faded out.</i>


I checked my blaster and removed the safety.

The keypad next to the door showed the door was locked. I removed my decoder fom my pocket and placed it over the lock. Four digits began scrolling down as the decoder searched for the correct password. One by one each digit stopped on a certain number. I waited tensely as the second to last digit scrolled down, then the last...

The door opened and I stormed in, blaster pointed ahead of me. I immidiately saw two people in the room, one I recognized as Soneji, the other, a blonde female with close cropped hair and a faint scar running over her right eye. Soneji instantly saw what was going on and turned, directly toward the only other exit route - the window.

He dove through the plain, weak, glass, dissapearing into the night. I started to go after him, untill I heard a familiar <i>shing</i> of a vibroblade being drawn. The woman sliced horizontally, intending to decapitate me. I fell backwards, the blade barely missing me.

I rolled back, coming up on my knees and brought my blaster up, to a completely empty room.

"What the hell...?" I asked quietly.

Soneji was trying to bring himself to his feet as I caught up to him. His right leg was obviously broken, as was his left arm.

"Jari Soneji!" I shouted, my blaster in my right hand.

He fell to his knees and looked up at me.

"I hear you paint houses..." Soneji sighed, referring to the ancient gangster code for "I hear you kill people".

"Not just any house." I replied, "You took something from Jotham. I want it back."

Soneji laughed quietly, "I don't have it anymore."

"You want to tell me where it is?"

"She has it." He said, looking up into the dark sky, where the bright towers of Coruscant shined.

"Who is she?" I asked.

"She said her name was Shiido. Thats all I know."

"Right. Why the hell did you give her thirty thousand credits?" I asked.

"So she can kill him." Soneji replied with a sneer.

"Jotham?"

"Of course. He killed everyone that was important to me! And made me work laundering his money. The money he used to fund his private little merc company. The bastard." Soneji said.

"I don't give a crap about you or your family." I said.

"Of course... just about what I'd expect. Your all the same... always working for your self... paycheck to paycheck. You're life is paved with the bodies of your enemies." Soneji said.

I leveled the blaster at him, "Is that so?" I asked.

"You're just like Jotham. You don't feel."

"Emotions lead to chaos." I stated flatly.

"Indeed they do. Just get it over with." Soneji said, eyeing the blaster, "I'm dead anyway."



I complied.

Jotham's headquarters were not far from the club. If Soneji had sent this bounty hunter - Shiido - to kill Jotham, there might be en extra bonus in the works to warn him.

I had never heard that name before. But I thought it sounded familiar to something I heard in the past...

A couple of years ago, I was working a job for Jotham hunting down a 'competitor' mercenary who Jotham claimed was stealing his business. I found him in the lower slums, playing sabaacc at some grimy little bar. He was talking about some new hunter in the area - one that could 'change shape' at will, they called her a 'Shi'ido' or something like that. At the time it held little importance to me. But perhaps I should have payed closer attention...


Jotham's headquarters (little more than a dilipitated wharehouse abandoned by some old speeder company) was dark - as usual. But I did not spot Cadjic outside. No familar "Hayter... good to see you again" or something like that.

Odd, but not necessarily unusual. Jotham liked to keep a low profile sometimes. And to do that, it wasn't a good idea to have a man outside guarding the door.

I went through the door, into the corridor, stepping up my pace a bit.

As I stepped into the main room, an explosion sounded to my right, and I saw a body go flying from it.

<i>I'm too late...</i>

Jotham's soldiers were concentrating most of their fire towards the opposite wall. I swear I saw something move quickly, as if climbing it. I ran into the room, drawing my blaster as something landed in front of me.

I looked up as a huge wookie growled at me and charged.

I wasn't able to get a shot off as I dove to the side, rolling and then coming up. But by the time I could focus on my surroundings, the wookie was gone, replaced by something else - some insect looking thing with wings that flew about faster than the eye could see. I thought it looked like a Geonosian.

It weaved in and out of the blaster fire, lashing out with a claw, killing one of Jotham's men.

I looked around for Jotham, and spotted him taking cover behind the fallen round sabaacc table as he tried to shoot the flying menace.

I ran over to him, crouching beside him.

"Hayter! Glad you could make it!" He said to me, trying - and failing - to shoot the Geonosian,m who was busying itself with Jotham's men.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Don't know. Came in her as a wampa and just starting taking us out." Jotham replied.

"I think it is a bounty hunter hired by Soneji to kill you. I saw him paying her off with the money he stole." I said.

Jotham seemed to take it all in, "I was stupid to think he'd squeal on me. Look-"

As he spoke, the blasterfire ceased as the last of Jotham's men died. The Geonosian landed, standing a few meters away from our table. As I watched, it's skin began to crawl and it's bones realigned. I saw a familiar female shape.

I hate it when I'm right.

Jotham looked at me, resigned, "Kid, I'm sorry it has to end this way. I'm sorry I got you into all this." He handed me a small holocube, "You'll need this I think."

He stood, exposing himself, "You want to kill me? Bring it!" Pulling out a vibroblade he charged. The woman merely raised her blaster and shot him in the chest. Jotham fell and was still.

I rose, "Who the hell are you?!"

"I am Mace. I am like you." She replied.

"What?"

"You kill people. I kill people. We are all the same."

I opened my mouth to protest, but shut it as I relized she was right.

"Besides, I'm doing the galaxy a favor. Jotham was a petty criminal who brought chaos to order." She said, replacing her blaster in it's holster.

"He was a good man... underneath it all." I said.

"No! Don't you get it? We are evil to the core!"

"No!"

She laughed, "I hear you paint houses!"

I raised my blaster, but by the time I brought it up, she was gone.

"Catch you later, killer!" Her voice mocked before I was left alone.

All alone.
<br>

I woke up the next morning, still slightly stunned about the previous night's events.

Jotham was dead, and his entire organization - for which I worked for part time - was gone. Killed by a single assassin.

<i>What next...?</i>

I sat heavily in a chair, reaching for my whiskey that I kept in a small drawer in my desk. I filled a small shotglass and drank the whole thing.

Refill, refill, refill....

A couple hours later the bottle was gone.

Then I blacked out.



*



I really don't know when I woke up. All I knew was pain.

Hangover.

Perhaps I should quit drinking.

Reaching into my pocket, I felt the small holocube Jotham had handed me before he died.

<i>"You'll need this I think." </i>....


I stuck it into my project. Almost immidiately, a small version of Jotham popped up.

"If you're reading this, Jack, then I am dead. First off let me say that I've always though of you as a kind of son. And I'm leaving whats left to you. Encoded in this cube is a bank number with all my funds in it."

I knew Jotham had no family.

"They are yours now. I think you need them the most. My personal spacecraft is also yours, the hangar location is also encoded in the cube."

The hologram sighed.

"Look kid. This business we're in... it isn't right. I won't make apologies... but I needed to make a living. A man has to do what a man has to do. Remember that. The path you walk will be paved with the corpses of your enemies. They will haunt you forever... you will have no peace. But you still have a chance to get out of that life. You should while you can. Goodbye, Jack."


The hologram shut off.

I sighed. This isn't right. But what really is?