It's at times like these you want nothing more then to take a few moments and look back at your life and ask yourself, "When did I get tied into this."

I normally make it a rule never to involve anyone you can avoid. It complicates things in my line of work. Sometimes though, you have to do things...

So here I am, sitting in another grim and dim Cantina waiting to meet a couple like minded souls. Bounty Hunters.

There are rules, even among scum like us, most of which I'd already broken. I was ruthless, I'd killed other hunters to get the acquisition before someone else could. I'd crossed bosses and employers more times then I would care to number. I'd hurt Syndicates and factions...Even stepped on Orders like those of the Jedi and the Sith. I had more enemies then stars in the galaxy, and it grows difficult, keeping that many enemies close.

Why am I still alive? Because I'm that good. No, honestly, there isn't any other reason for it. Anyone could take me down, and no one would shed any bad blood over it. Like I have said before, though, reputation goes a long way. The only reason I was still alive and working... because the galaxy needs people like me.

I'm not a criminal, so to speak. As far as I would explain it, I'm not. The people I work for, they are often outlaws. The people I hunt are always "bad people". I have morals. Judging by the stories and the rumors, I'm a cold hearted, calculating killer. Now, make no mistake, I am all of these things, but for a good reason. You made me.

If the need for people like me did not exist out there, in the vastness of the galaxy, then I would not exist. Simple, right.
The people I bring down, they are "bad" and deserve everything that's coming to them. If they don't, then I turn the job down.

I hunt people who need to be hunted.

Which is why I work alone.

It has happened before, and it never ends well.

So here I am...

Sitting with my back into a corner, I've kicked my legs up on the table, just for pose.

Knowing full well the importance of being prepared, I have taken precautions here today.

My faces are among hundreds, and yes, it is true that no one is exactly sure what I look like. Slight changes here, a shift there, and you can walk as everyone else, without always giving yourself away.

Today I'd gone for a dark complexion with short hair and a thin goatee. As always, I wore the headset with Heads Up Display, mica and ear-piece, to keep in contact with Hal at all times. I'd grabbed one of my nicer blast vests and my usual spacer garb to wear under a full length overcoat. As always, in situations like this, I brought along my wrist-unit/bracers, just in case I needed to pull some tricks. Two heavy blaster pistols hung low on my hips, modified Thunderer models, they were more then illegal on most worlds. To finish things off, I sat with my blaster carbine across my lap, one hand resting casually across the barrel.

After taking a sip of my lum and lighting a nic-cig, I sat back to contemplate further.

I had little or no idea what I was getting myself into, coming back like this. The galaxy seems such a different place...the options endless. It was time for some action again, time to get back the game. What better way to do that then call out the big faces. But then, someone had the idea before me, which was why I was here.

Thoughts of countless possibilities flowed quietly through my head, how this could turn out.

Bounty Hunting is like sabacc, always plan for ever contingency, and keep a few moves ahead of everyone else at the table.

Ahh...That must be one of them now...
Nod, and yes, he sees me. This should be interesting.

Passion

This was the sort of thing you would die for. That bit deep down that lights up when the affections are around. You glow when when that object of your desire enters into your possession. You would kill for it.

It was game on when she stepped into the room. Even the coolest cat would melt under that piercing gaze. Nothing was sacred when those hips would sway, nothing.

She was longing personified. It poured off of her into the souls of poor fools and rich elite alike. A wave of utter animal desire followed in her steps and lurked in her shadows.

More then anything else, she was a perfect weapon. Her skills would impress the most critical. The mark, male or female, would never see her coming and be long dead before she'd depart.

Easily a goddess of Want, and doubly a demoness of death.

Vitae.



"Good evening Beff."

When Vitae spoke, the galaxy held its breath. Everything she would utter came out like silk that would coil deep into your very being.

"Vitae, have a seat."

Nothing in Beffs' voice belayed that he had fallen under her spell. Being as well versed in her tactics, he was easily immune to her charms... her feminine wiles.

"What's the job Beff?"











Vengeance

"Few beings in the galaxy enjoy the idea of that very thing more then Beff Pike. Indeed, so much he goes out of his way to inspire it. The man is driven by it."

Picture glass. Imagine a dome built completely of thick transparisteel plates, supported by durasteel ribbing. Set to a backdrop of endless sand under the near orbit of a hot glowing sun. Add shimmering waves of heat radiating off of the glass and steel structure blurring the world around itself into a vertigo inspiring haze.

Deposit a small despot of a human in the middle of the dome laying in a heap under the slow occasional drip of liquid from above. Here, you have the smallest expression of his vengeance, a demise he would use on the most mild of his enemies.

The poor man that now occupied the dome had made the mistake of speaking coveting something that belonged to another. Something to do with a woman, but it could have been anything really.



"Do you have any idea who this ship belongs to?"

A number of alien pirates now occupied the bridge of the transport. The original crew had either been killed or surrendered and the pirates were clearly in control of the ship and the situation.

Speed and numbers had overwhelmed the transport while others had boarded, all of it before the crew could go on the defensive. Their methods were clearly tried and true, but something in their manner eluded to a general newness to the whole situation. Though organized in their attack certain motions in their conduct was amiss, but they had still managed to take the transport with a minimum of difficulty.

The situation may have turned out a little different if the captain of the transport had acted to stop them. For his own reasons he had simply sat back and ordered his crew to stand down. No firefight, nothing, they just stood aside and let the pirates aboard. Clearly, they had a difficult time trying to fathom the logic in attacking this ship.

"I don't care. Shut up," the speaker was a rough looking scoundrel of a rogue Rodian. He stood before the Captain with impunity, hand resting on his blaster, "Where's the cargo?"

The Captain had just pointed. With an extended finger he gestured towards the aft hatch.

Apparently the leader of this adventure, the Rodian had ordered three men to inspect the cargo area and remained behind himself.

One of the ships crew spoke, "They got no idea, do they Cap'n?" His words passed unnoticed as the Rodian had been discussing something with another among the ten pirates that crowded the bridge.

To this the Captain had simply shaken his head and gazed with an amused smirk at the Rodian, "None kid. None."

Deviation from the anticipated norm bothered Beff in a the way that most people react to nails on a chalkboard. Like an irrritating itch that just won't be scratced, he tended to react harshly towards those who dared disrupt his routine.
He was sitting in his office at BHG HQ going over the usual reports when his schedual had been disrupted. As it turned out, some foolish pirate fleet had attacked and captured one of his currency ships.
The report indicated that the pirates had struck without warning and overpowered the out dated freighter and its crew, then searched the ship until they located the currency cache. They had stripped the ship down to her most basic components and removed anything of worth before leaving the crew stranded aboard the rapidly degrading ship. The only saving grace was in the survival of the crew, who were not only costly investments, but also potential keys in unlocking the origins of the attack.
(interupted. will continue shortly. posting problem)

Good morning Palpatine my Chancellor
The crown will plainly show
The prisoner who now stands before you
Was caught red handed taking lives
Taking lives in an almost inhuman nature
This will not do

Call the Guildmaster!

I always said he'd kill and be no good
In the end Your Honour
I had it my way and I
Flayed him into shape
But your hands were tied
We bleeding hearts and artists
Let him get away with murder
He would murder you today

Crazy, blasters in holsters I am crazy
Should I go hunting
They must have taken my weapons away

You little @#%$, you're in it now
I hope they throw away the key
You should have talked of us less often
Than you did, but no you had to
Play your own away. Have you shot any
Homes up lately ?
"Just five minutes, Chancellor Your Honour
You and Him alone"

Beff
Come to Jabba pudu let me hold you
In my palms
M'lud I only wanted him to
Give you many troubles
Why'd he ever have to catch him
Chancellor Your Honour why don't you take him on?

Crazy, beyon the Outer Rim, I am crazy
Blades breaking windows
There must have been a CorSek there in the hall
When I came in
Crazy in the Outer Rim he is crazy

The evidence before the Council is
Incontravertable, there's no need for
The Senate to retire
In all my time of decieving
I have never heard before
Of someone more deserving
The full penalty of law
The way you made them suffer
My agents and my brothers
Fills me with the urge to defecate
(Go on Chancellor, @#%$ on 'em)
But my friend you have revealed your
Deepest fear
I sentance you to expose
Your peers

Tear down The Wall !

(Parody of 'The Trial' from "The Wall" by Pink Floyd)