Private No Easy Trust

[Rhyse Vanto]

A sinking blackness loomed over the world of Bracca as night closed in. The maws were doing their thing with a ship nearby in the scrap heap; he could hear them gorging themselves. He did his best to ignore them as they would likely to the same. In his hands he held a bowl of soup and a spoon, which he quietly ladled bits of into his mouth. It was filling and easy to make. A bit of bread would have made it better, but you take what you have and go with it.

There was a settlement not far from his ship. It mostly housed scrappers that worked on the hulking derelicts that were brought in from various wars to be processed for parts. Even with night dawning, the distant sound of machinery ripping apart giant machines could be heard wafting in. Big work lights were turned on to provide lighting so that the work could continue through the night. Safety be damned. He was glad that he wasn't one of the people employed there and was just a bounty hunter on a mission. It was infinitely more enjoyable to control your own destiny rather than sign it off to a corporation.

He finished his bowl of soup and walked back into the ship to put it in the sink. He'd clean it later when he was done with his job. A quick wash of his own hands, a moment to make sure his hair was tied up and out of the way, and he walked out of the ship to hop onto his swoop and head down to the settlement.

The mark was a former Imperial. Man named Dren Malachar. It seemed he'd gone rogue from doing intelligence work for some Imperial outfit and decided he'd start selling stuff to the highest bidder. He seemed to think that with enough credits, he could stay out of harms way, never get caught by the people he'd turned his back on. It was a dumb idea. The Empire never let people turn on them without repraisal. Precisely why he would never sign up to a galactic government. Empire, Republic, didn't matter. They were all the same when it boiled down to it. Just dignified versions of the hutt cartel.

Anyway, the guy had stolen data on some supply routes for a remnant faction and now that remnant faction was paying a lot of credits to bring him in. Rumor was there might even be some gems in the pay. Rhyse liked gems. Good for gambling.

He parked his swoop a couple of side streets away from the target building. It wasn't the largest in the settlement, but it was one of them. Walled off from the street, guards posted out front and working the inside. He'd seen places like this before. Little compounds meant to keep the insecure person safe. They always thought it would, too. 'How did you get in?' they always asked. 'I asked nicely.' would be the reply they got. In reality he either used Riot or Whisper to get in. Usually Whisper. Making a scene would just get the authorities brought down on him and make life more difficult.

Drawing Whisper from its holster, he walked to the edge of the building and looked down the way towards the target compound. He'd scouted it before, but it was always best to check again before making a move. He wanted to wait for the guards to change shifts. That's when he would make his move.

Kessa Vex

 

[Kessa Vex]

Kessa remained motionless atop the rusted support strut overlooking the street below, one knee bent against the cold metal while the distant scream of industrial cutters echoed through Bracca's endless graveyard. Massive work lights from the reclamation yards painted parts of the settlement in harsh white glare, leaving the spaces between drowned in deep shadow. It was exactly the sort of lighting she preferred for jobs like this: bright enough to watch movement, yet dark enough to disappear inside.

The compound itself sat ahead behind patched durasteel walls and scavenged security fencing, its guards pacing with the predictable rhythm of people more concerned with appearances than actual threats. Kessa had already mapped their routes twice since arriving.

Then, movement further down the street caught her attention.

It wasn't one of the guards, but someone else. Her eyes narrowed slightly as she adjusted her position for a better angle, careful not to expose herself against the skyline. A man lingered near the edge of a neighboring structure, watching the compound the same way she was. He maintained a calm posture with no wasted movement. He was clearly armed, judging by his silhouette, though the darkness concealed any specifics beneath the bleeding glow of the scrapyard lights.

Professional.

Kessa stayed perfectly still, studying him. Most amateurs watched buildings; professionals watched patterns, entrances, blind spots, and timing. The man below had not once looked uncertain about where to stand or what he was waiting for, and that alone told her enough.

Another hunter, then.

Her expression flattened beneath the shadows as she briefly shifted her attention back toward the compound, where another guard rotation was starting near the front gate. That complicated things. Whoever had hired the stranger either wanted the same target she did or wanted something close enough to become a problem very quickly.

Still, two hunters working the same target usually ended one of three ways: somebody got shot, somebody got betrayed, or somebody decided cooperation was temporarily less irritating than competition.

Kessa usually preferred the third option. It meant less paperwork and fewer bullet wounds.

But for now, distance worked better. Settling lower against the rusted beam, she continued watching both the compound and the unknown hunter below, quietly recalculating the timing of her own approach.

Rhyse Vanto

 

[Rhyse Vanto]

The guards remained in their position as he expected them to for the time being. He'd arrived early enough to be in position well before they made their shift change. Arriving too close to that time would draw too much attention, and if there were any last minute changes to their routine, he might miss it and get himself caught. The wise hunter was always early to the hunt, never late. Late was a good way to get yourself killed.

Being as this was a high value target, it was highly probable that someone else was going to move on him soon. He didn't know that someone else was planning to move that very night and that they were watching him at that very moment. Wasn't like he was a Jedi or something. How was he to know that someone else had taken the high ground and was capable of seeing him without themselves being spotted? Boy when he found out he was probably going to make a point of getting some night vision specs for missions such as these. Would be nice to know when he wasn't alone.

If he had known that someone else was planning to move that night, it wouldn't have changed his plans. First come, first serve. The first person that made it to the target was going to win the prize, and he always aimed to be the first one.

After the amount of time that he had expected, the shift change began. The new group of front door guards stepped through the gate in the outer wall and began their conversation with the current guards about the status of security. At that moment, he darted across the street and used a carefully scouted path through shadows under awnings and in front of doorways to maneuver himself towards the side of the outer wall while the group was still in discussion. He had to reach the wall and get over before the other two entered to end their shift.

At the wall, he used a burst of speed to rush up and jump, grabbing the top and pulling himself up enough to peak over the edge. There was a laser tripwire along the top, he could faintly see the line, and his fingers were very close to touching it.

"That's new," he whispered to himself.

After a brief moment of thinking, his feet braced against the wall, he figured he only had one option. Taking a deep breath, tightening his grip and pulling his lower body as close to the wall as he could, he shoved off and flipped himself over the wall. It was a moment of extreme vulnerability, but he had to do it. He flew through the air, above the tripline, and over the wall to land in the bushes on the other side, fortunately enough on his feet in a crouch that left him positioned out of sight.

"Perfect. Couldn't have gone any better. Now to get inside."

Kessa Vex

 

[Kessa Vex]

Kessa watched the stranger disappear over the wall before allowing herself to move, her attention lingering briefly on the faint red shimmer of a laser tripwire near the top edge of the compound. Her eyes narrowed slightly at the discovery; either the security detail had upgraded recently, or their target had become significantly more paranoid since her earlier scouting pass. Either way, the other hunter had nearly introduced himself to the entire district face-first into an alarm system, yet somehow he had managed not to. A feat she chalked up to sheer luck, or perhaps enough experience to survive his own bad decisions.

Remaining crouched along the rusted support beam for another few seconds, she listened carefully for any shouting, blaster fire, or alarms from inside. When the quiet held, confirming that the patrol routes likely remained unchanged, she shifted backward into deeper shadow. Rather than approaching the same section of wall, she began circling the perimeter across the adjoining rooftops, keeping her movements controlled and quiet against the old metal structures, as she always preferred entering places through structural weaknesses rather than acrobatics.

The rear portion of the compound sat closer to one of Bracca's endless drainage trenches, where thick black runoff from nearby processing yards collected in channels beneath the settlement. Because nobody important wanted to stand near the sludge longer than necessary, the area was less visible and poorly guarded, which usually made it highly useful. Dropping silently onto a lower platform overlooking the back wall, Kessa immediately spotted exactly what she had been hoping to find: an external maintenance conduit running from the compound generator into the building through a grated service channel.

A faint look of dry satisfaction touched her expression as she noticed the lone, half-awake guard nearby, who seemed far more interested in his datapad than in his surroundings. These were much better odds than flipping blindly over laser wires. Keeping low against the shadows beside the drainage trench, Kessa carefully reached for the compact slicing tool clipped to her belt, her eyes flicking once toward the compound interior where the unknown hunter had already vanished. For now, she fully intended to keep it that way.

Rhyse Vanto

 

[Rhyse Vanto]

He squatted down in the bushes for a little while, watching and listening, half expecting an alarm to go off. It didn't. In fact, it was extremely quiet. There were a couple of guards sitting near the front door playing some game with chance dice, but they clearly didn't care enough about their job to be focused. If he wanted to take them out, it wouldn't have been hard.

Taking out guards was messy. Anything that interrupted the routine would inevitably get noticed and he wanted to get to the target without being noticed or arousing suspicion. That was the sign of a good hunter in his eyes.

He crept his way down the wall behind the bushes and topiaries towards the side of the manor. There was a guard that walked the perimeter, and soon enough that guard came into view. Rhyse waited for him to move around and stop to talk to the guards at the front before he crept across the gap to the wall of the building and pressed his back against it. He stood there for a moment to listen, and then moved down the wall to a window.

A peek through the window revealed an empty study of some kind. Good enough. He took out a tool that suctioned to the glass and stuck it in place. A press of a button and a scribe came out the side and ran a circle around the suction cup, leaving a perfectly circular piece of glass which he pulled free before reaching through and unlocking the window.

"For being paranoid, he should hire a better security team," he said to himself as he opened the window and climbed inside.

The piece of glass be held back into place and pressed a second button that pushed out a small plasma welder that welded the glass back together in nearly seamless fashion. You'd have to really look to catch that. He nodded to himself and turned around to survey his surroundings.

"Stage two: find the target."

Kessa Vex

 

[Kessa Vex]

Kessa eased the maintenance grate down into the runoff trench and paused long enough to make sure the sound disappeared beneath the distant roar of Bracca's shipbreaking yards, where machinery screamed through old durasteel while the compound guards continued pretending they cared about security. So far, nobody had noticed the other hunter entering through the study window, which was highly useful for her. If things stayed quiet, their attention would remain focused entirely toward the front and upper floors instead of the utility systems underneath the compound, and Kessa fully intended to take advantage of that lapse.

She slipped feet-first into the narrow service conduit before pulling the grate carefully back into place above her, noting that the tunnel smelled strongly of coolant, rust, and standing water, though she had certainly worked in much worse places before. At least this particular passage did not appear to contain anything alive just yet. The conduit narrowed briefly before finally opening near a maintenance junction beneath the manor itself, where old generator cables ran overhead beside pipes damp with condensation. Kessa crouched there for a moment to listen to the muffled voices, footsteps, and music drifting from deeper inside the building.

The distinct lack of alarms meant the stranger upstairs either knew what he was doing or had simply gotten very lucky, though Kessa wasn't entirely sure which of those two answers she disliked more. Spotting a small access panel built into the wall beside the conduit, she immediately recognized the electronic lock's outdated model. It was cheap commercial security retrofitted into an expensive compound, which was exactly the kind of thing paranoid men did when they spent more credits trying to look dangerous than actually being dangerous.

She pulled a slicing spike from her belt and plugged it into the panel, watching the lock fold almost insultingly fast. The corner of her mouth twitched faintly at the lack of effort required.

"That's embarrassing."

A soft click sounded from the other side, prompting Kessa to slip the spike away before easing the door open just enough to peer into the corridor beyond, her posture remaining still and patient while she listened for any movement before committing to her next step.

Rhyse Vanto

 

[Rhyse Vanto]

He walked, quietly, over to the door opposite from the window, the only visible access point to the room. He locked it, and inserted a lock override device to keep it from being unlocked from the other side. If someone tried, it would present as a malfunction and give him time to prepare himself for whoever eventually broke the door down.

With that done, he set his bag upon the desk that occupied most of the room. Reaching inside, he pulled out a device which he fiddled around with for a few moments before holding it up and aiming it towards the door of the room. The device was designed to read residual heat through most materials. Despite the apparent luxury of the compound, he could tell the place was rather cheaply constructed by how well the device could read signatures through the walls.

"Rich but cheap. Always the same. Don't know what the point of all that money is if you aren't going to use it," he said softly to himself.

He seemed to talk to himself a lot. Probably a good thing he didn't have a partner or he'd talk their ear off.

Either way, he was able to map out the locations of most of the people on the first floor and some on the floor above. Interestingly, he spotted two people horizontal on the floor above, but not directly above him. He mentally cursed his luck that he hadn't gotten the right room to enter beneath, but that was life. Just meant he had to find a different route to his target. He had no doubt the two horizontal bodies included his target.

"If not, someones gonna have some splainin to do."

He packed away the heat sensing device and got to planning his next move.

Kessa Vex

 

[Kessa Vex]

Kessa waited another few seconds after opening the access panel, her eyes moving slowly along the dim service corridor beyond while distant voices drifted through the manor overhead. The continued lack of alarms or panicked movement meant the other hunter was keeping things quiet, which was good news because it made her own life significantly easier. Slipping into the hallway, she eased the maintenance door shut behind her before starting forward at an unhurried pace, keeping close to the wall where the lighting grew thinner between old fixtures. The compound looked expensive at first glance, but the closer she got to its foundations, the more obvious the shortcuts became: cheap wiring hidden behind polished paneling, poorly positioned cameras relying more on visibility than actual coverage, and security systems installed by somebody who clearly understood paranoia but not competence.

A pair of guards crossed the far intersection ahead, deeply engrossed in a conversation about sabacc odds without once checking the side corridors, so Kessa stayed perfectly still until they disappeared, then continued toward the rear stairwell she had spotted during her earlier scouting pass. She was in no rush, firmly believing that people only hurried when they mistakenly thought timing mattered more than situational awareness. Fortunately, the stairwell door sat configurationally concealed beside a supply alcove stacked with cleaning solvent and replacement light strips, left entirely unguarded because nobody expected threats to emerge from the utility corridors beneath the manor.

Opening the door carefully, Kessa started up to find that the second floor was much quieter than the first, with softer lighting, carpet instead of metal flooring, and private quarters rather than public spaces. She paused near the top of the stairs as muffled voices drifted faintly from somewhere further down the hall, though her attention quickly settled on a thin emitter mounted near the ceiling corner. Her eyes narrowed slightly as she clocked the motion sensor, noting that while it wasn't difficult to bypass, whoever installed it had at least been smart enough to cover the upper floor properly. Crouching near the wall, she removed a small cylindrical tool from her belt and angled it carefully upward, sending a faint pulse flickering across the sensor lens to loop the signal so the device would continue reporting an empty hallway for the next several minutes regardless of what crossed beneath it.

"Better," she murmured quietly.

Rising smoothly, she continued down the corridor without any sense of hurry, deliberately avoiding the illuminated center stretch while her attention shifted methodically from doorways to intersections, tracking the faint sounds filtering through the upper floor. Then she stopped abruptly as she caught the sound of voices ahead—one distinctly irritated, the other nervous. They didn't sound like guards, prompting Kessa to shift silently toward an adjacent doorway where she stood patient and still to listen, fully aware that somewhere else in the manor, the stranger was almost certainly working toward the exact same destination from an entirely different direction.

Rhyse Vanto

 

[Rhyse Vanto]

He studied the room more thoroughly this time. In retrospect, he should have done that from the beginning. If there had been cameras within, he'd have been caught. Of course, if there had been cameras within he would be caught and he wasn't, so, that meant no cameras. It was a study, anyway, and probably where the mark did all of his work. This caused him to turn back to the desk, but unfortunately there wasn't a datapad or other console present. Likely he took his work with him everywhere he went, which was smart.

If the mark really was on the floor above him, as he suspected, then he needed to find a way to get up there without being noticed. Going out the door to the study wasn't going to work because the corridor beyond had plenty of people in it. Maybe he should have looked into getting a job working at the place and really gone the deep cover infiltration route. Would have made things a lot easier. But then he'd have also gotten bogged down in that mess, and he'd have a whole organization after him when he betrayed them, which wasn't really something he wanted to deal with. Bounty Hunter's had a code to follow, or so he believed, and going the route of infiltrating one organization to ruin another just didn't fit that code.

Further study of the room revealed a grate in the ceiling. He figured it was probably part of the buildings cooling and heating systems. The grate wasn't very big, but if he pushed his pack in first, he could probably squeeze into it. Fortunately, it was directly above the desk, so he could stand on it and actually reach it. Though, it was screwed in tight, which meant he had to take the time to unscrew the darn thing. Good thing he carried a multi-tool on him. Never knew when something on it was going to be needed.

With the grate off, he carefully pushed his pack inside of it before gripping the sides and pulling himself up. As expected, it was a tight squeeze. Getting in was very difficult. He was going to have to lay off the sweets. There was a little too much pudge around his middle.

He made it inside of the ventilation duct, though, and began scooting his way, quietly, down it in the direction of the two prone bodies he had seen on the scanner. He had to bridge across a duct that went down, probably to the basement where the chiller was, but he managed that and continued onward, searching for a grate that would open upwards into the room. There weren't, as far as he could tell, any ducts that went further up, which meant there was probably a floor grate in the room where the mark was. Risky entry, but if the mark was asleep, it just might work.

Kessa Vex

 

[Kessa Vex]

The upper floor felt noticeably different from the levels below, and not simply because the furnishings had become more expensive. The atmosphere itself had changed. Downstairs, security had largely existed for appearances. Guards loitered near entrances, staff wandered where they pleased, and nobody seemed particularly concerned about the possibility of an intruder. Here, however, the routines felt tighter. Patrols moved with purpose instead of boredom, conversations remained brief, and even the servants seemed careful about where they lingered.

That alone told Kessa she was getting closer to something worth protecting.

Unfortunately, it also meant that simply walking the hallways in search of answers would be an excellent way to attract attention. She had no desire to test how observant these guards truly were when patience offered a far safer alternative.

So she waited.

A narrow service alcove recessed into the wall provided enough concealment to watch the corridor without exposing herself, and from there she spent several minutes studying the floor's rhythm. People always revealed more than they intended when they believed nobody was paying attention. Guards rotated positions. Staff carried trays and datapads between rooms. Doors opened and closed. Conversations began and ended.

The longer she watched, the more the patterns separated from the background. One room in particular eventually drew her attention.

It wasn't because of the room itself. From her position, she could barely see the doorway. What interested her was the security office nearby and the lone guard assigned to monitor it. Unlike everyone else on the floor, he appeared completely detached from whatever responsibilities he was supposed to be managing. A half-finished cup of caf occupied one corner of the desk, several monitors glowed softly in front of him, and every few minutes he rubbed at his eyes as though fighting a losing battle against exhaustion.

Kessa found herself almost sympathetic. Almost.

She continued watching long enough to be certain no one else regularly occupied the office before finally shifting her attention toward a maintenance panel positioned several meters away. It sat close enough to the security room to be useful, yet far enough from the main traffic routes that no one paid it any attention. Exactly the sort of thing building designers forgot about once construction finished.

The panel opened quietly beneath her tools.

Behind it, she found what she had expected: power conduits, environmental controls, and the intake system that circulated air through a small section of the floor. More importantly, that section appeared limited almost entirely to the security office itself.

A faint smile touched the corner of her mouth. That would do nicely.

The aerosol can she removed from her belt was hardly an exotic piece of equipment. It contained nothing particularly dangerous and certainly nothing lethal. Its entire purpose was to make staying in an enclosed room deeply unpleasant for a short time.

Kessa secured it near the intake vent, armed the timer, and returned to her observation point before anyone noticed she had ever left it.

The effect proved almost immediate. At first, the guard merely frowned. A few moments later, he shifted in his chair and rubbed at his nose. Then came the sneezing. One. Two. Three. By the fourth, he was glaring around the room as though personally offended by whatever invisible force had chosen to ruin his evening.

Kessa folded her arms and waited.

The guard lasted longer than she expected, stubbornly attempting to ignore the problem while continuing to watch his monitors. Unfortunately for him, determination only carried a person so far when every breath felt increasingly unpleasant.

Eventually, he gave up.

Muttering a string of complaints that were probably directed at the maintenance staff, he pushed himself out of his chair and headed for the hallway in search of cleaner air.

The door closed behind him. Only then did Kessa move.

She crossed the corridor quickly and slipped into the office before the man could change his mind. The monitors immediately illuminated the room in a shifting wash of light, displaying feeds from around the compound. Most of them showed exactly what she expected to see: exterior patrols circling the grounds, guards standing watch at entrances, and empty hallways where nothing of interest was occurring.

One feed, however, stood apart from the others.

The corridor itself looked unremarkable enough, but the security surrounding it did not. Two armed guards remained stationed outside a reinforced doorway, while a third occasionally emerged from the room beyond before disappearing inside once more. Nobody passed through without scrutiny. Nobody lingered nearby without explanation.

Kessa studied the screen in silence for several moments while committing every visible detail to memory.

If Dren Malachar was not occupying that room personally, then whatever existed behind that door was important enough to justify extraordinary precautions.

For the moment, that was more than enough information to work with.
Rhyse Vanto

 

[Rhyse Vanto]

Shimmy. Shimmy shimmy.

Man it was getting hot inside of the ducts. He was certain the cool air had been on a bit ago. That had felt good. Something, or someone, had shut it off though. Unfortunate. It was a lot more comfortable inside of the tight space when he wasnt hot.

"Someones having a laugh and it ain't me," he muttered.

He was getting closer to a grate when he caught the first whiff of something odorous. First, he sniffed and then felt to see if his pits were sweaty. They weren't bad. Not bad enough to be the source of the smell that was wafting down the duct toward him from somewhere else. Somewhere close. Made the strength even worse as time went on.

It got so bad it made him start gagging. Much worse for him than for the guard in the control room down the way. Oh he couldn't stand it. If he stayed in there any longer he was going to throw up all over himself and give away where he was which meant he would end up dead, or worse: captured, tortured, and then dead. Nope. He wasn't doing that.

He pushed on further, reached up and pushed open the grate, and climbed out to lay on the floor of the room and get his air back. He didn't even grab his bag yet. He knew he was next to the room his target was in, and that his skins had indicated that the room was empty, so he honestly should have been fine. He should have been alone.

Should have.

Kessa Vex

 

[Kessa Vex]

The security office had proven useful enough that Kessa found herself almost disappointed by how easy it had been. The guards stationed elsewhere throughout the compound had at least made a show of taking their jobs seriously. The man assigned to monitor the cameras had demonstrated a level of confidence bordering on professional negligence, leaving her with a clear picture of the building's most heavily protected areas before he wandered off to investigate the source of his suddenly unpleasant evening.

Since then, she had relocated to one of the guest rooms situated near the secured wing. The room itself was unremarkable, aside from the expensive furniture and decorative touches clearly chosen by someone with more credits than taste, but it offered something far more valuable than comfort. From here, she could remain out of sight while considering what she had learned.

Whether Dren Malachar occupied the guarded suite personally or merely conducted business there remained uncertain, though Kessa found herself caring less and less about the distinction. The concentration of security around that section of the floor told her everything she truly needed to know. Important people attracted guards. Paranoid people attracted even more. Sooner or later, somebody worth following would enter or leave those rooms, and when they did, she intended to be close enough to notice.

Patience had solved more contracts than blaster fire ever had, a lesson she had learned years ago and never found reason to question since.

That thought was still turning over in her mind when a faint metallic scrape interrupted the silence.

At first, she paid it little attention. Old buildings made noise constantly, particularly on Bracca, where most structures seemed assembled from whatever scrap had survived being melted down rather than anything designed with longevity in mind. Pipes settled. Metal expanded and contracted. Loose fixtures rattled whenever distant machinery groaned somewhere beyond the settlement. Normally, she would have dismissed it without a second thought.

The sound came again.

This time, there was a rhythm to it, an irregular pattern that felt distinctly different from the ordinary complaints of an aging structure. More importantly, it seemed to be getting closer.

Kessa's gaze gradually shifted across the room toward the far wall, where a low ventilation grate sat partially concealed behind an arrangement of decorative furniture. She remained still for several seconds, listening carefully while the noise repeated itself. The realization arrived slowly at first and then all at once.

Whatever she was hearing was not coming from somewhere beyond the room. It was coming from inside the ductwork itself. That alone was enough to make her straighten slightly. A moment later, the grate shifted.

The movement was subtle enough that she might have missed it under different circumstances, but after hearing the sounds, there was no mistaking what she had seen. Something occupied the other side of that vent.

Kessa rose quietly from her chair, every movement measured and deliberate. One hand settled near the concealed blaster beneath her jacket, though she made no move to draw it. Curiosity outweighed alarm for the moment, and she preferred to understand the situation before escalating it.

The grate shifted again.

A hand appeared first, followed by an arm, and then the unmistakable shape of someone forcing their way through a space that had clearly not been designed for comfortable travel. Watching the process unfold was almost enough to make her wince in sympathy.

Almost.

For perhaps the first time that evening, genuine surprise managed to break through her otherwise calm expression. The surprise had very little to do with discovering another intruder inside the compound. Given the value of the contract and the nature of the target, she had already considered the possibility that someone else might be working the same job.

What she had not considered was discovering that person emerging from the ventilation system. That particular possibility had somehow escaped her planning entirely.

The stranger eventually worked his way free of the duct and onto the floor, leaving the grate hanging open behind him while the smell that had plagued portions of the building finally revealed its source. Kessa found herself staring at the scene for a moment as several disconnected observations from the evening abruptly aligned into something far more coherent.

The strange noises she had occasionally heard. The lingering odor that had spread much further through the manor than she had originally intended. The realization that someone else had managed to penetrate the compound without alerting security. The man lying on the floor was almost certainly responsible for most of it. Whether that made him exceptionally competent, catastrophically unlucky, or some improbable combination of both remained to be determined.

For the moment, however, Kessa remained silent. Her eyes moved briefly from the open vent to the bag still partially visible within the ductwork, then returned to the stranger himself. Whatever explanation existed for his presence here, she suspected it would be considerably more interesting than anything she had expected when the evening began.

Rhyse Vanto

 

[Rhyse Vanto]

"Fuck me," he said as he lay on the floor, his lungs gasping for clean air.

That smell had been so bad. How it had gotten into the ducts he didn't know, and really didn't care. It was bad enough that he was certain he was going to stink of it for the rest of the night, if not longer. It was probably embedded in his clothes. Maybe it would rain when he got the target outside and he could wash the stink off. Nah, that wasn't likely. He was definitely not lucky enough for that.

He had no idea that the room, which he'd expected to be empty, was occupied. After all, no one said anything, and they barely moved to make enough noise to be heard over his exasperated breathing and exclamations. He thought he was alone.

So, he sat up and reached back into the duct to grab his bag and set it on the floor. On the plus side, despite the obvious discomfort, he had made it to the second floor without getting himself into any physical trouble. He felt like he'd been cramped up for hours, but that was nothing a good stretch couldn't fix so he stood up, threw his arms wide and high, and froze.

There, in front of him, was a Mirialan woman with her hand clearly positioned for concealed weapon.

"Oh shit."

He gulped, visibly so, then offered a smile.

"Don't suppose you're a gift from the gods, are you?"

Kessa Vex

 

[Kessa Vex]

Kessa watched the realization hit him.

The sequence was almost impressive in its predictability. Relief at escaping the ductwork gave way to comfort, comfort gave way to stretching, and stretching gave way to the sudden discovery that the room he had been so certain was empty was, in fact, occupied.

By her.

The smile that followed did not exactly inspire confidence, though she had to admit it was preferable to blaster fire.

For a few moments, she simply regarded him in silence while weighing what she had already learned. He was armed, obviously. Competent enough to penetrate a heavily guarded compound without triggering alarms. Reckless enough to crawl through ventilation ducts in pursuit of a target. More importantly, if he had intended to attack her, he had already passed through several opportunities to do so.

That alone made her considerably less concerned. Slowly, she allowed her hand to fall away from the concealed weapon beneath her jacket. Not far away. Just far enough to signal that she was no longer expecting the conversation to turn violent in the next few seconds.

His question earned the faintest narrowing of her eyes before her attention shifted briefly toward the closed door.

The room had been useful specifically because it was supposed to be empty. Empty rooms attracted less attention. Empty rooms did not usually contain unexpected bounty hunters emerging from floor vents and immediately starting conversations.

She found herself hoping the nearest guards were as inattentive as the rest of the compound's security staff.

Eventually, her gaze returned to him. "You climbed out of a floor vent, discovered an armed stranger in what was supposed to be an empty room, and that's the first question you went with?"

The faintest hint of disbelief touched her expression before her attention shifted briefly toward the open grate behind him and then back again.

"I've heard worse opening lines, but not many." Despite the dry remark, there was no real hostility in her voice. If anything, she sounded more puzzled than annoyed. A brief silence followed while she considered him again.

Whatever else he was, he clearly was not one of Malachar's people. The confusion had been genuine, and no security officer employed by the compound would have chosen that route into the room unless they were suffering from some sort of severe head injury.

That narrowed the possibilities considerably.

"I'm here for the same reason anybody sneaks into a paranoid former Imperial's private compound in the middle of the night."

Her gaze drifted toward the secured wing beyond the walls of the guest room before returning to him.

"The difference is that I was hoping to spend a little longer gathering information before another hunter appeared out of the floor and complicated things."

Despite the words, her tone remained calm. If anything, she sounded mildly resigned rather than annoyed.

Two hunters working the same target was rarely ideal. In Kessa's experience, it usually ended with someone getting shot, someone getting betrayed, or both parties deciding that temporary cooperation was less irritating than competition.

She had not yet determined which category this evening belonged to.

"The room at the end of the secured corridor is receiving more attention than anything else on this floor. Whether Malachar is inside it or merely hiding nearby, that's where every useful trail leads."

Her eyes flicked once more toward the closed door.

"And if we're going to continue this conversation, I'd prefer we do it quietly. This room was considerably more useful when it contained only one unexpected guest."

Rhyse Vanto

 

[Rhyse Vanto]

"You climbed out of a floor vent, discovered an armed stranger in what was supposed to be an empty room, and that's the first question you went with?"

He shrugged.

"I've heard worse opening lines, but not many."

"Hey, I thought that was pretty good considering I had to come up with it on the spot. We aren't exactly in a cantina on Ord Mantell, here."

Arms dropped to his sides and he was careful not to give her the impression he was going to draw one of his weapons on her. She didn't seem inclined to shoot him, so best not to give her a reason to.

"I'm here for the same reason anybody sneaks into a paranoid former Imperial's private compound in the middle of the night."

"The difference is that I was hoping to spend a little longer gathering information before another hunter appeared out of the floor and complicated things."

Well, that answered what she was doing there. Not that he hadn't guessed as much based on what she was wearing. She wasn't dressed like the guards, so unless she was a secret lover of the mark, one that enjoyed a rougher lifestyle, then she had to be a hunter like him, or at least someone out to get the mark. This complicated things, though. If there was another hunter ahead of him, and considering she'd reached the second floor before him that meant she was ahead, then he was going to have to defer to her. She'd beaten him to the punch and he had to respect that. Wasn't right to shoot a fellow hunter to steal their target. Not to him, anyway.

He lifted a hand and ran it over the top of his head before giving it a good thinking scratch. If he just left, he'd have to find a way through everything again, and if he got caught, it would ruin her hunt. If he stayed and helped her, she might expect he wanted a cut of the bounty. He didn't like the idea of getting a handout. Making his own money was how he did things.

"I suppose I'll help you out if you want. Least I can do since I'm here anyway. Better two against the guards than one if that happens."

"The room at the end of the secured corridor is receiving more attention than anything else on this floor. Whether Malachar is inside it or merely hiding nearby, that's where every useful trail leads."

"And if we're going to continue this conversation, I'd prefer we do it quietly. This room was considerably more useful when it contained only one unexpected guest."

"Yeah, I did a nice little heat scan before coming up stairs. Handy, that tool. There's either two people in there doing the horizontal tango," he smirked a little, "or the mark is in there asleep with his current lover. No idea on which."

Didn't really matter which it was when it came down to it. Either way, there was more than one person in the room, which meant they needed to go in quiet and secure both at the same time, or one of them would shout and bring down the guards. Now that he thought about it, he wasn't sure how he would have gone about keeping them quiet when he was going it alone. Probably wouldn't have been able to. Riot might have gotten a workout.

"What's the play?"

Kessa Vex

 

[Kessa Vex]

Kessa listened without interrupting, her attention lingering on him while he worked through the situation aloud. The offer itself surprised her less than it probably should have. Most hunters she had encountered over the years would have immediately begun calculating how to remove the competition from the equation. The fact that his first instinct appeared to be cooperation told her something useful about the sort of person she was dealing with.

Whether it was wisdom, professionalism, or simply stubbornness remained to be seen.

His mention of the heat scanner drew a thoughtful look from her. That was information she had not possessed. The possibility that Malachar was not alone complicated matters considerably. A sleeping target was manageable. A sleeping target with company-introduced variables that neither of them could fully predict. Panic had a way of spreading faster than blaster bolts, and once people started shouting, every carefully considered plan tended to become irrelevant.

For several moments, Kessa considered the problem in silence while mentally adjusting the plan she had been building before he arrived.

"Two people is useful to know."

Her voice remained low, carrying little further than the space between them.

"If Malachar is asleep beside someone, then we need to account for both of them. If he's entertaining company and still awake, then we need to know that before we walk through the door. Either way, I'd rather not discover which situation we're dealing with after we've already committed ourselves."

Her gaze drifted briefly toward the wall separating them from the secured section of the manor before returning to him.

The offer of assistance was not something she intended to dismiss out of hand. The simple reality was that he was already here, already inside the compound, and already aware of the target. Sending him away now would accomplish very little beyond forcing both of them to work around one another while pretending the other did not exist. In her experience, that rarely improved outcomes and almost always made them messier.

"I won't object to the help."

The admission came easily enough.

"You're right about one thing. If everything goes wrong and those guards become involved, I'd rather not be the only person standing between them and the nearest exit."

A faint trace of amusement touched her expression before fading again.

"Before we decide on the rest, is there anything else you've learned that I haven't? Patrol routes, security systems, exits, anything unusual you noticed on the way in?"

Only after asking did she realize they had somehow progressed from an unexpected encounter to a discussion of tactics without ever exchanging names. It was a small oversight, though perhaps not an entirely surprising one given the circumstances. Most introductions did not begin with someone emerging from a floor vent in the middle of a covert operation.

"Kessa Vex." A brief pause followed. "And since we've apparently skipped several normal introductions, your name would probably be useful."

She offered the information without extending a hand. There was no hostility in the decision, merely caution. Trust between hunters was something earned over time rather than granted because a conversation happened to be going well.

For the moment, a name and whatever additional information he possessed would be enough. The rest could wait until after they determined whether Dren Malachar was sleeping peacefully at the end of the hall or preparing to become a considerably more complicated problem.

Rhyse Vanto

 

[Rhyse Vanto]

"Two people is useful to know."

"If Malachar is asleep beside someone, then we need to account for both of them. If he's entertaining company and still awake, then we need to know that before we walk through the door. Either way, I'd rather not discover which situation we're dealing with after we've already committed ourselves."

He agreed with her sentiment. If the two were awake, going in would undoubtedly lead to them shouting, guards coming on the run, and a shootout. Now, he wasn't opposed to a shootout. Riot loved a good one. Problem was, the guy was worth far more alive than dead, and, well, they hadn't secured the information that had gotten a bounty put on him in the first place. That was part of the deal as well. Not to mention he didn't much relish the thought of seeing this Mirialan beauty perforated like a target at a firing range.

"Well, let's see what I can find out," he said, setting his pack down and reaching inside of it to find the heat scanner.

When he leveled it out, he could see that the guard that had been briefly chased out of the security room was back in place. There was another one that was walking the hall and getting near the door to the room they were in, so he held a finger to his lips and pointed to the door to let her know why. He kept the scanner focused on that guard until he moved on and then trained it back on the room where he'd seen two people before. Again, it looked as if they were lying down. He held it there for some time, watching, and then put it away again.

"No movement. I think they're asleep."

"Before we decide on the rest, is there anything else you've learned that I haven't? Patrol routes, security systems, exits, anything unusual you noticed on the way in?"

He shook his head at her question.

"No, but it looks like there's one guard on patrol on this level and the other is at a desk. I think most of the guards are downstairs playing sabaac instead of working."

"Kessa Vex." A brief pause followed. "And since we've apparently skipped several normal introductions, your name would probably be useful."

"Pretty name," he said as he put his bag back on. "Rhyse Vanto is mine. Some people call me Rye, though I don't really know why."

Nope, he'd never figured that one out. Part of him thought it might be one of those situation where you called someone the opposite of what they were as a backhanded way of saying you didn't like them, but he usually dismissed that. Everyone liked him, so far as he knew. Well, everyone except the marks he went after, their security guards, some of the Hutts, Kanjiklub, probably a few others. Definitely that girl on Cato Neimoidia. The whole lack of a nose thing was just something he couldn't get over. An involuntary shiver ran down his spine.

"Anyway, we time it right and I can take out the two guards silently and we can go in." He patted his hand on Whisper. "She can handle the quiet neutralization."

Kessa Vex

 

[Kessa Vex]

Kessa listened while he spoke, filing away each piece of information as he offered it. The confirmation that the heat signatures remained motionless was reassuring, though not enough to eliminate caution entirely; people slept, people pretended to sleep, and they also had an unfortunate habit of waking up at exactly the wrong moment. Still, it was better than walking blindly into uncertainty.

The mention of the guards drew a thoughtful nod from her, matching what she had observed earlier. Most of the security presence seemed concentrated around appearances rather than actual competence; Malachar had invested heavily in looking protected, but the quality of the people responsible for that protection left something to be desired.

His compliment earned little more than a faint upward twitch at the corner of her mouth. "Thank you."

The response arrived easily enough before her attention shifted back toward the matter at hand and the name he had given: Rhyse Vanto. It suited him somehow, though she wasn't entirely sure why. Kessa's eyes briefly followed the movement of his hand as it patted his weapon before she looked back up at his face. There was confidence there. It was not arrogance, exactly, but more the certainty of someone who knew their own capabilities and had relied upon them often enough to trust them. It was useful, assuming that confidence was justified.

Kessa considered the proposal for several moments while mentally walking through the sequence of events that would follow.

"If you can remove them quietly, that solves the most immediate problem," she said, her gaze drifting briefly toward the door separating them from the guarded corridor. "What concerns me more is everything that happens afterward. Two guards disappearing without explanation buys us time, but not much. The moment someone notices they're gone, the entire building changes."

She moved toward the threshold, stopping just short of it while navigating the route she had observed earlier.

"If the two people in that room are asleep, then speed becomes more important than stealth once we're through the door. We need to secure the occupants before either of them has a chance to react, and we need to know what we're doing with Malachar once we have him."

A brief pause followed. "Alive, I'm assuming?"

The question seemed almost unnecessary given the nature of the contract, but assumptions had a habit of becoming problems at inconvenient moments. Her attention settled on him once more, practical rather than distrustful.

"And before we start removing guards, tell me exactly how you intend to do it. I'd rather not discover the details halfway through the operation."

Rhyse Vanto

 

[Rhyse Vanto]

When she said thank you, he winked at her. Normally he could count on his charm when dealing with women, but this one was tough. He expected her to get annoyed with him, based on past experiences.

"If you can remove them quietly, that solves the most immediate problem," she said, her gaze drifting briefly toward the door separating them from the guarded corridor. "What concerns me more is everything that happens afterward. Two guards disappearing without explanation buys us time, but not much. The moment someone notices they're gone, the entire building changes."

"I can do it without making a sound. You're right that the moment I do we are on the clock, though. We'll want to grab the mark quickly and get out. Only thing we really need is a good escape plan."

Honestly, he had not thought that far ahead. Usually when he grabbed a mark the escape route conveniently presented itself. Might be an open window, might be a rooftop. One time it was a pipe that went down the side of the building that he slid down. That one kind of hurt, though. He would not recommend using a drainpipe as a means of getting to the ground from the upper floor of a large building.

"Alive, I'm assuming?"

He scratched at his jaw and then gave her the old finger gun.

"That's your call, Kess. It's your bag, not mine. You beat me to it fair and square. You can blackball him and take the data, or take both. Think it pays more if he's alive."

Yeah, he was pretty sure the listing had said there was a preference for him being brought in alive. They would accept dead, but he knew if it were him, he'd go for alive. But since this was her collar, he wasn't going to tell her what to do, and he'd let her determine just how they were going to get away with this thing.

"And before we start removing guards, tell me exactly how you intend to do it. I'd rather not discover the details halfway through the operation."

"That's easy. I'm gonna kill em."

He grinned.

"Whisper is a suppressed blaster. You won't even hear it go off. I'll pop out after he walks past and put one in the back of his head before catching him and bringing him back in here. Then I'll do the same with the one in the office. Hell, that one is easier since he's already sitting down. Won't even have to move him."

Kessa Vex

 

[Kessa Vex]

Kessa considered his answer for a moment. The fact that he was willing to leave the final decision to her did not go unnoticed; most hunters developed a possessive streak where contracts were concerned, treating every target as though ownership could somehow be claimed through determination alone. Rhyse, however, seemed considerably less interested in arguing over territory than he was in finishing the job, which Kessa found surprisingly refreshing.

"Alive."

The answer came without hesitation.

"The contract pays more that way, and I generally prefer clients who can still answer questions afterward. Besides, dragging an angry former Imperial out of his bed tends to make a stronger impression than delivering a body."

The faint hint of amusement that had touched her expression faded as quickly as it had appeared. Her attention shifted instead to his explanation of how he intended to handle the guards. Kessa listened without interruption, mentally walking through the sequence of events as he described it, but she quickly realized that the suppressed blaster itself and the lack of noise were not the problem.

The real problem was visibility.

"The shot isn't what worries me," she said, pushing away from the wall to take a few slow steps toward the door, stopping just short of it while considering the corridor beyond. "What worries me is everything that happens afterward."

For several moments, she remained silent, mentally retracing the layout she had observed earlier, before her gaze returned to him. "The guards outside Malachar's room don't need to hear the shot. They only need to notice that a patrol guard suddenly stopped patrolling. What happens if the guards at the end of the hallway see you step out to take the shot? Or see the patrol disappear around a corner and never come back?"

There was no challenge in the question, only practicality.

"Because if you've already accounted for that part, I'd like to hear it before we start the clock," she added, her eyes drifting briefly toward the door again. "Once those guards go down, every second starts becoming more valuable than the one before it. I'd rather not discover a weakness in the plan after we've already committed to it."

Rhyse Vanto