CITY SLUMS
HUNTING
Setter now had a task, a purpose. He had collected most of the imagery and compared it to ritual sites from the Silver Jedi after-action reports from a few battles ago. Commercially available image-comparing software had been scanning through his uploaded images, and only found a few hits. Some imagery suggested old Sith writing, others suggested other long-dead cultures. The lack of fine lines and definition from the bodies meant that he was essentially narrowing things down, but had no concrete answers, no real leads on where to start looking.
Then again, if he had any, he was on a planet he hadn't been on since he was 15, and it was a pretty big place with lots of people. The real problem is the number of powers-that-be that controlled the planet from time to time. At any given time, this place was subjected to one government to the other. Imperial, Sith, Republic-ish, whatever. Now under a Republic-ish Empire-ish federation of some kind. Setter didn't have much of an interest in the bigger picture government, because they obviously weren't giving too much of a rat's ass if this was happening. Not that he followed their rules or laws anyway.
Which is what brought him here- the
slums.
You wanted something bad, these people knew where to have it, knew where to steal it, or who had it. But Setter was an outsider, even to them. Local as he was, he hadn't been here in so long that everyone that might've known him was probably locked up, dead, or moved on with their crappy lives to some other part of the planet. Setter also hadn't really been a good friend to anyone from his old life-
Why should he?
He didn't owe them a god damn thing.
Stalking the streets gave him nothing. People were avoiding him like the plague. Probably thought he was an agent of some agency. They'd be so lucky. But he had to make himself known. So he did the stupid thing that people who would get mugged did. Went down a dark alley, and put his wallet in his back pocket instead of his jacket. He heard footsteps, four pairs, by the amount of footfalls. Steam blocked his path ahead, occasionally spit out by one of the industrial pipes that lined the slums. Nobody cared what was dumped down here, people or otherwise. He walked through, and turned. He was wrong.
There was just three of them.
Might've been around 20, the oldest. The others, he couldn't honestly tell. Switchblades and a blaster. Demands of whatever he got. He put his hands up, and then rotated his elbows in towards his head, and curled his fists near his ears. The one with the blaster offset himself, and the one with the switchblade went to open his jacket. They asked if he was a cop, or some kind of Imperial agent or something.
"Worse."
He growled, before lashing out with his elbow. An elbow to the face, especially to an untrained kid, would do a lot of damage. Setter was a full-grown man, and he prided himself on his ability to hit people like a train when he needed to. The kid crumpled over, taken out with a single unexpected blow. Violence of action was key in a fight. The kid with the blaster was more concerned with his friend than with shooting Setter. Setter closed the distance by slither-stepping to him. He brought his hands to his chin, a shell-stance from Shockboxing. The power from the uppercut he could generate from down there was enough to push back any trained shockboxer into their respective corner, but some street kid- that meant that he was going to probably break his jaw.
Setter would've felt bad if these kids weren't in the way. The third was smart, in a way. He tried to run. Setter was a little faster on the uptick, would've probably lost him in an elongated foot chase. Setter was a bigger man, not exactly a marathon runner. He threw the kid next to his two out-cold and bruised up friends. Setter put a foot on the kid's neck and leaned over him. His voice was normally fairly gravelly and deep, but he went an octave lower for dramatic effect alone.
"It's just me."
He was sweating bullets and regretting every life choice he ever made. Setter smirked and took his foot off of his neck, and crouched down next to him.
"You're gonna be helpful, or else."
Setter took the knife but left the kid the blaster. He told him to clean it. Setter had a few questions, chief among them, where the bad people were. Street crime on Corellia was more or less a hierarchy, with certain tiers reporting to other tiers. This kid was like most others, dens or whatever you wanted to call them collectively pooling their resources with a figurehead at the top. His was a Zabrak, but Setter forgot the name. He got a location, that was it. He let the kid go and told him to go to the Starport and make for any sort of space that wasn't here. Told him to go stack boxes for some Navy somewhere, not try and rob people with his idiot friends. Whether or not he took the advice was up to him, but it was how Setter got off-world and into the Republic Navy.
A hop, skip, and four blocks later-
Setter was staring at a crappy door guarded by a tough-looking humanoid of some kind, in a downtrodden alley that time seemed to forget about and so did the garbage collectors. Setter walked up to him and stuck the barrel of his pistol into his family jewels, holding a hand over his mouth as he pushed his face against the door. He told him to open it. Fearing for his possibility of children and other implications of not having the twig or the berries, he opened the door. Setter hit him in the back of the head, knocking him out cold with next to none and a small chance of drain bramage.
Setter waltzed inside, a dimly lit apartment-like complex. Rooms after rooms lined the walls, with names on each. Some were decorated, some weren't. As Setter walked, he did the smart thing and screwed on the suppressor to his pistol. The pistol was fairly quiet with the suppressor, but the distinct sound of brass hitting the deck was enough to get him noticed. The place was also fairly quiet, with most of the kids inside either sleep or out and about, trying to mug people or sell spice or whatever they were doing. Setter stalked along, confidentially strolling down the hallway to a larger den area.
Three kids were lounging around, watching something on a screen that had to do with the old Clone Wars. History or cartoon, he didn't really care. Setter was dead-silent as he walked, and the kids didn't even notice him. Part of him wondered if they were drugged out of their minds. Probably would've explained how he was able to walk in this far without being noticed. Kids on drugs, kids forced into crime. Symptoms of a larger disease. Rolling his thumb over the safety, he limply held the pistol at his side. These kids were exactly that. Kids.
The Zabrak the would-be mugger described was at the apex of the complex, a large open room. Girls were outside, lounging around. Trophy girlfriends, power symbols in a place like this. Only one of them noticed Setter, barely. She was definitely on something, like most of the girls. Kept them pacified, kept them complacent and submissive and dependent. He'd seen it a thousand times. Hell, he saw it first hand. He used to live in a place like this.
Eons and two and a half lifetimes ago, at least.
He was at a desk, head down as he was riding through whatever drug he was on. Setter walked in, and sat on the desk next to him. He tapped him on the ear with the suppressor. The Zabrak lazily looked up. The drug-fueled haze in his eyes widened. To him, Setter was the visage of the Reaper. He might've saw every God and Saint in the universe in that moment, trying to come up with a reason for Setter not to shoot him with just a look alone. Setter saw his mouth move and his jawline clench. He was about to scream. Setter clamped a hand over his mouth, throwing him to the floor, and out of his chair and onto the floor.
"Your life is about as valuable as a single bullet, so I suggest when I take my hand off your mouth you don't speak unless you have something relevant to say when I ask."
His high was ruined and he put his hands up. This guy clearly lead by brains and charisma, not brawn. Or at least, he had brawn do it for him. Setter walked over and turned the lights off in the room, crouching next to the Zabrak, leaning against his desk. Admittedly, the guy had a nice wooden desk. Must've been his defining feature. An office, with a desk, girls, drugs. Kids wanted to be like him.
Setter started to ask simple questions. Who was he, how old was he, where he was from. Born on Coruscant. 34 years old. Named Tor. Tor was an idiot, it seemed. Tor's dad was rich. Tor's dad died and left him a fortune. Tor's father was disappointed in his son in life, probably screaming at him in death. Tor was spouting all this at mach-6 to Setter, who was looking more and more unamused in the lava-lamp lit office.
Setter put the barrel of the suppressor against his eye socket. And started to ask more pertinent questions.
Where to find slaves. Where to buy people. Where to buy guns. Where to buy things that people weren't supposed to have. Tor shakily pointed to a book on his desk, a leatherbound paper book. People rarely used paper and pen nowadays. Only to hide things, or to keep people out of things via code. For Tor, it was the latter. There was cipher in the back. Apparently him and a few of the other den leaders around here were in cahoots, and used the code to keep the cops, and their subordinates out of their business.
It was a ledger, and a contact book all in one. Setter reminded him that he was stupid for keeping it all together. Setter stood up and tucked the book into his back pocket. It was a start to find the bad people. Setter looked down at Tor and ejected a single round by pulling back the slide. He tossed it on Tor's chest, which at this point, was rising and falling at the rate that was damn near hyperventilation.
"Next one's coming faster, Tor."
He turned to leave, unscrewing the suppressor. Then, Tor said something that made Setter stop in his track. He said he could have the girl by the door. That she was still young and 'fresh', unlike the others. Setter turned and saw the girls. Saw then what was going on. What Tor was. He was selling these girls. Selling lives. Setter turned and stared at Tor for a long while, before he put his pistol away. Tor thought he was safe. Setter stood him back up and put him in his chair. He reached around his desk. Guy like him had to have-
Sure enough, enough drugs for two people. Or more specifically, one person to overdose on.
Setter placed a hand on the back of his horned head and pushed his head to the desk, very slowly. He laid the lines of spice out on the desk, chopping them up with the razor that he had been using previously. With the drugs in his system, the adrenaline, the cortisol, whatever else was running through him- he didn't think it would take too much to kill him. Setter cocked his head and gestured to the desk. Tor began to cry.
Setter didn't care.
Those girl's parents probably were crying too. She probably cried now and again too.
-----
Setter walked out of the den exactly nine minutes and thirty-nine seconds later.
Tor didn't.
Setter flipped open the notebook, and began to use the cipher in the back to start looking for someone who could 'help' him with his investigation. Someone who was dealing with bodies that were easily disposable, or people that were already in some sorta slavery or other. He'd cross-reference that with whatever the CorSec would come up with the IDs of the bodies. Any missing persons reports, anything like that- Setter would latch onto, compare it to the people he'd find it on the list, and make headway into a two-pronged attack on the criminal underworld. One, being the removal of a large element of crime and slavery of one kind or another, and the other- finding out who in fact, was making rituals out of people.
Setter walked over to the guard that he had impacted, and tactfully stuck the knife he yanked off the kid earlier behind his ear. He realized why he put the big guard, not some of his kids out front. So they couldn't just walk out. He used the guard's phone to call in CorSec and an ambulance. They'd swoop in relatively soon-ish. By that time, Setter would be long gone. Setter had no fingerprints on file, no DNA evidence anywhere. That had been wiped as part of his entrance into Havoc Squad from every database around, save for the Republic's. And with no Republic-
No DNA matching. He would leave DNA, sure. But they wouldn't catch up to him. Hopefully, they'd take the good citizen route, as opposed to the rampaging soldier with a vendetta route. Or just chalk it up to another idiot who overdosed and a couple of rescued kidnapped girls, pat themselves on the back, and then go back to protecting the people with more than a few commas in their bank accounts, instead of the girls nobody knew the names of.
But that's why Setter was here.
Justice was relative, based on the laws and who was in charge.
This, this was pure vengeance and retribution.
And Setter was at least a step closer to finding out the truth.
