Broken City (you know who you are)

[Heron Graile]

'All good things come to an end'​

- Graffiti on door of inoperable turbolift​

The apartment wasn't home, just a place where debt collectors could find her. Dinko Graile shared it with a five-hundred-pound Houk who'd warped every appliance in the 'fresher, up to and including the door hinges. The only waking time she spent in the apartment involved quick and drafty showers, implants wrapped in tape and plastic. Then she snagged her gear from a locker at the nearest station and got to work.

Any number of megacorps called Taris home, starting a few levels higher up. From juggernauts like Arceneau and MandalMotors to focused operations like Arkanian Adascorp, Taris had a special place in its heart for unfettered capitalism. That meant competition, waste, room to live in the cracks where things fell through. Today Dinko scored big on her trapline's first stop, the back end of a medical processing block. She salvaged no fewer than eighteen kolto packets with illegible labels. Smelled fine, though.

The rest of the trapline had some real risk involved; no point in jeopardizing the kolto haul. Back down she went, five levels, to places where gangs and junkers would buy dubious kolto and be grateful for it.

 

[Not Ordo]

[member="Heron Graile"]

The man hefted a crate onto a broad shoulder as a large security droid watched the small team of workers load the dirty cargo speeder. He had been at it all night, well ten hours of it anyway. It wasn't always like this. No, sometimes the work was at least interesting, but you took what you could if you wanted to eat. He walkes across the shipping yard and stacked the metallic crate into the open bay of the cargo hauler and began walking back to grab another.

"Hurry up." The droid said as he and two others grabbed their crates.

"Got it." Gib said as he grunted and put a crate over each shoulder.

"Over zealous toaster." Another worker said gaining laughter from the other.

Gib turned from stacking gis crates to see the droid stomp forward and drive the man to the deck with the butt of a blaster rifle. The crate rolled across the ground as the man collapsed. Gib raced across the yard and put himself between the droid and the human. His hands were up showing the pale pink and grey of his palms.

"Hey hey." Gib said as he tried to be unthreatening, "He don't mean no harm, right? Only human ya know? Just tired and can't think a clear as youse guys. Let's just all get back to work what da ya say?"

The droid's photoreceptors focused and refocused before it simply turned and went back to it's post.

"That stup..." the worker began as Gib helped him back to his feet.

"Can it, man." Gib said looking back at the droid, "It ain't worth dyin' for. Shift'll be over soon enough."

Gib beny down to pick up the fallen crate and noticed it was filled with component parts for who knows what. He stuffed the parts back in the crate and closed it up before he put the crate on the stack with the others. The cargo hauler closed and pulled away after a moment and the droid signalled that they were done.

"Hey, boss we was told we could get twelve hours on this job." Gib said as he walked up to the droid.

"You finished early." The droid said as it began to turn.

"Whoa," he said as he stepped infront of the droid, "What about the twelve hour pay we was promised?"

"You get paid for the work you do not the work you want." The droid said as it leveled the blaster at Gib's chest, "Go."

Gib looked at the blaster and then the droid and backed away with his hands up.

"Of course." He said with a resigned sigh, "What was I thinkin'?"

He turned around and looked at the left over crates. They didn't need that stuff as much as he did...he dropped the thought collected his credits and began his walk to the bus stop. What else could he do?

 

[Cato Fett]

They wanted the helmet. The groceries were ancillary.

Mandalorian steel at thirty-two ounces bought five-hundred in credit vouchers and a good word into the ‘Unterghung’. There were three miscreants, one stuck behind Cato and jabbing a stun-paddle almost through his kidney, his other hand struggling against undoing the helm’s chin straps. Another was quickly appraising the Type-03 rifle, renouncing it as junk and slagging its action-block with a small plasma torch. She took the magazine; six-hundred credit vouchers, if pawned right. The last tried prying the sword Oilseller out of its knot on his belt.

Cato fought back. His head whipped back into Miscreant One’s face and cracked his nose open. The stun-paddle flailed and waved, trying to wrestle their grip around his shoulders. Cato fed his elbow into their side, drawing a fighting tanto with lightning liquidity, twisting around slightly and ripping its steel through their unguarded liver. Blood dampened his backside with warmth. Miscreant Two cried out and let go of Oilseller’s locked scabbard, in a panic and rage to draw his holdout gun. Miscreant Three was looking in time to notice the mugging was falling apart.

He locked Two and Three together in a short, mean brawl. He gripped their limbs and twisted, shunting joints together, blocking the pair into pained, subdued contortions. Three had her wrist broken, Two a shoulder dislocated and his face cratered into the alleyway mantle. Cato bowled and tossed them aside, gathering room enough to draw Oilseller. He cut Two down as he rose, slashing through his brow down to his stomach and bowels. Three scrabbled for the holdout blaster lost in the garbage and viscera. She found it and managed a handful of wide, spraying shots, nicking Cato’s shoulder and ricocheting a slug round off the flat of his blade. He stepped in and scored Oilseller through her ribs, poking a wound through her heart. The holdout dropped atop a bulging trash bag and slid out of sight.

Miscreant One surrendered his head to a clean stroke afterward, overcome by the pain of his slit gut.

It took a short effort squelching pointed thoughts of vengeance. They were unidentified footpads and if they did hail from some loose affiliation, reprisals in the Undercity were fruitless. Mostly. Absences generated brief vacuums that were swiftly filled. Another handful of nil-income hab-block gangers and knife-fighters would replace the three dead before the day-cycle’s end. Cato cleaned his sword and tanto-knife with a handkerchief and let the soiled cotton float onto the ferrocrete. Four bags’ worth of weighted groceries were scattered, trampled across broken sidewalk slabs. The Mandalorian knelt, retrieved what food could be salvaged, relieving the slain behind him of their limited wealth. Oily decicreds, small voucher chips of spare palladium, handfuls of slot-in silicon bars for the augment ports behind their ears, esoteric keepsakes.

A last gesture was Cato deciding on their dignity. Trash was swept and cleared away, the three laid out with jackets blanketing vacant, ash-cold expressions looking through grey smog for skies that weren’t there. He shouldered his foodstuffs and provisions, kept Oilseller close in his grip, and walked on through lingering pain. Into a dry evening gusting recycled wind through bleary speeder canyons, walking against the sound of ambulance sirens and infants crying in tattered cribs. Cato went home through a soak of dirty neon colour blinking through the gloom.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnpqLWBrNw0​

​

[member="Gib"] | [member="Heron Graile"]

 

[Heron Graile]

@Gib @Cato Fett

Frantic sword fights in the gloom might well be a permanent fixture of civilization, no matter how it evolved. No doubt Dinko's ancestors had lived like that three hundred centuries ago. In the undercity of Taris, people lived like that today. Case in point: the Mandalorian with one hand on his sword and the other on his groceries. Dinko drew a ragged breath and hung back behind a stripped truck. The nets said the Mandos (close to Taris) had conquered Dathomir (closer to Taris) less than a week ago. Cross a Mando, folks said, and you'd get a whole clan after your blood. And of course she'd heard of the random attacks at Utapau, Ilum, Ossus...

Dinko rubbed her face and hitched her bag of kolto a little snugger over her shoulder. The Mandalorian didn't look like a conqueror. He looked tired and hungry, and his grocery bags had seen better days. And was that a little stiffness in his walk? Had that ruckus caught him a few minutes back? In the back of her mind, the battered Mando switched halfway from 'threat' to 'customer.'

She caught up with him at a hoverbus stop near a handful of day laborers. "Buy some kolto, vod?" She pronounced it vawd. Close enough, right?

 

[Mala]

Stay here.

Here in the tidy two room apartment that he had brought them to. Here in the warm and the dry. The little mischief maker did well, for about thirty minutes, contenting herself by laying out her collection and picking the brightest of objects and threading them into a mobile. The golden medallion she'd picked up on Takodana taking pride and place in the centre. She hung it in the window where it caught light from the buildings around and reflected across the apartment. She sang happily, bathed in the glitter of her trinket...

...but little Mala lived in a another world, where staying out for too long was dangerous and the itch in her feet returned. She'd come back, she'd find his smell easy enough even amidst the stink of this city world. She fixed her belt and pouches to her body, stuck her most prized possession into on of the pouches along with a small pistol and slipped out of the apartment door, closing it tight behind her.

Mala's giggles followed her through the halls and into the streets. She paused outside the apartment doors, ears twisting on her head, fur rippling. Taris tasted just like every other city planet, each level had its flavour each district a distinct tang. This one was the level of the downtrodden, those who scraped by with just enough, and watched their backs with shifty eyes. It wasn't the undercity, where everyday was a battle, where a good piece of steak hauled out of a trash compactor was worth killing over...no, but it was close enough. Still Mala wasn't interested in that battle, she was interested in something else entirely. A distant tune caught her ear and she squeaked with delight and bounced towards it.

The closer she got, the more she could taste it, thick cigarra smoke, death sticks that dulled senses, spice that heightened others and liquor that made the sharpest of eyes dulled. A cantina. Perfect ground for a thief.

[member="Heron Graile"] [member="Cato Fett"] [member="Gib"]

 

[Not Ordo]

His mind wandered over the hills and vallies of troubles that were his daily life it seemed. Bills, were coming due, and he would pay them, he always found a way to make due or do without, but their were a lot of people, neigjbors, friends, that wouldn't be doing so well soon. He knew Mrs. Korsito was in need of medicine her retirement from ATC stopped paying. It may have been a mistake like she always said but it was a mistake that could cost her the sum total of her life before it got fixed. The Porkins' in unit 321C just lost a child to a corporate strike team that just was sent to arrest a spice dealer across the hall. One stray shot through a too thin wall had poured suffering into a quiet family just because they had been home at the wrong time. Gib bared his teeth and growled to himself as he tugged his tough thick cloth jacket over his broad shoulders. What was the point of all those people making money if a little didn't filter down to the people that made the cogs turn in the first place? Gib didn't know. He was glad he got his brother and sister out of the slums and off to learn something more than the taste of insta-mash and dubiously filtered water. He rounded the corner, hands deep in shallow pockets, head down and thoughts turning darker by the second.

"Buy some kolto, vod?" He heard as he stepped up to wait for the hoverbus.

He couldn't help but think of Mrs. Korsito and wonder if Kolto could help her.

"Hey, uh, Miss?" He said turning slightly, "Does Kolto help wid, uh, like, breathin' and stuff? Sorry, I jus over heard ya is all."

He looked at the Mandalorian, and then the lady. He hadn't thought that maybe they didn't want people hearing what they were talking about. His ears got him in trouble more than once before too. He sniffed the air. The Mandalorian smelled like any other disgruntled guy in the slums...mixed with fresh blood. The girl smelled...weird, something he wasn't used to, and wary, yeah a hint of wary.

"My mistake, omai. Sorry, to bother ya." He said as he turned back to wait for the bus.

[member="Cato Fett"] [member="Heron Graile"]

 

[Cato Fett]

Taser burns ached up his back, scabbing spottily in places over his shoulder blades. Tears were wearing in the armourweave and it was due replacing. Cato regarded the girl in second-hand ‘de@d c311’ orbital fatigues, eyes glazed over from backlit ‘gargoyle’ techie-shades, stems bulky with function modules. She’d been wrestling with a notion before shifting up the sidewalk, approaching him under the plexiglass awning scrawled in overlapping graffiti. Thick foot traffic passed on, hurried by downpour warnings. Run off from the Upper City during scheduled rain storms tended to rush the lower quarters with flash-floods and passing ‘waterfalls’ leaking down from the overhead artificial ceilings. Down the avenue, their buss struggled to make time against bumper-to-‘pulsor congestion.

Cato was shifting the groceries off his shoulder when a heavy-set labourer asked after the street-clerk. Did kolto cure, at least alleviate respiratory difficulties? The thought struck him: could it? Kolto was famed battlefield medicine before the advent of bacta. He couldn’t recall off-hand cases of its use in curing ailments beyond obvious physical trauma. The labourer grumbled, apologized, returned to chunnering in thought. Cato momentarily wondered if the pair were part of a set-up; his hand hadn’t eased off Oilseller.

“…Take a canister or two, whatever you’ve got,” Cato said. “You got inventory in your pack? …And what’s the going talk about something like bronchitis or pneumonia getting kolto treatment?”

[member="Gib"] [member="Mala"] [member="Heron Graile"]

 

[Heron Graile]

[member="Mala"] [member="Gib"] [member="Cato Fett"]

Quick as a flash, but not quick like a weapon coming out, Dinko unshouldered her pack. She hooked the strap on her elbow and took out a quartet of ampoules, two in each hand. Pale blue kolto burbled in the flat light.

"Works decently well, just can't breathe it in or anything like that. Best bet is to soak a cloth in it and wrap it around your neck. Here's two for each of ya, and more where that came from. I could go as low as twelve apiece. Fair?"

It would have cost twenty a few levels up on a shiny shelf. She expected to settle for eight or ten.

 

[Not Ordo]

He turned cautiously and looked around at all the extra eyes. He was sure this stuff was stolen or salvaged but he didn't really know if it mattered in the long run. He didn't need it. But could he just ignore the fact that someone else did need it? He pulled a hand from his pocket and peaked at his credits. Ten credits per hour for ten hours, minus twelve credits for corp taxes, minus six for non-union tax. He sighed.

Would he buy dinner tonight and tomorrow, or would he buy an old woman medicine? He chewed the inside of his lip as he stared between his hand and the kolto .

"I, um, I can give you ten apiece." He said as he stuffed his meager 82 credits back in his pocket. Rent was gonna be late too if he didn't find another shift by the end of the day.

He looked at the Mandalorian and thought slow deliberate thoughts about whether their was good money in all that armor, but the Mando had never done anything to him...the corporations had though. Hadn't they? They made billions per day...he made a hundred on a good day. They ate the blood sweat and tears of people that wanted nothing more than to live the lives they didn't ask for in as much peace and quiet as they could. His skin darkened and his neck grew tight as he thought about it. He had to do something. He thought about the components sitting at that loading dock...one crate could feed his block for a month and pay rent. His jaw set as he looked at the Red Lady and then the Mando. He'd do it tonight. Enough was enough.

[member="Cato Fett"] [member="Mala"] [member="Heron Graile"]

 

[Case Li]

Case had seen better days.

He had spent every last credit he'd earned the last three months on a fancy terminal, set up to mine for CyCred Gold. It was the latest cryptocurrency to hit the market. Case knew it was going to blow up the scene, be the next big thing. In the last 3 months the price had gone from 10 credits per CyCred to 20. Until today, when it was announced CyCred Gold was bought out by some MegaCorp and was effectively cancelled. Now his CyCred Golds were going for a measly .7 credits per unit. But that wasn't even the worst bit. He'd convinced a local spicelord, a Rodian named Big Ganza about the merit of CyCred Gold. He'd put in a few ten thousand credits in it a month ago. Ganza even paid him 100 credits for the tip a couple weeks later.

If Case was lucky Big Ganza would only want the gift back. Case wasn't gonna stick around to find out. He was running 'home' to get everything he owned when he came across quite the strange sight. A zeltron, a Mandalorian, and a burly giant of a sentient, buying what seemed to be bacta. No, kolto. For twelve credits a vial. That wasn't a bad deal, truth be told. On the upper levels that could cost anywhere from 18 to 25 credits, depending on name brand and all that. Case pondered it a moment, then thumbed through his pockets. Seventy-six.

"How does three for twenty eight sound?" Case bargained. He'd wager he'd need the kolto sooner rather than later. Maybe some cybernetics too.

[member="Cato Fett"] [member="Gib"] [member="Heron Graile"] [member="Mala"]

 

[Mala]

Mala skirted along shadowed walls, slipping past the notice of the doorman as group of half dead workmen trounced, grunting their daily greetings. She clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle a giggle and she slipped beneath the nearest table, carefully avoiding knocking legs. Dim light cast heavy shadows concealing her perfectly as she picked her way carefully between legs, tasting the air with each pause occasionally popping her head up between tables, fast finger snatching credits left unwatched for too long from the table top.

One man lay passed out, head resting upon his arms, a small silver case resting at his elbow. Mala emptied its contents onto the table and stuffed the case into a pouch before moving on. There was a shift in the air in one corner, drowsy dulled sense seemed more alert the faint smell of blood lingered on the air. Mala's ears moved flat against her head as she inched to the edge of her cover to investigate the difference. Meatheads with black beady eyes that snapped this way and that, looking for trouble...or a reason to start some. Meatheads always had a boss, Mala moved to the next table, deftly plucking an anklet from a lady as she passed.

A fist crashed onto a table nearby and she froze. "I want him found. Today." She peeked out to see he fist belong to a Rodian who was on his feet, the lady who'd been in his lap picking herself neatly off the floor. "Watch the spaceports and do not let him get off world, then bring him to me alive." Several of the meatheads grumbled, hoisting themselves off their overly large backsides and heading for the door. Mala took her cue to leave also, making a point to remember the Rodian's face and the Catina's location.

Outside she picked her way up cables and pipes, picking the higher ground and making her way through the city. She'd a need to find her Hunter, to feel safe again.

[member="Case Li"] [member="Gib"] [member="Heron Graile"] [member="Cato Fett"]

 

[Cato Fett]

Cato had to stuff his hands beside the Orzet and footpad to claim some of the street-clerk’s inventory. He came away with a handful of slender ampoules and a couple of sealed, sterilized poultices still in their original vacuum packaging. Counted out credits, passing over an even sixty to the clerk, standing aside to fit the ‘medicine’ inside a personal satchel. Impromptu street business was a savage hustle that fought directly with established outlets. The aim being to convince customers the worth of their impulse buy; direct savings, one-time offers, rare or expensive or products that were both, now available on a limited time offer. More bodies stuffed in, waiting for the mag-line tram still coasting up the avenue. Downpour warning klaxons were sounding from higher street elevations. Rain was in the air.

A low-slung speeder, bustled between a freighter-transport and a blocky shortbus, inched along beside the sidewalk. It’s engine block had been slagged, replaced, and rebuilt with a mountain of after-market additions. Dex-step, music that made your nerves sing up into the ear-bones, boomed from enormous sub-woofers shivering under the aft trunk. Four passengers, various race and gender, all settled lazily, casually glorying in intricate hot-ink tattoos lasered down their throats, clavicles, shoulders, into detailed sleeves ending at the wrist. One was watching [member="Case Li"] under hooded, enormously brown eyes. A hint of a sub-MG barrel rested against the cabin door plexiglass.

The tram was another ten vehicles down in the congestion and now the rain was coming on. Thin drizzle threatening with heavier volume. Droplets pattered and slid over his visor. Cato undid the latching for his thigh holster and gripped his pistol.

[member="Mala"] [member="Gib"] [member="Heron Graile"]

 

[Heron Graile]

"Ten's fair if that's what you got." When she swapped the two ampoules for twenty, her hand brushed [member="Gib"]'s skin. His emotion rushed through her - quiet desperation, anger, determination - and she snatched her hand back. None of that desperation or anger seemed like a threat; he'd aimed it elsewhere.

"How does three for twenty eight sound?" Case bargained.

Feth, what a jackpot. Everyone and their nuna wanted kolto. That Mando had just dished out sixty creds - good money. Real good. "That's pretty slim, Slim," Dinko said, giving the new arrival a once-over. Not a bad-looking guy. "I could do three for thirty-one. Know what, make it thirty 'cause I like your eyes." Bass-heavy dexstep drowned out the snappy, halfhearted, ironic flirt. She glanced that way, at that rebuilt speeder and its gangbangers, and her blood ran colder than a Zeltron's blood had any right to run. And had the Mando just unsnapped his holster? Feth. If an actual fight kicked up, she wasn't carrying, apart from a little stunrod that'd knock a Wookiee rapist but wouldn't do jack against a drive-by.

She'd sold almost half her stock now, triple-digit credits burned a hole in her pocket - every instinct said to cut her losses and disappear. But which way? The most obvious source of shelter was the bus, but traffic had clogged it up, and anyway it'd turn into a trap easy enough. Like feth would hardened bangers care about shooting up a bus this far down. Wasn't like they risked hitting a MandalMotors exec by mistake, right?

Which way?

 

[Not Ordo]

"Thanks, Miss." He said as he slid the Kolto into his cargo pocket. It wasn't the first time someone had flinched from his skin. It didn't really bother him anymore, smooth skins were used to smooth skin. That's just how it was.

The rain started in fat slow drops and the smells of multiple bodies packed close was dampened enough for Gib to notice the smells of those closest to him. He turned his head from side to side looking for the source of the increased smell of danger. It was a subtle thing, probably something to do with increased heart rates and adrenalin, but Bengi wasn't a scientist. He just smelled what he smelled.

The Mandalorian's hand lowered to his blaster and the girl looked ready to run as Gib finally noticed the gangers. Typical, sort. Hopped up on stims and the feeling they got from pushing down their neighbors for credits. Gib didn't know who was worse the corps or the scum that just acted like them.

"Oh, that don't look good." He said as he stared with his mouth open. A thug started walking toward them with a blaster pistol on his shoulder and Gib looked around at the people with him. They didn't look like gangers to him.

"Ah, he don't look so nice." Gib said as he pushed passed slowly and between the group and the gangers. He stopped and rested a thick fingered hand on the top of a trash depository.

"How ya doin', Omai?" He said to the ganger as he flashed a tusk filled smile, "Need directions? Ain't seen ua down here before."

[member="Case Li"] [member="Mala"] [member="Cato Fett"] [member="Heron Graile"]

 

[Case Li]

The woman shot up a counteroffer at thirty, but played a little and made it seem like she'd given him a deal, taking off a credit. Case couldn't blame her either, big guy just bought two at twenty creds. He might get upset if he figured the math, and nobody wanted to deal with an angry species who looked like they could go toe to toe with a whiphid.

"Twenty-eight's really the highest I can go . . . " He extended the last word in what seemed like contemplation. "But I like your hair. I'll part with thirty." He said, and handed over the requisite credits while returning the semi-flirtatious attitude. She was probably toying with him, but it was a better shot than nothing. While exchanging credits for kolto Case noticed in his peripherals the Mandalorian unlatching his thigh holster. He turned to see the Mandalorian and went a halfstep back in preparation for a violent mugging, but noticed the T-Visor wasn't aimed at his direction. A quick swivel of the head revealed a small cadre of spice-addled bangers.

A gulp went down Case's throat. He recognized the Shistevanan with the scar coming over, blaster slung over his shoulder. Thrax was muscle for Big Ganza, a debt collector who sniffed out those who thought they could get away with running. Rumor had it he once spent three weeks tracking down a gammorean through the undersewers. Most humans like case couldn't even comprehend the thought of sniffing out a gammorean in the middle of a sewer. Eyes darted around from alleyway to crosswalk. Only quick way out was the bus, but they had a junk of a speeder with them. Probably as likely to break down as the bus. Feth feth feth.

"I don't need directions. Just for this half-gamorrean pig in front of me to get the fierfek outta my way." He heard Thrax growl.

As if this day couldn't get any worse.

[member="Gib"] [member="Mala"] [member="Cato Fett"] [member="Heron Graile"]

 

[Mala]

It didn't take long for her to find him, she settled onto an air conditioning unit on the wall opposite him, watching the deal progress below her with little interest. Whatever he was buying tasted like the stuff he'd insisted on smearing on her back, and she hadn't liked the taste of that either. Stuck in her fur and made everything else taste funny. She moved to the edge of the unit, feet hanging over the edge and swinging as she began to hum softly, plucking her new treasures out of her pouches and fiddling with them.

One item, hummed as she activated it, a thin yellow line springing between two prongs. It took her a moment to recognise it for what it was and she giggled. The noise echoing off the alley walls. She clapped her hand over her mouth, knowing ful well Cato would have heard her she offered a grin in his direction, a grin that faltered every so slightly as she noted the hand resting on his blaster. Mala followed his gaze to the meathead.

She stood up, teeth bared, ears flattened against her head. A meathead from the Cantina. No, no, no they were not getting anywhere near her hunter. "Nasty little meatheads. Nasty, nasty, nasty. Stays away from Mala's friends. Yes, yes they will." she muttered, she pinched the energy line back, and let it fly.

[member="Case Li"] [member="Gib"] [member="Heron Graile"] [member="Cato Fett"]

 

[Cato Fett]

The jolt struck Thrax over his occipital plate and rang little ladders of brief electric shock between his now pricked ears. Fur tufts smoked. The Shistaven cursed foully, swiped at the little embers glowing at the ends of his hair, and braced back to fire his heavy pistol across the sidewalk at Mala’s perch.

Then Thrax was dead.

Bone and brain matter ejected out his temple and the side of his snout. Cato toggled his pistol off semi-fire to full unflinching auto, brushing past the big Or’zet Gib. The extended magazine emptied into the speeder cabin. The controlled bust-fire was virtually imperceptible, a three-second long howl of shrieking machine action, two score rounds shattering the laminate windscreen and perforating the trio still caught in their seats. Blood and wet upholstery plumed up into the cabin roofing. A body rolled aside, arm lolling out the busted passenger window. Cato snapped a fresh magazine into place, primed the pistol, and carefully stalked up to the speeder. Further worries were alleviated with another three shots.

The Mando holstered the gun away. Threat management, he thought. It stunk of spent gunpowder and fyceline and he thought of how undignified firearms made the killing. Cato looked to the bus stop, at Case and Gib and the white-faced street-clerk rapidly zipping her satchel-bag up. Then to a little shape capering back and forth on her seat atop the AC box-unit.

He turned the audio gain up on his helm. “You get your furry rump down here, girl.” And then more moderately: "Someone help me get this shid off the road. The bus can't park."

[member="Mala"] [member="Case Li"] [member="Gib"] [member="Heron Graile"]

 

[Heron Graile]

[member="Gib"] [member="Case Li"] [member="Mala"] [member="Cato Fett"]

You didn't last long in the midlevels without playing innocent bystander a time or twelve. In Dinko's experience, gunfights could stretch out pretty far, as both sides took shelter and plinked away at a manly distance. This fight lasted five heartbeats flat. She hadn't even decided which way to run when the shots stopped echoing. And just like that, her faceless customer put his gun away and started moving bodies.

He couldn't be from around here. Skill and sanguinity had nothing to do with it. This low on Taris, who the feth cleaned up a mess?

She found herself grabbing the Shistavenan's hairy ankles and dragging him into the gutter. The hoverbus edged ahead with an ungrateful honk. Dinko got back on the curb.

"Who were they?"


https://youtu.be/o9zRQijCN5w

 

[Not Ordo]

He flinched quickly when the first crack of the weapon exploded. His head tried to pull down deep into his shoulders like a dresselian turtle escaping into its shell. The moment passed quickly and he watched through a mix of carbon fog and rain drops as the armored guy walked over to make three full stops on his violent sentences.

Gib couldn't really explain why if someone had asked but he had already mentally committed to fight by throwing the trash can and attacking, so, he pulled the heavy durasteel receptacle off the ground and threw it at the junk speeder in one fluid motion before he took a breath and thought of what to do next. He still had an idea to get credits, yeah? The gangers blasters sure would help.

He pulled off his jacket, shunning rain and weather, and went from body to body stealing weapons and wrapping them in the heavy cloth garment. They had a good haul from just the bodies but the speeder had some good junk. The cargo space was filled with everything a hired thug might need to make due in the mids and lows of the Taris cityscapes. These guys had obviously been ready for trouble, just not at a hovertram stop. Gib grabbed their bags and set them down to the side and with a grunt and some other strained noises pushed the speeder a few feet away from the street, metal scrapping all the way.

He grabbed the bags and his weapons filled jacket and noticed the blue furry thing for the first time. His tusk like teeth clamped togther after a moment of trying to find the words he wanted, he settled for a smile before walking to the Mandalorian.

"We should burn the whole lot of them guys." He said remembering an episode of TCIS, "The Cops is gonna come anyways since the Hover Bus was interrupted. Maybe we should give'em less about us, what they can find?"


[member="Case Li"] [member="Mala"] [member="Cato Fett"] [member="Heron Graile"]

 

[Case Li]

[member="Heron Graile"] counted that the fight had ended inside of six heartbeasts, and perhaps it did for her, but Case had a lot on his mind. He heard the blasterfire and assumed he was the one getting shot at, and he could have sworn the fight took fifteen. Maybe twenty. If the others were paying attention to him they might have noticed he was visibly shaking when he realized that it was [member="Cato Fett"] who'd taken down the lot.

After a deep breath he quickly found himself helping Heron and Cato move the body of the now dead Thrax. It was a confusing feeling, a mixture of excitement at freedom and yet the fear at what Big Ganza would do once he figured out one of his favorite enforcers had been taken out. Not to mention the other two, the beast-man [member="Gib"] of some species Case didn't recognize, and the squib @Mala. Case said 'beast-man' in his head because he didn't know else how to describe the man, at least physically, but he was a kind soul. Kind enough to step up to try and get Thrax going. Anyone with a protective instinct like that couldn't be bad. The squib though? She was probably trouble. Not like, gang-banger trouble, but accidentally piss-off the drunk wookiee without realizing it trouble.

Then Gib suggested to burn the bodies. Case's first thought was that he was crazy, and then his second thought was that he was far smarter than he lead on. Getting rid of the bodies might solve a problem. Or they could make it look like gang violence . . .

"I don't know if we have anything to burn it with." Case said. He thought for a brief moment about asking the mandalorian if he had a flamethrower, but thought better of it. "I do know that the Black Kath Hounds run territory about two blocks from here, and whenever they send a message they cut off the left middle finger. We do that, the police see it, they probably wrap the case right there." He said. He neglected to mention it might cause a turf war between the Black Kath Hounds and Big Ganza's people, but Case hoped to be far away from this block by then.