Penalty Box: Code Violation [Luminous]

[Azrael]

Tatooine​

​

Mos Ga​mos ​

"Well, if there's a bright center to the universe, you're on the planet that it's farthest from."​

- Luke Skywalker​

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This is where it had all started, they said. This giant dust ball floating out in the outer rim. It was on this desolate rock that a legacy was born, a legacy that would change the landscape of an intergalactic war, and ultimately breed both hero and villain on this same cosmic sandbox. People didn't come to Tatooine to sight-see, it was a far cry from a vacation landmark, and while it's historic lineage was paramount among the stars, it still boiled down to a very unfriendly and dismal place to plant your boots. They farmed moisture as a means life, and any planet where moisture had to be farmed, was not a planet that was worth living on, at least in Azrael's opinion. Ord Mantell at least had a varied landscape with some natural things like rain, growing plants, and terrain that wasn't just one un-ending sand dune. However, he didn't get to pick the location for this trip through the black - someone else had picked it for him.

The Mandalorian people were no stranger to mercenary work, they had been known bounty hunters for as long back anyone could remember - and even further beyond that. Their reputation for collecting and bringing back bounties was unparalleled in the Galaxy. They always got their prize, no matter what they had to wade through in order to do so. With such a famed history, the Bounty Hunter's Guild gave them a direct pipeline right into their data banks for all outstanding postings on fugitives, criminals, and anyone that had a price on their head. In point of fact, not more than eight months ago Azrael himself was on their list, and while it wasn't a job ever collected on, it had caused him no small share of grief when he took his hiatus to wild space in order to settle some old scores. That aside, after reviewing some new data, the Field Marshal had been surprised to learn that two new postings had been setup targeting the vode. He wasn't back on the list - of which he was grateful, but he wasn't pleased to see one of his brothers on the list. [member="Navio"] was among one of the newest initiates, and he couldn't imagine what kind of a karking mess could have gotten him a bounty so quickly.

It wasn't unusual to see Mandalorians on the list, as they were not exactly a beloved culture in every corner of the Galaxy. There was much animosity between several factions and the Mando'ade, and that wasn't likely to change. Truth be told he wouldn't of paid it much heed - except he'd received some troubling reports from his contact. The protectorate's Baron; [member="HK-36"] had long standing friendly ties with the Mandalorians, and specifically Azrael himself. They had met early on in his career as a Mandalorian, and formed a mutual respect for each other since. Azrael had sent word and requested to know if anyone had picked up on the bounties of the two Mandalorians - just to see if anyone interesting was heading their way. What he received in return was unfortunate and troubling news. One of the bounty hunters that had pinged the request, and was gearing up to take the job was not only known to the Field Marshal, but she was vod.

The last known location that would be used to track one of her targets had led him to the sand pit of a planet. Mos Gamos was a criminal haven, and one of the prime bounty sites on the rock. It hosted all manner of illegal activity, and was a perfect place to hide in plain sight if you were trying to duck a pair of eyes or horns for that matter. The criminal class may not have been the most loyal, but they were certainly not daft either. They didn't take kindly to bounty hunters, law types, or official business. Troopers would be run out of town faster than the Tuskan raiders could scare off Jawas. The only other reaction you'd get was a contemptuous ignorance of your presence if you didn't boldly approach. The Ca'prudii had been docked in one of the nearby star port hangars as Azrael had made his way through the town, getting a good bead on location, and ensuring that neither the mark of the bounty was here currently, nor was the woman he was waiting for. He knew the trail would lead to this city, as he had previously sent out sloppily encrypted data that would point in this direction. For as much as Azrael didn't enjoy the idea of this hunt, he also wasn't about to standby and see a Mandalorian disgrace herself while fishing for credits.

[member="Luminous"]

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[The Upright Man]

Lily's Journal, 837ABY

"Father said his addiction to narcotics would be the end of him. I guess he was right. I found the propulsory burn tracks leading out of the city. Corpse too. Shattered windscreen. Landspeeder wrapped around a tree. Single passenger; the smallest coffins are usually the heaviest. Or so they say."

The cloaked bounty hunter emerged from the woods. A CZ-838 Sniper Rifle clutched gently in her hand, garbed in ALS-X1 reconnaissance armour. A X-34 land speeder squatted across from her, nearby a barely visible back-country road. It was horribly damaged with much of the front caved in. The driver had been launched over the windshield and some twenty meters ahead, they had been going fast when they hit the tree. They were going fast when she pulled the trigger. The hunter swept her gaze over the secondary occupant of the vehicle, small child. Lily didn't know who, or rather why. Either way, she was dead, and her bounty didn't mention anything about children being involved. The hunter moved towards the old Keshiri, cutting a slice of his ear as evidence. They could scan the DNA and confirm.

"I walk out onto the road. It is night, and the wind sends a chill down my spine. I look upon the gnarled body of my father. Blood is still warm. I almost laugh. Finding the entry wound was easy, I knew I hit my target. He just fell into the wrong crowd, got into too much debt and found himself with a bounty on his head. It's my job, he may have raised me but he should have known better. I catch the next flight to Mos Gamos, Tattooine. Second target; good pay. Too many Mandalorian bounty hunters, need to thin the herd. Rumour says he slaughtered some bystanders at a bar in Mos Eisley. Not a very bright man."

Three weeks had gone by, and the bounty hunter emerged on Mos Gamos to a warm welcoming. No, it wasn't just the twin suns that burnt the sand into crust. A figure perfectly identical to Lily stood across the starport. There was almost nothing indistinguishable from the way they both looked, not even the clothes they wore. The difference was but in their chosen weaponry. Lily; high-impact, long-range. Venus; rate of fire, low-recoil. Venus was her twin sister, bounty hunter, and spotter for Lily. They worked in pairs when it called for it, but they often separated. Lily had gotten into a lot of trouble as a result of Venus, but it was the same for Venus too. "He's gone," her sister announced to Lily.
"Skipped planet already? Next ship out isn't for another week."
"Someone is giving 'im lifts 'round the joint. Unique ship, sleek design. Looked nice."
"Looked nice?" Lily hissed in frustration, closing the distance between them, "I'm sure it looked nice as our pay check vanished into the karkin' stars"
"Aye!" Venus defended herself with a deep frown, "There ain't nothin' I could-ah done to stop 'em. He was with a bunch o' people. Forcies, and they weren't Jedi." Lily reached down to her weapons belt, ripping free a set of laminated, lime-green Nautolan headtresses. Formerly belonging to a Jedi Master, and an Exotic Weapons Expert to boot. She held them up for Venus to see, "If I can do it, so can you."
"There were a lot of them, Lily. You sit back in residential buildings and shoot from a range where they can't touch you. Not me, there ain't nothin' safe 'bout what I do."
"Oi, be quiet," Lily said, glancing over her shoulder at a passerby. The bounty hunter watched him, her face hidden behind her helmet. The two began to wander off in the direction of the markets. Venus held out her datapad, "Found this, thought you might want to have a look."
"What is it?" Lily asked.
"It's the only lead we got. I think we'll find our answer here in Gamos as to where they went."
"Give it here," Lily said, snatching the device from Venus. Her fingers began to rapidly tap against the screen, small holographic projectors danced cascading data around her. Numbers, letters and symbols intertwined in a blender of confusion to the untrained eye. It was only a matter of seconds when Lily had finished, "That was easy." Venus chimed up, "Yeah, I know. I did it myself, and I hardly call myself a slicer. It's why I called you out here. Think the man has connections. We find the associate, get them to talk. Break what fingers they have and if they don't talk, they don't talk. Torture is only so good until it becomes useless. Hurt 'em enough and they'll tell you anything just to relieve themselves."
"Yeah, but Venus, you're missing something. This data tells us nothing of who the connection is, only that there is one. Look, lets just go to Reeve's and ask 'round the joint, okay?"
"Sounds good, haven't seen 'im in a while," Venus concluded.

"The crunching of sand under my feet brings no warmth to my heart. I hate this place. The cracked surface of the barren wasteland is an echo of the countless victims of slavery, narcotics and murder. Filth gather in darkened corners as the gutters fill with blood. These are the people I associate with. It's my life, and it's how I get by. Not many can offer me a good paying job where I use my skills as I do here, as regularly as I do. We walk into the shop. Guns line the racks. Venus separates and talks to Reeves while I gander over the weaponry. Nice scopes, I might buy one."

@[member="Azrael"]

 

[Azrael]

Mercenary work was commonplace among the Mando'ade; becoming nearly a default occupation if you weren't directly involved with the affairs at Manda'yaim proper. With the many vode spread across the Galaxy, bounty hunting was bread and butter for most of their culture, and it paid a decent wage if you could keep up steady contracts. Their reputation for tracking, hunting, and killing was a hallmark to not only the collective clansmen, but also made for a killer resume in terms of being paid top credit for getting the job done. Azrael didn't know a great deal about the work itself, as he'd never ventured down that path. While his time in battle had been spent in both the congregated sense of the Mando'ade, and flying solo to face threats some would call insurmountable; he'd never tracked a single target for pay, and worried about delivery. Mercenary work was not his calling, and yet when you had to hunt the hunter - knowing how to make the approach was paramount.

Mos Gamos boasted very little in the way of resources or contacts - but what it lacked in those areas, it more than made up for in gossip. Loose lips sink ships was the phrase that often correlated so well with the underbelly scum. Credits opened mouths, so long as you didn't try official channels. The distrust of the criminal enterprise was high around these parts, and yet you could still get valuable information if you knew which palms to grease, and hearsay to bend your ear. Azrael had arrived before his mark, and he doubted either himself or the Mandalorian he was hunting would recognize each other by site, there was more than one way to skin a Bantha.

Earlier in the day, there had been a scuffle by an abandoned cantina where a up and coming narcotic's dealer had setup shop. This wasn't the big time, and the planet wasn't as conducive to a criminal empire as the Smuggler's moon, but it was still something of note in that sector. The scuffle in question had been a part to play as Azrael brazenly knocked over the dealer's outdoor market shop, and left it in a bit of ruin. There had also been some local color among the patrons, and the proprietor. Nothing to write home about per-say, maybe a few flags sent out to the local Hutt Cartel on the planet - but when the words 'Mandalorian' were involved, the Hutts demanded a lot more sway to get involved - especially when they weren't being directly compensated by the business venture.

The only benefit to this was the word of mouth that would undoubtedly spread through the four of five people that had scattered from the scene. A Mandalorian was seen around that part of Mos Gamos, and he was targeting the 'fine' people of Mos Gamos on a whim. It was a laughable concept to be sure, but it was also credible. Anyone who kept an ear to the ground was going to be able to point interested (paying) parties to the area of this particular sand dune city where the trouble was brewing. Azrael wasn't above making a mess to draw attention to himself. He'd done it before on Phaeda when he was trying to track down someone from his past. The hardest part was having to wait.

A blow in which he slightly softened by sitting outside in a dingy outdoor cafe, swilling a version of Jawa Juice with a slightly better kick to it. The retracted mouth plate of his buy'ce being the only visible sign of flesh beneath the helmet. A custom feature he'd worked on when designing his beskar'gam. The idea of a straw inside for liquids alone wasn't as appealing as being able to eat and drink while still being protected and kept up to date with the HUD. When the reports of the rogue Mandalorian filtered their way to his target, they'd come running or risk the chance to possibly see who was turning these wheels.

[member="Luminous"]

 

[The Upright Man]

"Two-fity for this?" Lily asked, tossing the scope onto the rack, almost knocking off two others. She moved towards Reeves and Venus, placing her forearm onto the counter and leaning over, she asked him, "Any ruckus around 'ere lately?"
Reeves slapped his chin with his forefinger in thought, "Ruckus? Just the usual really. Some karking moron in the markets earlier today, but I 'eard that Chalmun's Spaceport Cantina got shot up pretty bad recently. Some low-life thugs were looking for a Jedi. Stumbled on a Dark Jedi and called 'im Republic. Not a wise move. 'Hole place got shot up by some lunatic with a fully auto' and now I 'ear those fella's got a bounty on them for destroyin' the entire building. Roof is caved in, everythin' inside was torn tah shreds."
"We know," the twins answered in unison. Not a flicker of the eyes nor a turn of the head. It seemed it wasn't the first time they had said the same thing. Reeves chuckled to himself, holding a clench fist over his mouth in a polite manner. Though the gun dealer was in no way a respectable man. In his youth he had his fair share of gunning down his own cantina's. A few bounties still remained for his head in the Core, four decades old, and still no one was yet capable of claiming them. He was a conniving, deadly man. "What happened this morning?" Venus asked, raising a brow. Reeves glanced over at her, turning his gaze as he spoke, to Reeves it was nothing more than usual business. Mos Gamos was a terrible place to live, and these occurrences while not daily, weren't surprising to him, "Some Mando' knocking over a mates stall near the ol' abandoned cantina. Folk think whoever it is they're targeting a few people in town. Don't know much, it's just rumour I suppose, but, he's still a karkin' moron."
"Yeah, I get it, you don't like them," Lily said sternly, she leaned a bit closer, "Need someone to deal with it?"
"Wh-"
"Lily," Venus spoke, "We've already got another target, we don't need some low-paying job."
"We're already here, aren't we?" Lily turned on her, "Not to mention, don't you remember our code? Every door, every floor." Every door, every floor. It mean't that they would take every job, no matter what. It allowed them to progress in their business further than others. At the cost of enemies, warrants and countless other problems. Yet, at the end of the day, they would get more pay, even if it mean't that tiny little bit extra. Reeves looked to Lily, the clear dominant of the two, "I'll tell you what, I know my mate is pretty upset about what 'appened to him earlier today. You get that Mando' to leave and I'll let you use my workshop next door, but you'll be paying rent. I know you've been searchin' for a workshop, tryin' to put me outta business yah devilwoman."
"Deal," Lily said, extending her hand and the two shook hands. It was no lie that she mean't to start her own business. A gun store, similar to Reeves. Though his products were bought by other companies in bulk, whilst Lily intended to make custom weapons, limited and unique products but it came with quality. Lily turned to Venus, she was disgruntled but didn't say anything. The two exited the store and moved out onto the footpath. They trudged across the barren landscape, sandstone buildings accompanied them on either side. Few were occupied, and those that were tended to be homes. There wasn't many shops here, but the few that were were stalls, black-market stands, a cafe, a street-cantina and a store for groceries. Lily approached the street-cantina, opposite a cafe. She took a seat on a stool. It was named street-cantina rightly so, there was no building. The bar and counter sat against the wall of a strangers home, stools were brought out by the owner of the bar. When the few and far fetched authorities came, they quickly packed shop and moved it aside. After all, it was against the law to host street-cantina's, not that anyone listened.

@[member="Azrael"]