As Far As Vengeance Went (The Ballad of Follnor and Bob)

[Ugoto Chivaro]

As far as Vengeance goes he died. Which ever one of you bastards want to take credit for his death I hope you choke on it.

DUBRILLION
SKETCHY NEIGHBORHOOD
1:27 AM ON A TAUNGSDAY

The speeder shot quickly down the abandoned street, passing block after block of run-down apartment buildings. It was one of the newer models. Completely electric, barely made any noise. It was particularly ideal for moving through crummy neighborhoods like this. There were all manner of criminal psychopaths probably living in those buildings and more than a few would be willing to take potshots at the clearly marked Helix Syndicate speeder as it went by.

As it currently stood, they were all too busy sleeping. Or if they weren’t sleeping, they didn’t even hear it go by. The inside of the speeder, though, that was where all the noise was. Loud, abstract electronic music blared from the radio and two Enforcers, sans helmets, were speaking at high volume so they could be heard.

“She said to me I didn’t make my quota,” Follnor was explaining, bloodshot eyes glancing between Bob and the empty road ahead of them. “My quota? Biiiiiiiitch...”

They had been doing this all night: complaining about the shrill Director of Operations at the Collections Center they operated out of. Bob nodded along, chuckling. The movement caused his long, greasy hair to flop in front of his face. He tried again to slick it back before responding. “What’d you do?”

“What’d I do? I told her I needed more shifts, I can’t make quota if I’m not working the full schedule I was promised, y’know?”

Bob picked at some crusty substance that formed near the corner of his mouth. “Yeah, yeah, she’s been cutting a bunch of the shifts of the underperformers, she said.”

“Now that’s just a vicious cycle,” Follnor turned the wheel, taking a left turn on the road out of the neighborhood. “If I’m underperforming, how is cutting my shifts gonna get me back up there? The less shifts I’m pulling, the more I’m gonna underperform, y’know?”

Bob shook his head, greasy hair swaying. “Vicious cycle,” he echoed. “Should complain to her supervisor.”

Follnor balked and looked at Bob. “Miss Doresh? No way, man. That woman’s crazy, I swear, she’d sooner rip out someone’s intestines than-”

Bob had glanced at the road while Follnor was speaking, only to scream bloody murder. It was not a flattering scream: high pitched and girlish, though perhaps such a description would only serve to denigrate young women everywhere. Follnor followed the gaze of his partner and saw that a hooded man had stepped into the middle of the road, not even looking at them. Follnor yawped and yanked the wheel, but it was too late.

The hooded man glanced at the car just before it hit him, alarm splayed over his features. There was a loud thump as he smacked into the car, hitting the windshield, and rolled promptly over the vehicle. The reinforced glasteel cracked from the force of impact. The speeder swerved erratically around on the road before Follnor regained control. The vehicle ground to a halt. Everything was quiet. There was only the faint sound of the engine and Bob’s rapid breathing.

Follnor was the first to speak. “Oh my God.”

 

[Ugoto Chivaro]

DUBRILLION
SKETCHY NEIGHBORHOOD

“Oh my God, oh my God,” Follnor was struggling with his seatbelt, which had automatically locked itself due to the abrupt stop. “Bob, are you alright?”

Bob was working his mouth, but no sound came out. There was a cut on his forehead bleeding slightly. Must have smacked his head on the dashboard. Great. He wasn’t dead. No need to keep asking. Follnor squirmed in his seat so he could turn around and look out the rear window. He could see the chump they hit lying in a heap in the middle of the road, but he was pretty far.

Follnor shifted into reverse and the speeder began to back up, closing the distance with the prone chump. He’d be fine, sure. Nothing to worry about, he wasn’t going that fast. Once they were close enough, Follnor shifted the speeder into park and got out. Bob suddenly snapped back into it, dull eyes focusing. He undid his seatbelt and stumbled out of the vehicle, but by then Follnor had already been standing over the chump for a few minutes.

His robes were all torn up, now crusted with filth from the road and blood from… Well, him. One leg was bent at an impossible angle. The robes were all bunched up and wrapped around him weird, probably from all the time in the air, but Follnor could see his neck was at an equally impossible angle. Blood was beginning to pool.

“He dead?” Bob managed to ask.

“Oh my God,” Follnor repeated, massaging his temples. “We were going over a hundred and forty kilometers per hour!”

Bob looked like he was going to be sick, but refrained from vomiting. They couldn’t just leave him here, someone might have seen them. Maybe the Syndicate could bail them out if they called the cops and reported the incident, but then they’d either be fired or have the rest of their shifts cut. Follnor abruptly stalked away, heading back to the speeder and ignoring Bob’s questions.

He stooped inside of the speeder and pulled a switch. There was a hissing as the trunk opened up. Bob stared, bewildered, as Follnor came back around and grabbed the dead chump by the arms. “Get his legs.”

“Follnor-”

“Grab his karking legs!”

Bob twitched, blinked his bloodshot eyes, and took the chump by the legs. “Count of three,” Follnor said, doing his best to sound composed and failing. They lifted the chump and waddled over to the speeder. “Okay, now just-”

They swung him back and forth a few times to build up momentum before tossing the chump into the speeder like a sack of potatoes. Bob winced at the squelching noise of soggy robes and Follnor wasted no time in slamming the trunk door shut again.

They stared at one another for one very long, very painful moment, before both men scrambled back into the speeder. As quickly as they had come, Follnor and Bob were speeding down the road again.

 

[Ugoto Chivaro]

DUBRILLION
FREEWAY

Follnor imagined his knuckles were turning white given how hard he was gripping the steering wheel. The helmet was the only part of the uniform you were allowed to take off during transit. The rest, gloves included, had to stay. Company policy. There was some elaborate reason for this, he was sure, but he really wasn’t thinking about that. He was thinking of the dead chump in the back of a company vehicle.

Don’t panic. Don’t panic. Whatever you do, just don’t panic. Think… Follnor grit his teeth as he concentrated, speeder flying down the city freeway like a bat out of hell. Follnor could think rationally under stress. His employee review sheet said so itself.

Bob was something of another story.

“Oh, man. Oh, man oh man. We’re dead, we’re so dead. We just hit and run. We just, oh man!”

Follnor couldn’t see what he was so worried about. He’d been the one who was driving. The full weight of the book would get thrown at him, not to mention the wrath of the Syndicate he worked for. Bob would probably just get a couple pages out of that book. And fired, probably, but at least he didn’t have to worry about ending up in a friggin’ debtor mine or something.

They swerved around a slow moving speeder truck. The ornery driver honked as they went by and Follnor grit his teeth as Bob’s gibbering continued. There was a thud in the back as the dead chump rolled around. Maybe they should have jammed him between something. “Shut up!” He belted at Bob, “Just shut up and let me think!”

The moments ticked by, one after another, turning into minutes. The freeway was sparsely populated at this hour except for truckers, who regularly seemed to get in the way. Follnor swerved around them and the body continued to bounce back and forth. This did little to soothe either party’s anxieties.

And then it started to smell.

Bob sniffed delicately, eyes widening a bit. He tried to take his greasy hair off his face again. “What- what the hell is that smell?”

Follnor inhaled considerably harder. It smelled like a public bathroom all of a sudden. And not like an office building public bathroom. More along the lines of a waystation one, the kind that was awkwardly built because it had to accommodate to a bunch of different species with variable methods of waste disposal.

It was coming from the back.

“Kark. Kark!”

“What? What is it?”

“The, the chump we hit! He- The bowels, man! They drain themselves when you die!”

You could tell this was new information to Bob. The change was subtle at first. Confusion, but as the gears in his head turned. As connections were made. Confusion became disgust. Disgust became a profound urge to vomit. Bob’s eyes bulged and his cheeks expanded, suddenly he turned away from Follnor as he scrambled over the passenger window controls

“Don’t puke in here!” The speeder swerved erratically as Follnor’s attention split. “Don’t karking puke in here!”

 

[Ugoto Chivaro]

DUBRILLION
FREEWAY

The smell of the vomit was more pungent due to its closer proximity to Follnor. If there was silver lining to this, the smell of the dead chump’s defecation. Still, he was not very pleased with the weak stomach of his partner. He handled the dead body but he couldn’t handle a little poodoo? Give me a break.

As Follnor adjusted to his new situation, he took the time to complain.“If there weren’t already a dead guy in this car, I’d fethin’ kill you right now.”

“Guh,” said Bob, shifting in his seat so he could get at the commlink in his pocket. “Ugh...” The vomit-stained look was not a good addition to the greasy-and-unshowered look he often came to work with. Follnor glanced at the commlink as Bob started to punch in someone’s number.

“Who the hell are you calling?”

Bob spat out the window. Of course he had managed to open it only after hurling. “Girlfriend,” he said. “She waits up for me, y’know?”

“No I don’t karkin’ no, don’t tell her-”

“I’m not going to tell her!” Bob snapped. A gust of vomit breath smacked Follnor in the face, which was the actual reason he recoiled. Without the helmet, Bob was about as intimidating a 12 pack of diapers. “Karkin’ jerk, gonna drag me into a homicide and then-”

That got Follnor agitated. “Don’t put this on me! If you hadn’t been flapping your goddamn gums-”

There was a click from the commlink. Bob’s girlfriend had answered. “Hello? Bob? What’s all that noise?”

Bob fumbled around to get the thing switched off of speaker mode and then put it to his ear, smashing the button to roll up the window with his other hand. “Colleen, hey, uh, bit of an issue at work. Yeah, I know, sweetie, but there’s this… Mess. And it- I said I know, and I love you for it, but this…”

At some point Follnor retreated into baleful introspection, Bob’s mad assurances to his girlfriend became an increasingly distant sound. Alright, no need to panic. None at all. They could just find someplace to dump the body, someplace without cameras or something. No, wait! They had a guy for this! Jarlok, of course! Follnor cut across several lanes to take the next exit off, annoying another trucker along the way. “Bob, hang that thing up.”

“...Yes, I understand I should get her flowers but you know she’s not my mom! Why would I-”

“Bob!”

“Sweetie I gotta go,” Bob said hurriedly, amidst faint screams, “Love ya, bye!” He clicked it off and then muttered, “Crazy queen.”

“Yeah, whatever. Punch in this number I’m about to tell you.”

“Who the hell are you calling now?” Bob leaned forward, looking at the dimly lit surroundings, not at all paying attention to the number Follnor was relaying. “Where are we?”

“Shut up and punch it in! Goddamn! And put it on speaker!”

 

[Ugoto Chivaro]

DUBRILLION
JARLOK’S GARAGE

Jarlok had not been happy to hear from Follnor at this hour. Bob had stayed mostly silent for that shouting match, holding the commlink for Follnor so he could yell without taking his eyes off the road or hands off the wheel. Follnor apparently had a favor to call in. Or at least he must have, since Jarlok eventually said fine and to pull around the back of his house.

This new neighborhood was a far cry from the one they had left. Nice little cookie cutter houses. No lawns, though. Just pavement for walking, pavement for driving, and pavement for parking. Follnor pulled into Jarlok’s driveway, where the garage door was already open. A rather severe looking Gran with a long, dangling mustache was waiting for them inside. Once the speeder came to a halt, the garage door closed. Nice and quiet.

Bob and Follnor both exited the vehicle. Jarlok took one look at Bob and sneered. “What the hell?”

“Princess here caught a whiff of some corpse poodoo.”

Jarlok snorted and took a sip of his caf before responding. “What a little girl.”

Bob looked down, trying to ignore the dry vomit on his chest. Follnor smiled at his colleague’s discomfort. “Can we get some caf?”

“What you want a karking croissant while I’m at it, dumbass?” Jarlok narrowed all three of his eyes. “You think ‘cause you’re not the biggest wuss in the room this one time you get a free pass for waking me up at-” A slave to accuracy, Jarlok checked his watch, “-Two twenty in the morning to call call in a favor? Kark off.”

Silence. Jarlok took another sip from his mug. Bob noticed it had “#1 Dad” printed on the side.

“Yeah, I’ll get you both some caf.” He made his way out, placing his mug on a shelf as he went, gesturing with a hand at a long table near the wall of the garage. “Put the stiff on the table.”

Once Jarlok left, Bob and Follnor went back to the trunk of the car. “Don’t puke this time,” Follnor said.

“Screw off, I got nothing left.”

The trunk opened and the smell was, predictably, awful. The dead chump was now a tangled mess of limbs and robes, face still obscured. Only now the poodoo smell was worse than ever. Bob gagged, but that was all. Follnor glared at him anyway. “You get his legs.”

“You’re the one who hit him, you grab him by his piss-stained legs.”

“Fine.”

Of course all the tumbling in the trunk meant that the sum of the dead chump’s waste was more evenly spread than it had any business being. Good thing they still had their gloves. Wincing and shuffling, Bob and Follnor flung the dead chump onto the table with the same lack of care seen previously. Then they stepped back to wait for Jarlok, trying to get out of range of the foul stench.

 

[Ugoto Chivaro]

DUBRILLION
JARLOK’S GARAGE

When Jarlok came back, he had a new mug in each hand and a large, bulky scanner clamped between his teeth. He snarled through the device to both Bob and Follnor, who accepted their coffee with muted thanks. Jarlok removed the scanned from his mouth and opened up a flap on its side. It was a large viewscreen.

“Alright, let’s see what the damage is.” Jarlok approached the splayed corpse, unreactive to the smell, and yanked the hood off its face.

Unsurprisingly, the chump’s features had worsened. Eyes were still bloody, neck still bent. Bob noticed for the first time that his mouth was hanging open. It would have been stereotypical to say he looked like he was screaming. Not that it mattered, since that wasn’t what he looked like. He looked like a big dumb deer in the headlights moments before the impact. Gawking at an impending doom it did not understand. To think that his last moments, his last thoughts, were now permanently frozen into his features. Only decay could remove them.

Jarlok tilted his head. “Yeah, he’s dead alright.”

“Oh, gee whiz, thanks doctor.” Follnor sneered, though he lost the expression when Jarlok swatted him in the face with the scanner.

“You two chumps wait over there, let me scan this guy.”

“Scan?”

“You wanna know who you hit, don’t you?” Jarlok angled the scanner so it had a clear shot of the chump’s face, which dominated the viewscreen. “This here’ll scan through a database to see who he is. One beep is in the system but no bounty. Two beeps is in the system with bounty. Three beeps is for a bounty over nine grand.”

Bob shook his head, “You think he has a bounty?” There was an affirmative noise from the scanner as it caught the image.

“Probably not, but it’s what I do for every other corpse that winds up in here. Gotta keep things with procedure.”

“So it scanned it? What’s taking so long?” Bob asked, noticing too late that Follnor had winced at the question.

“Oh, ain’t you a dame after all. It’s going to space, twinkletits. It’s trying to go. Into. Space. For Hutt’s sake, it’s comparing this chump’s face to what’s on record over a million different databases. Trillions of people. And it’ll take longer since you messed it up so bad. So yeah, give it a couple minutes to go to space, will ya? Thanks. Dumbass.” Jarlok turned away, fumbling with the device, “Buncha nimrods these days, nothing but nimrods.”

“Right. Let’s… Wait by the speeder,” Follnor said, indicating the vehicle to Bob with a nod of his head.

 

[Ugoto Chivaro]

DUBRILLION
JARLOK’S GARAGE

Bob watched from a safer distance as Jarlok recovered his caf and took an idle sip. With his other hand, he appeared to be rooting about in the chump’s pockets. Bob frowned. What an indignity. He looked back to Follnor, who was nursing his own caf rather delicately. “Where the hell did you find this guy?”

“We, uh, used to work together,” Follnor said, “Before my bounty hunting license got revoked.”

Bob tried to get his greasy hair off his face again. “What? This is how you bounty hunt? Just drag in corpses and scan them?”

“No! We scanned ‘em alive. Uh, most of the time.” He sensed he was losing Bob. “You know, a precaution. Don’t want to drag someone into the drop off if they’re just a look-alike. Looks embarrassing.”

“So this thing’s high accuracy?”

Follnor nodded, “Oh yeah. One hundred percent. Never let me or him down. Saved us more than a lot of trouble.”

After another sip of coffee, Bob shook his greasy head. “Couldn’t you just check their ID?”

“Well believe it or not, smartass, people make fakes. Or they just leave ‘em at home, especially when they’re wanted. I’m not a freakin’ bureaucrat, I don’t want to look at people’s papers. The scanner’s fine.”

“So how’d you get your license revoked? You know, if you were so accurate.”

“Eh,” Follnor stiffened, “Maybe mind your own business or you can join that dead chump on the table, you-”

Snap-hiss.

Bob and Follnor both turned to look over at Jarlok. The previously silent garage was now filled with the soft humming of an activated lightsaber. Blood red, pointed up in the air. Jarlok held the thing as far away from his face as he could. His head slowly turned towards where Bob and Follnor stood, all three eyes ablaze with a spectacular fury.

 

[Ugoto Chivaro]

DUBRILLION
JARLOK’S GARAGE

The lightsaber snapped back into its hilt, the hum vanishing as quickly as it had started. The garage returned to a silence that was far more excruciating than Bob or Follnor originally remembered. Jarlok put the ornate silver cylinder back on the table with a loud, final clack.

Bob felt his knees grow a little weak and then gulped audibly. Follnor’s bloodshot eyes had widened larger than Bob had ever seen them get.

Jarlok began marching towards them, fists clenched, “When you idiots pulled into here - did you notice a sign out in front of my house that said dead Sith storage?”

Follnor held a hand up in surrender, the other still had the mug in it. “Jarlok, hey, let’s take it-”

But Jarlok was already on him, grabbing him by the scruff of his shirt and hoisting him off the ground. Jarlok was a lot stronger than he looked, Bob noticed, and this informed the Enforcer’s decision to back up and let the two old friends settle it between themselves. Jarlok was now shaking Follnor violently, coffee spilling everywhere. “I don’t want to take it nothing! Did you see a sign that said dead Sith storage out front!? You crazy mother-”

Of all the people who could have been wandering the street at night, it had to be a Sith, didn’t it? You know, the people who pretty much run the government in these sectors now. They had just killed that guy. What if he was someone’s apprentice? Bob whimpered, but it was drowned out by Jarlok roughing up Follnor and carrying on as he was. This guy could have been anyone at any level. And they ran him down in the street. Like a womp rat. Just flattened him out, snapped his neck. Then carried him in the back of their speeder like he was luggage, feces and all.

Oh my God.

“I didn’t notice, I didn’t notice!” Follnor was now squealing, his face turning a wondrous shade of blue. Jarlok’s hands had found their way around poor Follnor’s throat.

“Because storing dead Sith isn’t my goddamn job! You idiot! You’ve killed me! You killed us all! I gotta get out of this karking system, I gotta get all the way to Alliance space just so I don’t get counter-killed by this whackjob’s karking-”

There was a sudden beeping sound from the scanner and Jarlok ended his tirade then and there as soon as he heard it. Then there was a second one. Then a third. And a… Fourth? Fifth. Sixth…

“What the hell?” Jarlok dropped Follnor and headed for the table he left the scanner on.

While Follnor was coughing on the ground, groping his neck, Bob tried to regain his bearings. “What do all those beeps mean?”

“No, that can’t be right,” Jarlok muttered, scanner now in hand, comparing data on the screen to the corpse in front of him.

“Jarlok?”

 

[Ugoto Chivaro]

DUBRILLION
JARLOK’S DINING ROOM

They sat around a table very calmly, very quietly. Bob and Follnor on one side, Jarlok on the other. In the middle of them sat the scanner. As it turned out, the dead chump at two bounties on his head. One for 150,000 dead, the other for 500,000 dead. Six hundred and fifty grand total. Jarlok had never heard it beep that much before. Once everyone had sufficiently calmed down, they retired to the dining room. Everyone got a fresh mug of coffee.

Bob was the first to speak. “What kind of a name is Vengeance, anyway?”

“Stupid,” Jarlok mumbled, mouth numb. “Stupid name.”

“Pretty dumb, yeah.” Follnor shook his head.

Silence again. Even if the split was three ways, over two hundred thousand credits each was a pretty tidy fortune. Enough to get the hell out of these jobs and this planet on, that was for sure. But it probably wouldn’t be a three way split, Bob had reckoned. Jarlok might take a finder’s fee, since that was apparently what he did, but Bob didn’t imagine he’d see much of it. After all, Follnor was the one who hit him with the car.

So he didn’t understand what these two were so weirded out about.

“You gonna… You gonna claim it?” Bob asked, looking at Follnor.

The Enforcer, eyes still bloodshot, rubbed his chin. Stubble was starting to become more pronounced. “I… I think so. Does this guy-”

“Doesn’t look like he has friends,” Jarlok muttered. “Don’t get a bounty like that from having a lot of friends.”

“The bounties are… Still active?”

Jarlok shook his head. “Still up. Still valid.”

Huh.

“Are we going to get a-”

“Nope.” Follnor said, standing up. He had made up his mind. Damn the consequences of possible retribution, he wanted his money. “Go get the coffin, Jarlok.”

Jarlok gave a considerable sigh and moved to comply.

 

[Ugoto Chivaro]

DUBRILLION
JARLOK’S GARAGE

The coffin, as it turned out, was a fully enclosed hover sled the exact dimensions of a coffin. Jarlok had ferried it out and opened it up. Now Follnor hefted up the body all on his own and plunked it right in. Funny how just over six hundred thousand credits could make a man more willing to deal with a corpse that was drenched in its own waste. Bob wondered if this was the sort of exit Vengeance had ever imagined for himself. Hit by a speeder, neck broken on impact, corpse evacuating its bowels in a moving vehicle, then finally extricated into a small box to be exchanged for money.

Give yourself a stupid name, win yourself a stupid prize, Bob thought to himself.

“What’re you gonna do with the money?” Bob asked somewhat cautiously. Follnor looked at him for a moment, then went back to fastening the lid shut on the hover sled.

He shrugged as he did so. “Leave here, that’s for damn sure. Don’t want Sith looking for me. Maybe start my own business.”

“Sounds nice.”

“Course it does, now I don’t have to drive around with your greasy ass stinking up the speeder.”

Bob frowned. “What about-”

“Give the jackanapes back at the center my resignation, will you?” He said, pushing the sled out through the now-open garage and down the driveway. “I’m done shaking down losers for pocket change.”

“What about the speeder? It’s all-”

Cutting people off while they were talking must come easily to the nouveau rich, because that’s exactly what Follnor kept doing. “I’ll pay you each a thousand credits to clean it for me.”

Well, Bob figured he would have to do that anyway, but now he was getting paid. “Then how are you getting home?”

“I’m rich now, you idiot!” Follnor called over his shoulder, “I’ll call a goddamn taxi!”

 

[Ugoto Chivaro]

AN EPILOGUE

Once Follnor had sold his house and got his money, no one ever heard from him again. A cautious fellow, he used his newfound wealth to get a new identity. He retired to a remote Agriworld somewhere near the Hydian Way, acquiring a profitable farm and coasting off the profits for the rest of his life. His eyes eventually got a little less bloodshot. Although he made many friends during his time with the Syndicate, they never heard from him. Follnor was beyond them now. The Helix Syndicate eventually tracked him down anyway, as he had violated the terms of his employment contract by quitting early. Tytos and the Syndicate extracted a sizable fee from Follnor, though this barely put a dent in his newfound wealth.

The fee was later used to jump-start production of a cloaking device made for use by the Syndicate's body of specialists and commandos. It was affectionately referred to as the Follnor Prototype during its early stages of development, though it would eventually be re-branded and released under the HS Electronics brand. Follnor's success and retirement (minus the Syndicate tracking him down to extract a fee) were later used as internal corporate propaganda directed at the Syndicate's Enforcement branch. Just to show everyone what hard work and dedication could really get you.

It worked.

Bob was able to clean the speeder with the help of Jarlok. Both, surprisingly, were paid. Of course, Bob was ordered to pay for the damaged windshield, so that was three hundred and fifty credits less right off the bat. But it was never over for Bob. After five years of employment, Bob was finally promoted. His new salary was enough that he could pay off his drug dealers and afford to use enough hot water to shower. Bob became one of the most productive collections coordinators in his division. Bob married Colleen, and was immensely self-satisfied with the fact that, while Follnor’s fortune was acquired through blind luck and random happenstance, he had earned his. It might not have been as much, but it was something to take pride in.

Jarlok continued to facilitate the identification and procurement of bounties for a variety of different bounty hunters. There were tough times, but all in all he managed to maintain his comfortable suburbanite lifestyle. Bagging and tagging corpses and criminals is rarely an enriching lifestyle or the sort of work you want your son to grow up around, but Jarlok jealously maintained his status of #1 dad until the day he died.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Yq3JuKY2kQ​