Delivery

[J3C0]

[member="Seydon of Arda"]

The Banthas Bite dropped out of hyperspace on the edge of the system, tumbling out with incessant speed that saw it shooting passed the first planet in the system almost seconds after entering realspace. At the helm of the ship, sitting in the pilots chair was Ceran Moerelle, the Bounty Hunter who was temporarily playing deliver boy.

To the left of him a holo-screen appeared, a readout of what was in the system, both planetary bodies and artificial construct quickly began to show.

Ceran read it, flicking his eyes across the screen until he found what he was looking for. With his off hand he keyed in the commands to the ships computers. The communications simply patched its way into those of Arda and chirped slightly, alerting Ceran he could speak.

“These is Ceran Moerelle. I coming bearing a message to Seydon of Arda.” His eyes flickered to the lightsaber and note on his console. “An important one.”

He had never really asked exactly what the message was, but from the womans words, it had indeed been important. The Bounty Hunter had of course never considered exactly what would come of this, or what would happen if the man simply turned him away. He frowned slightly, waiting for a response.

 

[Seydon of Arda]

[member="Ceran Moerelle"]

Replying took less than a bare quarter of an hour. Across the wide, harlequin blue equatorial belt, on a heaving face of Arda's cloud-bandaged oceanic climes, data-streams broadcasted back from a tight reef-island band. The stream aligned, transmitting genially, eventually cycling through the Bantha Bite's selective black-ice firewalls. A roll-up holo-slate woke from the cockpit transmitter modules slaved to the welded consoles.

Curt and laconic, the data-stream gave up a zipped file-header: a bright topographical map marked in upraised red lettering gesturing to the ninth island along the reef-band, a secondary set of navigational coordinates, and one word.

"Here."

 

[J3C0]

[member="Seydon of Arda"]

As soon as he got the message Ceran plopped himself down in his command chair and hit the thrusters of the ship. The six engines of the Banthas Bite surged with blue ion energy and shot the ship forward at an almost impossible speed. Within minutes he breached the atmosphere cutting through the air at an impeccable pace and reaching the coordinates in no time.

He found the island in question fairly quickly, the coordinates and instructions had been exact.

The Bantha set down on the landing platform only a short time after having received the message, the incredibly fast ship having closed the distance in no time at all. He frowned slightly, wondering exactly what he would have to expect. Clipping on his gun belt and grabbing his crossbow Ceran made his way out of the ship, making sure he had both the lightsaber and the note.

When he stepped foot on the planet, his eyes began to search.

 

[Seydon of Arda]

[member="Ceran Moerelle"]

The landing platform was a local fabrication, hanging off and over layers of concentric, volcanic rock exposed by hurricane winds in the gorseland and higher beachheads. Support stanchions, cores of tungsten and durasteel kept shielded by long sheaths of local pumice and gritty mortar, rocked and sunk under the Bantha Bite's anterior belly stilts. It was hot, long, parched dunes bleached white as bone shivering with mirage. Across the farther bays into the aqua-azure waters, strewn and armoured walruses, some the size of whale calfs, lounged in the sun. Attendant flocks of screeching scale-gulls glided low to pick suckling shellfish off their blubber-thick hides.

Beside the Bantha, on a neighbouring platform settled into the gorse and sand, rested the Relentless. A long prowed war bird with an elder countenance, black hulled, with arch, pectoral-wings behind a sleek throat ending in a dagger prow. She'd been berthed for a day or thrice; strings of dried kelp-grass caught on her spine lent a shaggy appearance. Someone stepped out from behind a forward landing stilt and took a stroll towards Ceran Moerelle.

Seydon may have only came up to roughly his sternum. He was dressed for general work; a dirty white undershirt, with a blue-striped jacket affixed over, hand-gloved, in long brown slacks and black boots crusted with sea-salt. Sunlight glinted off a set of paired swords hoisted on his back, harnessed over shoulder, backbone, and hip. White haired and wolf eyed, he pressed along a gangrail and paused some paces off from Moerelle.

"You've brought mail?" Seydon asked.

 

[J3C0]

[member="Seydon of Arda"]

Ceran almost reflexively felt for the note in his pocket.

Was this man Seydon of Arda? Clearly he was, who the hell else would be be? The Bounty Hunter blinked a few times, contemplating exactly what to say. Then he frowned slightly, what did he care? He wasn't a messenger or a delivery boy, he was a bounty hunter that had simply been there at the right time to capitalize on a little bit of opportunity. He had been payed, and now he would complete the contract.

Pulling the note from his pocket Ceran walked towards the man. “Yes. A note.”

Stopping before him Ceran offered him the note.

 

[Seydon of Arda]

[member="Ceran Moerelle"]

It was a folded stationary missive, written on hard, blue paper and stored haphazardly during flight. The Dunaan reached and picked the note out of Ceran's palm, unfolding and turning round as he read. Seydon swiftly skimmed over the neat handwriting... paused... and read through again.

The quiet grew hot, flinty. Like a Jove, stormy pressure gave a priming crack to the air. He turned and rounded on Ceran. "Who gave you this? When? Where? And why you?"

 

[J3C0]

[member="Seydon of Arda"]

He recalled the womans words to him, then frowned behind his mask.

Slowly, as threateningly as he could Ceran reached behind his back, grabbing something off his belt and moving equally slowly to show the man what he was gripping, a lightsaber.

“A Woman, by chance.” Was all he said at first. “She also gave me this.”

Ceran tried to be as cryptic as he could, he knew that the woman had not wanted him to share who she was or where she was, so it was best to avoid answering. He offered the weapon to the man, noticeably with the lightsaber pointing towards him, a sign of both respect and the fact that Ceran knew at least a little something of the blade.

 

[Seydon of Arda]

[member="Ceran Moerelle"]

Vagueries. Suddenly, Ardan sunlight, as hot as a baking pan, stifled the scene with swelter and heat. Seydon stood loosely rigid, squinting for both of want of shade and against a touch of sweat beading down his brow and nape. Ceran Moerelle was a sight taller, rakish, standing frigidly ghoulish in his field kit and slit-visored breath-mask. He waited on his uncurling arm; pivot knives ached in their vambrace-locks around his forearms, beneath the jacketing.

...The item was a nondescript cylinder of roughly twenty three centimeter's, in chased durasteel with ivory-finished hand-moulds. There were bossed activator nipples studded across by the pommel and grooved thumb-guard. Wordlessly, Seydon took it from the bounty hunter's hold and cradled it up in both palms.

Silence was like a death knell.

"You won't give me who," He started. Both voice and tone were level, like trembling waters in the hissing quiet before a tsunami's landfall. "Then where. You can tell me where this issued from."

 

[J3C0]

[member="Seydon of Arda"]
She never mentioned not telling him where they met, but he assumed that she didn't want him knowing that either. For a second he thought, as if struggling with what he should do. Should he simply tell the man? He was clearly in pain.

No.

No he might have worked for the Sith, he might be a murderer and a killer, but he had his honor. The woman didn't want to be found, and Ceran wouldn't be the one to ruin that.

“The Outer Rim. A shadowport along the Hydian way.” It was a believable enough lie. Lots of seedy people went to Shadowports, lots of people went to shadowports to disappear. You could walk into one and then leave a day later with an entirely different life. Even if he named the exact shadowport, finding anyone who had been there would be utterly impossible.

Perfect if you didn't want to be found.

 

[Seydon of Arda]

[member="Ceran Moerelle"]

"Then you'd best be getting lost around there, too," Seydon said, pocketing the lightsaber in against a ring-catch on his harness belt, turning over his hip and departing back across the guardrail.

The temptation was to press the bounty hunter with his point until a name, description, or place tumbled from their 'conversation.' Shrill scale-gulls whirled in overhead on high thermo-draughts, lending bestial squawks to punctuate the mammalian rage pounding in the Dunaan's temples. He toed through pumice scree laced on the decking plates and hiked up a flight stair, striding for the Relentless. It'd have been a risk of injury versus a meagre reward in traded information. Seydon was no seer. The bounty killer had a thin voice, whispery in timbre, and a strange, modulated accent. He could make a lie sound like vetted fact, and vice versa. If Ceran Moerelle played some part in Rosa Gunn's demise, then Ceran Moerelle would pay.

But when... and only when... Seydon had his turn scouring up truths from folks who would speak. The Relentless yawned its anterior under-ramp down in a long, segmented tongue of stepped and rung'd metal. The Dunaan disappeared into her dark hold moment's later, glancing wolfishly for Mr. Moerelle. Gold on gold eyes, slit-oval and terrifyingly feral, stared.

And then were gone.

 

[J3C0]

Well, that was interesting.

Ceran turned around with a shrug and boarded the Banthas Bite without another second of consideration. He had a mountain of spice to sell, and some upgrades to performed.

He had done his job.