.
















The armored figure stood with arms crossed over its chest and regarded the ships captain from behind his bucket-shaped helmet and said, “Give me the codes or I am going to kill someone else.”

In reply the Captain, a stout, portly man well past midlife protested, “I don’t know the codes! Gods damn you!”

“I am not so sure about who is going to damn who here,” replied the armored figure in a calm, almost soothing voice filtered through the confines of its helmet. “You can stop all this killing, save their lives. All I want are the release codes for this starship.”

At almost two hundred meters in length, the starship in question was registered with the Galactic Coalition of Planets as the Merchant Ivory. An older and slightly outmoded vessel, the Ivory had been sold into private service and, for the past decade, operated as cargo vessel for very select shipments and customers. She had originally been commissioned in the Corporate Sector Authority fleet alongside a dozen similar Marauder-type corvettes most of which had, also similarly, since been sold into various private sectors.

Purchased by a small-time shipping conglomerate, the Ivory was their first sojourn into the capital-scale market. As a significant portion of the companies assets had to be reallocated for the purchase and remodel of the Marauder corvette it was decided that rather then compete with a much more generalized market, the Ivory would sell herself to a more reserved clientele. However, unwilling to become smugglers or to create any sort of appeal to the less then legal investor, the Ivory was initially regulated to running non-hostile missions for the military (first under the banner of the New Republic and then, following the collapse, under commission of the Galactic Coalition of Planets).

The Ivory and her crew paid their dues for a few years and eventually earned the freedom to shop around for jobs. When, six year later, the company began to toy with the idea of scrapping the highly specialized Ivory, it was the captain and his crew that decided to make a move towards purchasing the old girl themselves.

And so, the Merchant Ivory came under the command and prevue of one Captain Ronald Yung. For their most recent history the Merchant Ivory and her crew continued to serve out contract obligations left over from her fleet days, but as these began to dwindle and fade, the Ivory was forced to diversify, carrying live cargoes, making runs that were ‘legally questionable’ at best and pioneering her trade in the less civilized areas of Coalition influence.

Over the years the Ivory had encountered numerous pirate forces, but each time she had been able to out run or out gun the best offered by the composition. Logically it was only a matter of time before the sown seeds of decent would spread internally. New crew members, merchant navy none-the-less, brought with them all the hazards inherit to any mixed species, mixed culture group. It had not been all that difficult to buy the loyalty out from under the legs of a few choice officers.

Standing beside the armored figure and trying to avoid looking upon the numerous corpses spread across the bridge, former Lieutenant Yummah, studied the devastation that she had played a part in creating. The taste of bile rose in her throat but she quickly swallowed it down. She did not envy the idea of discovering how the armored figure would react to a weak stomach… or resolve.

“Just give him the keys,” Yummah bit at her former captain. “End this here and now!”

Captain Yung, his eyes bloodshot and face a mess of matted hair and dried blood, turned towards his former crew member and spat. It landed with a splat and rolled down her tunic. The loogie was a disgusting mix of phlegm and blood. Yummah had not expected her previous commander to be so vigilant. “Fuck you, bitch. Don’t you even talk to me.”

This earned a chuckle from the armored figure. It’s helmet rotated towards Yummah. “You’re gonna take that?”

It laughed again.

Clad in a full suit of padded and plated armor, the figure was not alone in his imposition upon the bridge crew. A cadre of thugs had taken up key positions across the deck and held at the ready their blasters. Half a dozen bodies were scattered across the floor, their handiwork. These men were true pirates and had the distinct look of space-bound ruffians.

Of their number, two stood out among the others.

“The boys down below say the hack’s coming along too slow,” spoke the shorter of the pair. A wrinkle faced Weequay, he called himself One-Eye on account of having lost one in a bar fight. A sunken patch covered the hole. He pressed a communicator to his ear before speaking directly to the armored figure. “This is taking too long.”

His partner, a massive Gran, lumbered forward. In one fell swoop he bent at the knee, wrapped his giant-sized fist around the captains neck, and hefted the man into the air. “You give us keys now, or I kill your wife.”

With his free hand the alien fetched a crumpled photo from one of the many pockets adorning his leather/chain mail outfit. “This your woman,” he inclined an eye stock towards the picture. “I find her picture in you room. You do as we say or I go kill her when we done here. You got more family? I kill them too.”

“Look,” Yummah spoke urgently. “Is this all really nessescary?”

Captain Yung was turning a deeper shade of blue with each passing moment.

“Drop him, Duck” ordered the armored figure of the towering Gran.

The amusingly named Duck grunted and deposited the captian on his posterior without any ceremony. “One Eye be right. We need hurry.”

“Listen to me very carefully,” said the armored warrior simultaneously lowering to one knee. “You have to do what we tell you, Captain. You have to see that the best you can hope to do is delay us. And every moment that passes means that more and more of your crew are going to die. After that, they’ll find your family… their families…”

“I think you do know those codes, Yung. Is it really worth that many lives to protect one ship?”

“You’ll just kill us all when you have the codes,” he spat half in tears. “There is no way I can know you won’t!”

And then it was former Lieutenant Yummah that interjected. “Maybe you’re right, maybe not. But one thing I can promise you is that these are serious men, give them the ship. It might cost your life, mine and all the rest… but it might save our families, our friends. The people we can protect…”

Faced with the horrible truth of it captain Yung wept. He wept and he broke, revealed the key codes to his starship in a blubbering bout of defeat. And once the codes were confirmed and entered, much as Yung had feared, the pirates set about systematically eradicating the ships crew save for those essential personelle that would no doubt be exploited and abused until they had lived out their purposes.

Yung witnessed it all, he saw first hand their propensity for cold blooded murder for they had saved him for last. When the savage One Eye finally made his way around to the captain it was with a certain devious glee that he kneeled over the bound and prone figure.

“Don’t worry,” hissed the Weequay. “You won’t be alone for long. Duck and me, we’ll send your wife and kids along real soon.”





Four Weeks Earlier…


Jorel Fett descended the narrow steps from the belly of his transport, a small but well armed freighter. The pale yellow suns of Damar beat down upon him.

“Fucking rock,” he cursed.

Id was nothing if not a haven for pirates, a den of villainy or warren of malcontents. It was a small dirty brown planet in the asshole of nowhere that served no purpose other then to create yet another congregation location for the scum of a thousand different societies. Damar was the kind of place that got stuck under the heel of your shoe.

It was the kind of planet you would find stuck to the underside of a table, chewed up and used but never properly disposed of.

Jorel spat, “All clear.”

“Clear what?” A handsome man dressed in the full jumpsuit of a fighter pilot clambered down the ramp. He reached his arms high above his head and, arching his back, stretched his limbs. “Still would’ve been more comfortable in a cockpit.”

“You pilots all sound like queers to me,” observed a caramel skinned man with braided locks descending behind the other. “Fighter jock, cock pit, stick… You’re all a bunch of fags far as I’m concerned.”

“Say that again,” warned the pilot. “I just fucking dare you.”

Jorel Fett laughed. “Thought that people of your breeding weren’t supposed to loose their temper.”

He turned to regard the duo.

Behind them a shadow detached itself from the shape of Fett’s freighter and vanished into the annals of the Damar spaceport.

The dull thrum of the Damari backdrop pulsed uninterrupted. Locals and tourists alike mixed among the bizarre and market places, all of which seemed to be a single chaotic conglomeration of construction and sales. In many ways Damar was a pioneer world with only one large city of note most of which was comparable to early camp-towns. The unfortunate part was that Adamar had been supporting civilized life for almost a thousand years.

“Whatever,” the pilot quipped.

“Whatever,” echoed the thug.

“Alright then boys,” Jorel donned his helmet and slipped a pistol into his the holster slung about his hip. “Let’s do it to it.”

The spaceports security office was silent, save for the repetitive whir of the control panels internal cooling system. The office served as the main hub for Damar port protection, the men tasked with the placement trained to be top notch in their profession; namely that of being monitor jockeys who tended to wait around until something out of the ordinary occurred.

It was all a standard practice.

The small group of security technicians would run routine code checks, prompting them against a code proxy at random intervals; the proxy list would then be compiled from the security programmes installed in any number of the berthed craft of the port, each of which were running standard security protocol codes, and any deviation to the (mostly) automated process would cause an alarm trigger, which would begin the second task of the technicians, to which they would promptly alert port authority.

...One such example of a deviation was the lack of respondent security information being sent from a grounded craft to the security office... an instance that was occurring right now.

As it was, however, neither of the three men trained for this task were in any position to act on their responsibilities; especially as they were very much dead, piled in a group in the far corner of the room.

A hooded humanoid hunched over the control panel, with long, thin fingers playing over a wrist-mounted PDA device that was strapped to the being's left forearm. The cloaked sneak finished the final stages of the security proxy override, finalizing the required input/output of information that would satisfy the port computer systems randomised query. As it was, the being with the pale flesh was beginning to scowl, though anything beyond the immediate glow of the control panel was cast into shadow, leaving the security room very much in the dark...

The being switched his wrist screen to another channel, quickly typing a short message that would be sent via a scrambled frequency to a nearby ally, translated into a series of synthesized vocal patterns through the receiver’s communicator:

[Security code alternatives becoming short, suggest you get the required codes ASAP. I have already given you extra time. Failure will be on your head, not mine.]

With the push of another button on the PDA, the hooded being switched back to the security frequency, ready for the next randomised proxy to be sent out. The infiltrator would be very limited for choice following the next two override attempts, at which point it would be required to begin a hack job of a merged randomisation programme that would continue offering potential generated craft codes in reply to security server probing. Not the simplest of tasks under the current circumstances, let alone the necessity of a high quality job being completed to compete with the very up-to-date port server databases…

…The humanoids allies had until the end of the second query to complete their mission; otherwise it would be a matter of escaping the area as the entirety of port authority came down upon them all.



Four Weeks Earlier…

Trakinor watched from within Fett’s ship as the party of three descended the landing ramp. With his cloak clasped tightly around his person, the Twi’lek knew that from this point onward, he would have minimal contact with the others talking among one another…

“You pilots all sound like queers to me,” said one of the Twi’lek’s associates, the one with the braided hair. “Fighter jock, cock pit, stick… You’re all a bunch of fags far as I’m concerned.”

“Say that again, I just fucking dare you.” Came the reply from the pilot.

“Thought that people of your breeding weren’t supposed to loose their temper.” Said the third man in mandalorian armor, Jorel Fett, with a chuckle.

…Yet for some reason, Trakinor didn’t think of that minimal amount of contact as dreadful in the least.

Stepping silently down the rampway, in the wake of his allies, the Twi’lek diverted direction, and instead left the hangar bay immediately. Trakinor had his own tasks to get underway, and if he waited for the others to begin, then he would probably be off-schedule, loose his temper and make mistakes; not to mention the other beings had the easier portion of the operation, which meant they didn’t require as much preparation time as Trakinor would need.

With any luck, my contacts on this planet are still able to supply with the information I seek to the same degree of their bragging, in order to raise their spying fee, Trakinor thought to himself, pessimistically. If not, then I will need to begin gathering Intel from scratch… definitely not something I want to do. Especially not at the beginning stages of the mission.

Stalking through the corridors of the spaceport, Trakinor kept to himself and avoided raising suspicion. By keeping a low profile, by reading the passers-by and their body language, the Twi’lek knew how best to remain one of the masses, blending into the crowd near seamlessly. Fortunately the populace were mainly constructed of outcasts, scoundrels and less than lower-class citizens, which meant that a lowly alien wouldn’t be noticed amongst the other denizens of the same non-human variety.

During the flight, Fett had made it quite clear that he did not approve of the planet. The man’s whining had worn thin on Trakinor’s patience. It had only been once the Twi’lek had reminded Fett that it was the mission, not the location, which was important, did the armored one keep his thoughts to himself.

…However, Trakinor could see where Fett was coming from.

Making his way across the mildly busy city streets, Trakinor came to the scheduled meeting place arranged by his contact. The cantina was one of the most poorly established locales the Twi’lek had ever seen, and considering his vast experience with the criminal element and the seedy quarters that ensued, that was saying a lot.

Rundown, derelict, dilapidated… just some of the thoughts that came to Trakinor’s mind.

None-the-less, the Shady Breeze cantina would serve its purpose, and the Twi’lek would be able to gain the information he needed. As he stepped through the front door, Trakinor was instantly on the alert as he spotted a group of, what appeared to be, local law enforcement officials; but what gained his attention more fully was the being that the guards were addressing. Seemingly in a rather hostile manner, if the drawn weaponry had anything to say on the matter. Trakinor slipped to his left, keeping out of the light, as he strained his hearing to listen to the conversation that was taking place…

“…You’re coming with us, Pehkal,” Said the guard commander. “We’ve got a warrant for your arrest.”

Pehkal seemed surprised, staring wide-eyed at the men that surrounded his table. “I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about, officer,” He said, shrugging. “I ain’t done nothin’ against the law.”

“Our investigations unit seems to believe otherwise,” The commander continued, clearly becoming agitated with the accused. “They have extensive reports of terminal hacking, as you gained entry into the spaceport control database on at least three separate occasions… so you’re coming with us.”

The informant scowled to himself, looking beyond the guards as he considered his options. At that moment he caught sight of the Twi’lek in the far corner, and clearly saw the nod Trakinor gave him.

“A’right, fine,” Pehkal grunted, standing. “Cuff me, or whatever you do, and I’ll come along quietly… damn nerfherders.”

Trakinor watched as his contact was detained, bound and then led from the cantina. Sighing, the Twi’lek knew that he had to follow; the information that Pehkal had gained, albeit ineptly, was important in getting the pre-stages of the mission together on Trakinor’s behalf. Moving to his feet, the Twi’lek walked from the cantina, just as the eerie silence was filled again with the typical noise of such an establishment, and making his way down the street he began to follow the group of guards escorting their charge…

“Can’t take his liquor very good,” sighed Lars, taking a swig from the bottle.

Sven just stared at his co-pilot in disbelief before shaking his head. “What does holding down his liquor have anything to do with piloting?”

“Well,” commented Lars dryly, “it’s a well-known fact that pirates drink…a lot. So if he is drinking like the rest of the crew, and suddenly an enemy shows up..BOOM! He’ll get shot out of space if he even manages to get to his fighter.”

Sven snorted. “Sad but true I suppose. I can’t say I’ve had much experience with that.”

Lars laughed. “Of course not. The military never let you drink enough to get wasted, especially not on a mission.”

“One of my brother’s reforms when the Confederation was formed was the banning of drinking alcohol at all within the services,” stated the former Kashan fighter pilot, “not even he drinks moderately any more. But we digress. What about Tafo?”

“The Bothan?”

Sven nodded.

“Well, from what I’ve seen on his sim runs against the other pilots he’s all right, but somehow he his ridiculously high scores; he’s always bragging about them.”

“You think he sliced them up?”

“Wouldn’t be the first time a Bothan slicer existed. He may cheat on the scores, but he’s good enough for us.”

“Well, that settles it then,” stated the youngest Lucerne, rising from the Cantina’s table. He patted down his black armored flight suit, finally finding the right pocket. Unzipping it, he pulled out a credit chip, and set down on the table.

“Leaving so soon?” questioned Lars, leaning back in the chair.

Sven shrugged. “This isn’t my thing. Keep looking around; I’m going to take a look at our craft the Guild’s scrounged up.”

“Suit yourself. You know, company comes within a hour.”

Sven rolled his lips.

“I’d better not; I wouldn’t get enough actual sleep.”

“But you would still be in a bed.”

“I would hope so; get the recruits in the hangar at 17:00 hours tommorrow.”

“Yessiree,” mock-saluted Lars.

Sven exited the cantina and just shook his head.

Jorel looked at himself in the mirror, the shitty, broken hung of shined steel that passed for a mirror, anyway. He watched himself finger the scar on his jaw, saw himself grimace at the plain brown tabard slung over his torso. Reminding himself that it would not pay to stand out, and that his real face was less commonly known then his helmeted visage, Jorel Fett turned away from the mirror and regarded the rest of his room.

This was what passed for a ‘nice’ hotel on Damar; a stained cot, a barely functional refresher, one window looking out over the rest of the pre-fabricated shanty town and a door with four locks. And it smelled of sweat, sex and booze. The previous tenant of this particular room had likely checked out horizontally, on a slab, if the red stain under the cot was any indication.

“Fucking hell,” snarled Jorel. He snatched up his belt from the bed and strapped it about his waist, pressing the tunic against his flesh and tugging the weight of his holster. A dusty looking DL-44 sat in the leather affair. He slipped a vibro-dagger into his boot before turning to look himself over once again. His pale leggings vanished into those ruddy black boots, “Fringe bastards.”

He had rented a room above one of the local cantinas, a busy and jumping joint that pounded through the floorboards of his room. It seemed to have died down to a mild roar just before sunset. Fortunately Jorel Fett was not the sort of man who required much sleep.

Checking his chronometer he noted the time and strode out of his room.

The wafting aromas of breakfast washed over him.

Dubbed the Damar Star, the ‘hotel’ he was staying in was as close to a full-service affair as any on the planet. Gambling could be had downstairs, while women, drink and drugs flowed freely. As part of their deal to get the clients up and spending again the proprietors had an in-house kitchen and nothing worked quite like the smell of fresh breakfast to get the boozehounds out of bed.

Descending the stairs to the hotel lobby Fett was greeted by a dwarfish man in a suit and jacket with tails so long they trailed behind him as he swept across the hardwood towards Jorel. They had met earlier, the night before when Jorel had checked in. His name was FB Narbhan and though he was not human he was near enough that the bounty hunter had trouble discerning his species. A black fedora rested atop his head, its tassel bouncing about with the mans exaggerated gesturing.

“Good morning Mr. Yen,” he inclined his head towards the taller Mandalorian. “I trust you slept well?”

“Good enough,” replied Fett without ceremony. Mr. Yen, his current alias and adopted persona, was a cold and closed man who kept a guarded demeanor about himself. Intentionally brushing against the humble inn-keep, Jorel Fett breezed past the man without so much as a sidelong glance. “I’ll be back in three hours. There’s laundry on my bunk needs done.”

“Yes sir, Mr. Yen,” shouted the dwarf. “You can count on that.”

Previous to his arrival Fett had acquired enough information on FB Narbhan to know that all it took to by his attention was money and the bounty hunter, in the guise of the ‘hired gun’ Mr. Yen, he had spread enough of that around to assure himself that he would receive priority in the presence of Narbhan and his staff. Pausing at the big double doors that opened onto the Damarian streets, his feet on the stoop, Jorel asked, “I need access to a data terminal, private, and for at least an hour. You will arrange this for my return?”

Though phrased as statement, he allowed a minor emphasis on the word will.

“Of course Mr. Yen, you can count on us.”

And with that Jorel Fett stepped out into the Damarian morning.

It has to be understood of the planet Damar that, even into an era of such advanced and marvelous technology, there will always exist those territories, those locales where-in a primitive and more fundamental style of life still prevails. These were common, once incredibly prevalent even in the Core of the Galaxy, in the early days of colonization and expansion but became increasingly rare as the exploration of new areas began to stagnate. Others remained, as they had been, in a ‘camp town’ like state for centuries to follow. Damar was among these planets. So secluded, so impossible to reach from any of the major routes, Damar had never expanded past its developmental stages despite the efforts of countless investors. And so, to that end, the people who lived on Damar, by birth or relocation, tended to be a much more rough-and-tumble sort then were casually found in the less civilized areas of the Galaxy. Due to these various factors, Damar by and large retained an ambiance that could only be described as “Old Western”.

The streets were a hodgepodge of layered steel and muck, plates that had been laid down to ease the transit of person and cargo from one location to another, but which were often the victim of prolonged rains and thick mud. And it was not to the sound of roaring hover-cars and whining turbines that Jorel Fett stepped out onto the main drag of the Damar camp town, but rather to the moaning, groaning, grumbling sighs of man and animal working together in simpatico to create some sort of traffic pattern. Pack animals of all sizes moved through the streets, pulling wagons or sat astride by local rangers and cowboys alike. Rustic, a fundamentally valid word when used to describe the backdrop that proliferated across Damar, could be applied to its people just as easily as its towns and buildings. Wide rimmed hats, fully out of fashion elsewhere in the galaxy, were the common norm here as they provided shelter from both rain and sun alike. Thick jackets crafted from the hide of wild beasts and lined with fur were worn with impunity…

Jorel Fett spat. His phlegm landed with a suck and splat on the raised walk-ways that ran the length of the main drag and allowed shoppers to keep their feet more or less clean while going about their daily routines. These were used largely by the women, as those from the various species found on Damar, tended to approach the situation much as old days pioneers had; with a ratio of roughly four men to every woman, females were highly prized. They wore fancy dresses and covered their smells with perfume.

“Gods damned red necks,” he cursed again and set off across the street for the local saloon.

A Few Years Earlier

Corulag Collegiate Corball Championships

Spacers Are Tied With the Sabers Zero to Zero


“Offense… I don’t know what the fuck’s going on with you faggots, but what I do know is that you receivers sure as hell better learn how to fuckin’ block ‘cause from now on there will be no more passing plays. We’re runnin’ that shit straight up the middle. Defense… Just get the god damned ball back so Rick can score.”

Star offensive player Rick Olane managed a nod as he struggled to hold a bacta patch to the deep cut reaching from bicep to almost his wrist. At the same time he held the syringe pumping painkillers into his newly dislocated shoulder.

“Ready Rick?” asked the team’s doctor.

“As I’ll ever be…”

The doctor placed his hands on Rick’s shoulder and arm. The joint made a sickening noise as the arm was returned to its correct location.

“Feel anything?”

“Nope…”

“Good.”

With that, Rick made his way for the locker room’s exit. He looked down on his uniform. The saber screen-printed on the jersey was covered in blood from Rick’s cut. It seemed to give the saber a more intimidating look.

The crack down the front of his sub par helmet revealed a broken nose. This was corball, or murder ball as some over zealous special-interest groups liked to call it. The hallway to the pitch ended with a million bloodthirsty, screaming fans. Bragging rights were on the line as was the fate Rick’s higher education.

The freshmen year of a corball walk on was a stressful one. You fuck it up. You’re gone.

Rick made his way to his position behind the offensive line. The chimes chimed, and the play began. The opposing team and the offensive line thrashed in low gravity as the ball was handed off to Rick. He gripped the ball hard in his nonmedicated arm. Two defensive players were coming to surround him.

There was only route to take: over the increasingly more cutthroat battle at the line of scrimmage. Rick sprinted hard and leaped for his dear life. A defensive player jumped up to block his path, but he was sent scrambling through the air as he received a hard punch in the chin from Rick’s freehand.



“Why the fuck did you not go pro?”

“Because apparently taking fifty credits from a recruiter, so you can afford to go home for your mother’s funeral is a capital offense that should be punished accordingly. It toasted my eligibility.”

The older bounty hunter nodded.

“Let me tell you something Tull. This isn’t the type of shit that I signed up. Training a bunch of punks to be stone cold thugs... It’s just not my cup of caf.”

“Let me tell you something Rick, you better make it your cup of caf.” Tull beckoned to Rick’s long range rifle that had been checked at the bar’s entrance. “Because if you ever want to make the righteous kill, you have to start at the bottom. Can you honestly say that you could stick one of those punks Pike wants us to turn into pirates like it was nothing? With Zero Remorse? Could you look him in the eye as he died an all too painful death because you had put a blade through his kidney?”

Rick exhaled slowly.

“Whiskey please.”

Classic moments make life worthwhile.

He still remembered the slogan from the very first pack of cigarettes he had ever purchased. It came to him now, with a certain degree of inherit irony, as he pushed open the dual hinged ‘saloon’ style doors that opened into the Rusty Shingle. For a moment all too fleeting Jorel Fett like one of his childhood heroes, like one of the boys from the holo-drama ‘The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly’.

Some things transcend genre (space and time are of no consequence in these circumstances).

Framed in the arches, hands pressed against the double doors and holding them from swinging shut, the Mandalorian bounty hunter paused for dramatic effect. It was just the sort of thing Mr. Yen would do (Fett, in fact, having based his alias on the protagonist persona of the movies star). Half a dozen heads turned at the intrusion. Silhouetted against the morning sun clear beams of shot through the gaps and highlighted the clouds of dust that hung like an omnipresent patron. He canted his hips slightly, fixed the barkeep with a determined stare, and strutted in as if he owned the place. The patrons, largely unimpressed, went back to their own affairs.

“One,” ordered Fett with a pointed digit. He fell onto a barstool with a heavy sigh and propped his elbows against the brass rail dropping a few credits on the bar. “And keep them coming.”

A gruff older man in his declining years, the barkeep busied himself with fixing the strangers drink. With trained grace he tugged a sleeve from its slot over the bar, tipped it up under the tap and poured a near-perfect glass. In the same liquid motion he deposited the drink before Fett while sweeping up the credits. This was a man who knew his business, obviously. From what Fett had been able to gather about the town this tavern had been among the oldest buildings and he had no doubt what so ever that the keeper had been working the taps for most of his life. He was silent and diligent in his task and Jorel thought a potential fount of information.

The settlement was inhabited, by and large, with miners and prospectors of the private variety. These were hard men who worked hard to scrounge valuable ingots from the belly of the planet itself but they were not alone in their inhabitation of the camp town. So too a large number of farm hands lived in camp hiring themselves out to the many ranches and farms that rimed the range. The town itself had cropped up as something of a midway point between the depths of the continent and the long road that led into the port city of Malgrath and it was Malgrath that would be his final destination on the planet Damar. But for now he had work to do in the camp town and that work depended heavily on the miner population, or more accurately; those that preyed upon the toiling nature of the prospector sort.

“It’s a long road to Malgrath,” noted Fett off handedly. “Need to fill the ballast, I do.”

This seemed to catch the barkeep’s attention. It was as if a switch had been thrown and Jorel Fett, or rather, Mr. Yen went from just another boozehound to a customer, a client. The trained bartenders ear seemed to prick just so slightly at the invitation for conversation and, in that, Fett knew that the man, like so many others in his trade, was likely skilled and practiced in the art of bar-top conversation.

Almost in passing, and Jorel wondered how he could have missed it, the bounty hunter noticed the array of ships supplies turned esthetic and mounted behind the bar. A rusted ships anchor hung from the ceiling but two glowing orbs had been affixed to either terminus effectively creating a tacky but nautically themed chandelier. Netting, of trolling type, was spread and nailed to the ceiling behind the bar and a wide assortment of fishing hooks had been suspended from it.

“You’re headed into Malgrath,” observed the barkeep. This was not a question but rather a receipt, a notation that he had understood the clients desire to initiate a conversation but just nonchalant enough that, should the drinker back out, the conversation could be easily aborted without any awkward moments exchanged.

Mr. Yen bit. “Yeah. Going to find work on the docks.”

“You’re a sailor then?”

“Not by trade,” quipped Jorel slapping his palm against the blaster slung against his hip. “But I suppose you need law and order on boat just as much as any place else.”

The barkeep nodded. Jorel took a draw of his drink.

“Do you have a job all lined up? I’ve heard that there’s not a lot of jobs being filled down that way these days.”

Jorel swallowed, “Sure is. Fewer men working the docks these days what with all the pirates and raiders, so I figure I’m a shoo in. Speaking of which, I hear tell that the miners around these parts put up with their own fair share of abuse. Anything to that?”

With an eyebrow inclined the barkeep seemed to size Jorel up before continuing. “Our fair share I suppose, just last week two prospectors were found dead on their claims. They’d been cleaned out and murdered but I suppose you hear about that sort of thing all over the place.”

Then he added, “Where did you say you’re from stranger?”

At this Jorel proffered a palm, “The name is Yen and I came by way of the mountain road but, in all honesty, I’m stranded on this rock… have been for the past four months now. A man told me that I might find a ride off planet in Malgrath, said that the fishery industry there is pretty strong and there are even a few off world exporters that occasionally make shipments.”

“Well I have no doubt a man skilled with iron could find work in Malgrath. As you said the pirate problem is getting out of hand, so if you’re skilled with that blaster then yeah, I wouldn’t doubt you could get hired on escort duty.”

He asked, “Do you have a background in law enforcement?”

Mr. Yen, playing the role, just nodded.

“Off planet experience then? As what?”

“You’d probably have called me a ‘sector ranger’.”

The barkeep nodded, then shrugged, “Why go all that way into Malgrath?”

Perfect, thought Jorel. But what he said was, “Go on…”

Extortion is quite the felony. It’s the kind of crime that will get a Commonwealth denizen fifteen years on Mytus IV. A Coalition denizen gods no what…

Of Course, if one has the displeasure of being convicted of extortion on a planet under the protection of his majesty, the Emperor Daemon fucking Hyfe; don’t worry about how many years you are going to rack up, because it’s a bullet in the back of the head for you.

You’ll deserve it though. Because you’re a dumb shit and got caught.

Or at least that’s what Tull Wynders would say.

Though all of the above are moot points, because this is Damar. And on Damar, the law is dictated by the one with biggest gun, and of course, the biggest balls.





Clandestinely supporting a ship full of pirates that will unknowingly be carrying out Beff Pike’s orders and not their own was a tricky business. The Guild could not directly finance the crew. That leaves a paper trail. The Bounty Hunter’s Guild is your wholesome, neighborhood, contract killers, not the type of scum that associates with common pirates.

Since no fund would be aiding this band of cut throats, extortion was the name of game.

“Wait out side Rick,” ordered Tull, the more experienced extorter.

The ship docking facility had a small bench outside. Rick took a seat and took out his cigarettes. He wouldn’t need to see what was about to happen. He would be able to hear it just fine.

“Protection’s 2000 a week.”

“Fuck off! I already pay that bloodsucker R’bsun 1000 a week!”

“I killed that Rodian prick about an hour ago,” countered Tull very nonchalantly. “I guess that leaves you shit out of luck.”

“How the fuck do I make any money, when I have to pay you 2000 credits a week?”

Tull countered this time with landing a sucker punch on the ugly alien’s protruding jaw. “Make some more fucking money then! This is Damar!” The alien was on the ground now. Tull gave him a hard kick in the gut. “If you don’t make money on Damar, you’re a fucking douche bag!”

“Alright…” gasped the alien.

“Just get me fucking paid asshole,” spat Tull as he left the office.

Pulling the rim of his wide brimmed hat closer to his eyes, he beckoned Rick to follow.
Rick threw his cigarette to the curb, and made haste to follow the much larger man.

“I guess our financial problems have been taken care of…”

“That’s probably safe to assume.”

Damar


Kreech leaned up against his bed yawning as the light crept into his single room residence revealing dust particles of all sorts. He sat there trying to get a bead on where he was and what he had done last night while stratching himself.

Two nerfs with one stone.

That was his modus operandi.

After a while, he gave up trying to figure out the night before as he was 1). still alive and 2). not dead. Two very important aspects when trying to place importance on events.

He continued to scratch moving his hand from his groin to his stomach and finally to his armpit.

Bloody bed fleas!

He licked the gums above his front teeth content to let that serve as a morning cleaning. Some folks were extremely uptight about oral cleanliness and had made it a morning tradition to go through all sorts of pain inflicting rituals in the mouth. Kreech was not the religious type and so left such rituals to those who were.

He stood up and slapped a nearby button. He felt like some caff.

A compartment extended from the wall revealing the dish washing basin and a simple pot and pan storage. The only problem was that all the pots and pans were dirty, and the sludge that served a dishwater housed all sorts of creatures spread a smell not quite trash-compactor worthy but close.

His eyes watered and he slapped the button again. The dirty dishes and basin with unrinsed cold dishwater went back into the wall.

He'd have to hire a droid to clean his crap up.

Fumbling around the pockets of his 'yesterday pants' he found six steel coins. Not even enough to pay for a 10 minute shower in the public stalls.

He wiped his hand across his greasy hair and brushed away the crusties from his eyes. A growl from his stomach told him that he would have to take care of business before he could start the business of they day.

Kreech did not mind as it was mainly the same every day here on Damar.

Being an out-of-the-way planet, far off the beaten path of major hyperroutes, Damar was more trouble than worth it for the various territorial governments who staked their claim to space all around the sector. The major colonial families were the real, inherent power on Damar and realized some sort of commerce was needed to not only retain their power but to grow increasingly rich. And so the ports of Damar were thrown open to all comers which resulted in successful black market traffic making the world a favorite for pirates of all sorts.

And there were all sorts.

Those with vicious reputations, those with reputations for shrewdness and those that were weasle jawas who'd cut your throat to steal the change in your pockets.

Life on Damar was tough and required a certain amount of hardness which suited Kreech just fine.

He briefly thought about how he came to work for the Five Families as he dressed for the day snapping his trademark suspenders in place over a dirty pale shirt.

His hand automatically shot out grabbing his prized possession, a thirteen barreled blaster that hurled disintegrating plasma whereever it was pointed. It was custom made by a pirate that thought to stiff the families and it was his mission to relieve the pirate of his offensive breath. He turned the vessel over to the bloke's crew who divided the plunder and fought over who would be leader next while snatching the infamous blaster for himself.

The door slid open and the day's light caused Kreech to squint in disgust. Taking the time to spit out the bile of what was presumably yesterday's dinner, whatever it was, allowed the sun to reflect off the symbol of his authority pinned in his dirty pale shirt.

A dented star.

Marshall is what he was. Marshall Kreech is what he was known as and it was a position he didn't find all that glamorous.

A few months ago, some holonet transmissions made their way to Damar talking about Coruscant's recapture by the Empire and the rise of some bloke named Grand Marshall Simon Kaine.

Whatever was 'grand' about being a marshall was lost on Kreech. The food still tastes like crap and for every cretin who scurries out of your way, there are two who try to get a bit of fame by knocking off the Marshall.

It seemed this Kaine fellow was too prissy to be an effective marshall and assumed he wouldn't hold the office for long before being killed.

His thoughts wandered back to Damar and he knew that this was going to be a day like most, where every thing under sun that could happen would happen..

Damar's great friggin cosmic truth!

He rubbed stubble on his cheek and new that he would have to go to the public stalls.


After breakfast!


He was irritable and hungry.


Everyone recognized the symptoms and several scattered as he plunged ahead using his large blaster to part the crowd.

Jorel Fett, or more correctly, Mr. Yen examined the mechanical construct with a certain degree of incredulity.

“Where did you say this came from?” He asked.

After a brief game of ‘get-to-know-you’ with elbows propped on the brass rail, Mr. Yen and the entrepreneurial barkeep retired to the rear of the establishment. As it so happened the barkeep in question maintained a private yard in the rear of his plot and kept it secure with high fences, barbed steel, and a retractable awning that seemed to dominate most of the area. Despite the mud and grass composition of the yard his efforts to keep the place clean and practical had gone a long way. Gathered in the rear, under that awning and resting on the untilled soil, was an assortment of goodies collected over his long life and stored, back here, for posterity and possible retail.

The barkeep, after their short interlude, had introduced himself as Benjamin Walking-Hand (a name, he explained, that had been passed down through his family for countless generations). It turned out that Benjamin’s people were among the first to colonize Damar, though ‘settle’ would have been a better word. They had bred with the native population, a near-human subspecies of primal status, and established themselves as a well known Damarian family (at least, in the local area). The natives, though cordial and potent, were very primitive in their approach to life and their surroundings; dwelling in nomadic tribes, hunting the beasts of the planet, and possessing only the simplest of weapons, tools and technology.

“My ancestors brought much of this with them from the stars,” explained Benjamin from his position on the porch and looking out across his collected wares. “A long, long time ago.”

Jorel, quiet for his part, allowed the man to continue his story though, due in part to his own heritage, Jorel Fett had a pretty good idea exactly what the mechanical monster was, and where it had come from. Mr. Yen, however; would not have known and so, biting his tongue and biding his time, the incognito Mandalorian allowed his host to continue with his tale.

“My family has been on this rock for longer the most of the other founding families.” Benjamin procured a seat for himself, reclining with a grin, and motioned that, should his curiosity overcome him, Mr. Yen should feel welcome to poke around the informal museum. “Over ten generations ago my ancestors found Damar and settled here after fleeing the war.”

Mr. Yen, hands tracing the cording along the side of the metal beast, paused in his ministrations and, quirking a brow at Benjamin, asked, “Which war was that?”

Certainly Damar was an isolated planet, far from the trade lanes and light-years from the nearest media station but, as Mr. Yen would have wagered, given the semi-transient populace and the constant (albeit slow) influx of bodies from across the galaxy must have furnished the locals with at least a slight interest in galactic affairs. In the past ten generations, assuming that the humans of Damar possessed lifetimes similar, on average, with the typical homosapien, then numerous wars, many on the galactic scale, would have transpired since.

This was not, however, the apparent case.

Presenting Mr. Yen with his own look of doubtful incredulity in response, Benjamin put, “Why, the great Mandalorian War, of course.”

Mr. Yen nearly spat his own drink, in the act of sipping the cool liquid when the barkeep replied. “What was did you think I meant?”

“Nothing,” lied Fett. “It’s not important. But unless my calculations are off, that would have been more then ten generations past, wouldn’t it? Less your people live a century a piece.”

Benjamin shrugged, “Hard work, long life. My grandpappy used to say that.”

Jorel simply shook his head and went back to examining the machine. He had no particular desire to insult his host, country-bumpkin or not. In stead, and happy to do it, he toggled a switch on the towering piece of equipment and smiled pleasantly when the battery indicator lit up with a partial charge. Benjamin missed it and went on with his tale.

“My family was driven out of the Core proper when the Neo-Crusaders struck our world. They ran, but the war was everywhere and no matter how far they went it was like they couldn’t catch a break from the hostilities. The clan, somewhere along the line, gave up on galactic politics, or so the story goes, and loaded up the whole family into a few starships and set out to find somewhere new, somewhere safe.” Benjamin stood and gazed up at the sky. “They found others, more refugees, and made a caravan out of the whole thing. Things weren’t good, up there, and everyone figured they were doomed. And then, just like that, they found Damar.”

“Maybe Damar found them,” added Fett by way of reciting an old Mandalorian proverb relating the story of how his people first found their planet. He doubted, very heavily, that Benjamin Walking-Hand knew enough about the people his family had fled from to put the clues together. The barkeep had given no indication that, while standing face to face with Fett, he had any inclination that the man was a Mandalorian himself. Jorel Fett was more interested in the subject at hand, and he made no secret of it. “So, how did they come by this?”

Benjamin shrugged absently, “most of the stuff you see here was found or dug up from the original crash-site. Not many people around who are interested in the past, or history. People around here pretty much live life one day at a time. It can be hard. I’ve been curious about this kind of junk since I was a boy and my Pa kept all of his pa’s stuff back here. Some I found, but most of this junk’s been collected over the years by family and handed down from one generation to the next.”

“The family museum, if you like,” commented Benjamin. He started down the steps from the porch towards Mr. Yen. “That piece of steel was dug up by my great-great-great grandpappy. Couldn’t tell you why he kept it, or why the rest did either. It’s huge, heavy and it don’t work, whatever it is. But, now it’s tradition and so I keep it back here, with all this other junk, just like my fathers before me did. Habit I suppose.” Benjamin shrugged and eyed the towering jumble of steel, cable and electronics.

The thing towered almost four meters tall and had the look of a creature about it, almost as though someone had attempted to craft a statue or idol to some horrible creature that was composed in equal parts of man, lizard and machine. Bits of it appeared to be coiled around itself while other parts, notably two long pylon-like structures, supported the heavy weight of the thing. Despite Benjamin’s efforts to preserve the artifacts of his past this particular piece had been to large and ungainly to store inside or under proper cover and so, with the passing storms, had sunken in the mud and the lower half-meter of the machine lay hidden beneath the muck. It’s head, if one dared define it as such, was tucked inwards up against its massive barrel chest and partially buried in the Damarian soil and though Jorel Fett was not inclined to say so, Benjamin had the thing on its side.

Truthfully, Jorel Fett knew exactly what this was and had been in constant combat with himself, since discovering the thing here on Damar, to keep his excitement, his jubilation, concealed. Typically the stoic, unbroken Mandalorian warrior, the thoughts and emotions of Jorel Fett were the subject of much debate, that is to say that among the Bounty Hunters Guild it was said that he had none save one; anger. This was not the truth and, like any man, Jorel Fett could indeed experience the full range of human emotion. It was simply that, unlike just any man, Jorel Fett was a master of keeping his emotional state of being a secret unto himself (and a very few others). What he had discovered here was a relic of a bygone era, a Mandalorian era.

And then, breaking from his usual character; cold and calculating, Jorel Fett made a choice. He made a choice that would have serious ramifications in the future. He made a choice to indulge his own greed and he made a choice that would complicate his job on Damar, and those of others like himself.

And the next day, when the authorities arrived to investigate the homicide of one Benjamin Walking-Hand, they would find only two clues; a cudgel, bloodied with the gore of a mans cerebrum, and a wide, torn gap of soil in which there used to reside a massive and unknown construct of steel and cord.

And Mr. Yen, safe in the town of Malgrath, would begin a downward spiral that would threaten to take down everyone around him.