Monday, December 12, 2011

The Mandalorian…. The art of the hunt.


It was more a Night club then a bar and by the looks of it, one that catered to a upscale clientele. He knew all of this before he had set one of his muddy boots inside the joint… he had been casing it for 3 days. The place was a alive with the well to do of the planet in the late evening when the bands played and the spice was passed around but at midday it was empty… all except the table in the back.

He had walked in from the stinging toxic rain clad in a rough woven poncho and the type of wide brim hat the local miners wore to shield themselves from the harsh precipitation… for all the world he looked just like any other sod on the planet.

He had let the Droid at the door take his hat and clean his boots, a act that seemed to make the little thing squeal with delight… but choose to keep his poncho on “Only getting one drink” he grumbled at it as he slowly walked to the bar.

The only sounds were the laughter from the back table, the bartender stocking the bar and his heavy boots deliberate tread towards it. The closer he got to the bar, the quieter the table in the back became. The 5 creatures that sat at it, drawn from their conversation by the mere fall of his wet heavy footgear.

Though there were 5 beings around it, to a trained observer there was only one that mattered, the lord of the demise, a Female who’s every word the mindless toadies hung to. They were obviously from some of the planets wealthier families ( their clothes and jewelry could probably refit his ship) but they were quite obviously hangers on to the real talent at the table.

When he got to the bar, the Bothian bar tender whispered “Pal, I think you’re in the wrong place” but he could hear him take in a breath of surprise when he saw the scars on his face. “Just came for a Deneb sun burst I heard you make the best” he growled in a voice purposely modulated to a level that assured the table in the back could hear it, when they began to snicker he knew they had. “A Deneb Sunburst?” the Bar Tender questioned “Ya Sure? I mean…” “I hear you make the best” he snapped, interrupting the man, and it was true, he did, Ladies came from all over the planet to sip it… but it was generally considered a girls drink. “Sure thing.” The Keep gulped as he busied himself in its preparation.

The laughter picked up in intensity… The Female keeping them in stiches with a endless line of whispered insults questioning his masculinity. Finally as if she could stand the absurdity no more she rose and began to walk over towards him.

To say she walked seemed to be like calling a object of art a knick-knack because, even dressed as she was, in tight as skin Pilot pants, A coat of the finest Grak hide, boots that seemed to be molded for her shapely leg and one of the finest hand tooled gunbelts he had ever seen, and despite the fact that her head was shaved except for the very top which she wore long enough that it fell in front of her eyes, her walk was pure sex. Her hips slid from side to side with a hypnotic cadence as she tossed her long bangs back with practice sensuality .

She reached the bar as the keep handed him his drink…She should have noticed he took it with his left hand… and his face was illuminated by it swirling colors. She glided down the bar towards him, laughing with her friends as he held the drink up and stared into it. Till now she had only seen the right side of his face but with slow deliberation he turned and faced her, letting the drink light up the Scared ruin of the left side. She grimaced and said loudly “Brother you are one ugly specimen aren’t you?” and so it began.

She turned to see her friends fall on the floor laughing. In her vanity, turning away for but a second to relish to accolades of her retinue, she missed the fact that with his right hand, hidden by his poncho he had just drawn one of his heavy blaster pistols from its batter crossdraw holster. When she turned back around…his expression hadn’t changed a bit. “My looks didn’t seem to bother your mother last night.” He growled loud enough for the table to hear…It was as if a switch had been thrown as the club fell silent.

He could feel her tense up, he could smell the furnace of her anger begin to rise as her head snapped back towards him. Her once lovely blue eyes now emotionless orbs of ice “What…Did you say” she whispered, her voice trembling as if dealing with some unhealed wound of the past. “Sorry…” he said not allowing the somewhat bored look on his face change in the slightest. He purposefully left a long pause after the word to let her think he was about to start begging for his life, then he droped the hammer, “I didn’t realize you were slow as well as rude, I said your mother wasn’t bothered by my looks last night”.

In a room where some of the best and loudest bands in the galaxy had played, it was suddenly the silence that was deafening. The woman blinked at him, not so much in disbelief as it was to maintain her composer, like the closing of a last ditch safe guard before a reactor melting down as she stared blankly at the mans face and his ridicules glowing drink. “My mother” she said without emotion “Is Dead”.

He knew now it would come, he knew he had better not underestimate her and he knew he had better keep the deck stacked. He turned the drink slowly in his hand and as he saw her eyes focus on it he said “ She should be after the bunk bounce I gave her”.

“Lords is she fast” he thought as she half stepped back and went for her Weestar Special in its hand tooled holster, almost clearing it before the first deafening blast of his own pistol burst through his poncho and caught her square in the gut driving her back and to her knee’s. “What a tough girl” he admired the fact that she had managed to stay on her knee’s and that her blaster was still in her hand but now, with its barrel still smoking his own was out from under his poncho and at full extension pointing at her chest. He fired

Her slender body vaulted backwards and slid for several meters before it came to a halt… the expensive weapon skittering away from her. At the same time…he had dropped the drink and pulled his other blaster out and, seemingly subconsciously, leveled it at the bar keep. “I wouldn’t if I was you…” the Barkeep, who had been going for a stunner, decided against it and slowly raised his hands. “….this is a private affair”.

Now with both blasters drawn he walked slowly to where the woman lay, surprised that life seemed unwilling to leave her body. He looked down into her eyes as she looked up in the shocky glare of the dieing “why” she seemed to ask….but then didn’t they all. “ The boy who you killed…” he began as he triggered a holo recorder on his wrist “ The one who owned that Weestar before you, His father is a business associate of a very important man” he focused the recorder at her “ A man that much values his business. Now this father was so distracted by the mere thought of you walking around free after killing his son that it was effecting his business of making the important man lots and lots of credits” he took a deep breath, normally he tried to bring them in alive, but Bogs orders were specific on this. He leveled the pistol in his right hand at her face and pulled the trigger.

With a eerie slowness he let his head turn towards the breathless leeches at the table “NOW!” he said so suddenly that one of their bladders emptied. He began to record them on his holo recorder. “If on the way out of this place I get into a fight with the local law… or a week from now someone comes looking for me…I’m going to begin to wonder who sent them…and Im going to use a process of elimination… Am I clear?” he began to back out…as everyone nodded.

As he reached the door he holstered his Blasters like a man putting away a tool, he took his hat from the droid and pulled it on…”its best you forget you even saw me.” He turned and disappeared into the rain.

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