Chapter Text
Nobody in the Lucky Stop Cafe paid much attention to the Duros in the corner. If he'd been wearing the hat a few double-takes would have been elicited, perhaps a couple of guffaws from the regulars at the fact that a grown man would go and dress up like 'that bounty hunter guy on the news show'; but this was the Joltu Industrial district, twenty cubic miles of workshops, warehouses and small goods factories. A Duros in a duster here was just another on-world freight driver. The idea that the Republic's Most Wanted might actually be sitting amongst the working men and factory girls, staring into a cup of marrow leaf soup, wouldn't occur to them. Coruscant might be the galactic capital but there were large swathes of it that were laughably parochial. Most Joltu residents never left the district... it was pathetic really.
Raising his eyes as three sickly-looking Twi'lek-Nautolan hybrids and a weary Besalisk plodded through the door, he saw that the place was almost full to capacity.
Good, the more people were there, the less interest anyone was going to take when the datapad in his hand started receiving.
Leaning back in the uncomfortable duraplastic seat, he took a sip of the thin, bitter-tasting soup and let his gaze wander for a while, careful not to catch anyone's eye. It wouldn't do to be seen to be too concerned with the contents of the pad. After all, the only info a delivery man needed was his next route... and possibly the latest swoop racing results. The place was remarkable only in its complete and total surrender to the mundane: the cheap but durable furnishings, the world-wary Sullustan cook, the slick patina of greasy fingerprints that seemed to cover everything, the constant flow of beings who went about their small, insignificant lives as if any of it somehow mattered. He would have loathed it, if it didn't serve to illuminate just how things might have played out if he hadn't picked up his great-uncle's blaster that day. It was vindication. Any amount of dive bar ennui was better than a life like that.
His eyes flicked over a pretty green Twi'lek girl; her lekku covered by one of the splotched head wraps the women from the dyeing plants wore in an effort to protect themselves from the noxious chemicals they stirred. For a moment he imagined going up to her, sweeping her off her feet and setting her up in one of those apartments on Bluefire Station where Senators and Black Sun high-ups kept their mistresses.
It was just a thought though. A fleeting fantasy. If Aurra played her part, he'd be speeding out of the atmosphere in a stolen courier vessel within the next ten hours. No room for passengers.
Doh' if Sing karks dis one up I might jus' come back.
For a second there was part of him that almost hoped she would. Then the Twi'lek girl got up and kissed the scrawniest and most dim-witted looking of the Nautolan hybrids hard on the lips.
He scowled and looked away.
Five minutes later the datapad bleeped.
He didn't immediately pick it up; instead he took a few more sips of the now unpleasantly cold soup and counted to twenty. A delivery man in a diner wasn't going to be too eager to get a new message from his employer during the middle of his afternoon off. When he did slip the pad out of his duster's inner pocket, he found he'd been sent a short blurb from the Coruscant News feed. There had been a small plasma explosion at a Lower Level nightclub in which the owner, Drygee Guberg, has been vaporised.
Score one.
Fifteen minutes passed before another blurb arrived, this time from a Siber District tabloid: Merchant Savaged to Death by Own Droid: Rogue Astromech on the Loose. Bane suppressed a smile. Well, that took care of Revy Ti-Dups
Score two.
He got up ordered a cup of stimulant-laced Devaronian tea: the type that the drivers swilled before long haul journeys. A few seconds after retaking his seat, another bleep sounded. He gulped down the tea and then took out the datapad. An as of yet unidentified Pa'lowick female had expired from a Glitterstim overdose in the restroom of an Upper Level shopping arcade. Goodbye Thatrecap the Blue.
Three seemingly unconnected minor underworld personalities. Three seemingly unconnected deaths. Nobody would put it together other than Gunray's smuggler. Well, unless perhaps the Jedi decided to take an interest, but he doubted that would happen. Especially not with Dooku's latest play in the Mid Rim.
Another bleep.
Three words: Come and Play.
There was a snort from somewhere behind him. Bane turned to see a hard-bitten Weequay in a foundry foreman's helmet.
"You're a popular man," the Weequay said. "That your boss or your woman on the other end?"
Bane considered this for a moment. "Both."
The Weequay burst into harsh, wheezing laughter. "I used to work for a man who was under the thumb. Filthy temper 'is woman 'ad."
Bane noted the scarring on his arms where the tattoos of a pirate gang would have been. "What happened?"
The Weequay lifted the leg of his blue overalls to reveal a cheap prosthetic. "'Course, then I caught religion from a sweet little Rodian nurse and ended up 'ere." He laughed again.
Bane grunted and headed for the door. Under the thumb? He wondered what Ohnaka would say to that.
It took him an hour to get from the cafe to the rendezvous point in the slow moving repulsor-lift truck he'd had Todo steal and repaint. Aurra had wanted to meet at a motel in the nearby Rooge pleasure district, but he'd insisted on a heavy goods vehicle park on the outskirts of Joltu. There was a time when he'd been a familiar face there and he didn't want anybody to know that he was on-world until the job was going down.... Then there was the odd discomfort he felt at the thought of her finding out just how many of the district's brothels he'd frequented over the years.
He parked up behind a thick durasteel column, put his hat back on and waited for her to show.
It didn't take long.
The lithe, cloaked figure detached itself from the shadows almost as soon as he cut the power. He watched and waited as it approached the driver's cabin. She'd gone with her trademark orange one-piece. Not particularly inconspicuous, but that wouldn't matter once it all kicked off. As a pale hand reached up towards the handle he saw a set of fading bruises going up her forearm. When she opened the door a slipped into the passenger seat, she shrugged off the cloak to reveal that the grey marks extended to her throat and chest.
He gave a low whistle. "Choo been wrestling Wookiees or something."
She snorted. "Alama and I had a disagreement."
There was a prickle of annoyance as he pictured the stupid thug grabbing her by the throat. Aurra might be... well, herself, but that was no reason to just pick her up and.... he mentally trailed off. They were hired killers, not gentlemen. Forcefully shoving away the unnatural chivalric impulse he adopted an expression of indifference. "Some disagreement."
"The lunkhead accused me of trying to stiff him on a job we did for Gardulla. I told him up front it was ten thousand credits per head, but he decided that he wanted a fifty-fifty split." She smirked. "He's going to need to bag a few more marks before he can afford to get that prosthetic fixed. You should have seen his face when I fried the circuits."
Bane chuckled and recalled the Weequay from the cafe. "Choo ever blast de limbs off any of Ohnaka's men?"
"Only when they were stupid enough to get between me the target. Why do you ask?"
"Jus' curious." He glanced at the truck's chronometer. "We've got an hour and a half."
"It'll be enough."
For a couple of seconds her he looked at her, not quite sure why but compelled to nonetheless.
"What?" She eyed him suspiciously.
"Choo look better without de wig."
"Is that supposed to be a compliment?"
He shrugged and hit the power switch. "An observation."
She leaned back and began to inspect one of her blasters.
"What did you do with my clip?"
"Clip?" He frowned. She hadn't said anything about him providing her with ammo.
"The emerald one."
Ah, that stupid hair decoration. "I pawned it for two-thousand credits and spent it on three nights with a pair of Twi'lek acrobats. I figured dat after dat prick teasing session choo owed it to me."
She looked from him, to the blaster in her hand and then burst out laughing.
In truth none of the brokers on the station had been able to offer him a satisfactory price and he'd spent the night in the company of his right hand and a particularly lurid fantasy about Aurra and Miss Fourth Month from the Ryloth Beauties calendar. However, he liked the acrobat story better.
-o0O0o-
The guards never saw it coming. Delivery trucks came and went from bulk supplies all day and nobody thought that anybody would be stupid enough to attack an entrance protected by one-hundred heavily armed guards. The fact that the two-hundred heavily armed guards were mainly men who'd been rejected from more ostensibly dangerous assignments at the Senate Building and critical infra-structure had gone unnoticed.... As was the fact that a trained assassin carrying eight pounds of evenly distributed kit could run rings around a man bogged down by fifty pounds of body armour and a standard issue DC-15A blaster rifle.
The flash grenades thrown by the Duros driver took out the first forty-six men, while the pale female passenger made a lightning fast precision strike on the comm station and its operators.
In the two seconds it took the guards to recover their vision well enough to point their rifles at the vehicle both of the occupants were out and firing armour penetrating rounds.
The guards returned fire.
Quick, deft and light on their feet, the attackers were out of the way before they had chance to pull the trigger.
Forty-six. Forty-eight. Fifty-four. Fifty-five.
There was nowhere in the large rectangular space to take cover. The last big load of crates, boxes and heavy machinery had gone up in the lift a few hours earlier. They were exposed, vulnerable and their opponents were just too damned fast.
As their comrades went down some of the guards began to panic: firing wildly and hitting one another in the process.
Sixty-six. Sixty-eight. Seventy-four.
The remainder banded together in front the doors to the giant lift. It was brave, heroic... and utterly futile. The Duros had one grenade remaining. He threw it.
Ninety-nine.
Satisfied, Cad Bane stepped forward. As he did a blaster bolt shot passed his face, missing flesh by less than a centimetre.
One-hundred.
He glowered at Aurra. "What de kark was dat about?"
"That one was about to blow your head off." She gestured with the tip of her blaster to a sprawling figure.
For a moments there was an uncomfortable silence.
Might as well be de gentleman. "Thanks."
She didn't quite manage to keep the surprise off her face. "You're welcome."
The lift platform returned to the level three minutes later, clanking as it settled into place. Sing's timing had been good so far. He'd give her that. They stepped on board.
"Should have left a survivor," Bane muttered, half in just, as he surveyed the scene of carnage. "Dat was a pretty good show."
Aurra snorted. "And you dared to accuse me of vanity."
"I accused you of letting it get in de way. Dere's a difference. Choo think I don't like being known as de best damned bounty hunter in de Galaxy?"
He half expected her to come back with a retort about him only scoring pole position because Fett lost his head, but she didn't. Instead, she tapped a few commands into the lift's onboard control panel.
I must be growing on her. The thought probably shouldn't have pleased him as much as it did.
They began to move upwards. As lifts went it was slow, but it wouldn't matter as long as security didn't guess where they were going to come out. He imagined that they'd tighten up after this, if only because of the embarrassment. The enlisted guards would be replaced by clone troopers who'd lost their A1 physical status but not their skill or titanium-strength nerves on tours of frontline troublespots. The bulk supplies system would be rebuilt from scratch, with checks and sentinels and all the other little inconveniences that would make any would-be assassin rethink taking that route.
It didn't matter though. If he had to break in here again he'd choose another route. Hell, if it had been up to him they'd have used Todo 360 to get them cleaning staff passes; but Aurra had never really taken to Todo and for now this was her show.
She remained quiet as the lift continued its ascent: her eyes scanning the shaft for any nasty surprises. As she'd predicted there were none: security were doubtless rushing to the obvious targets, waiting for them to arrive.
Fools, de lot of 'em.
"Your stop's coming up," she said, as the number on the control panel continued to rise. "We'll rendezvous at the VIP speeder dock in twenty-five minutes."
"I won't wait for you if chur late," he said.
She smiled. "Believe me, Bane, the feeling's mutual." Then without warning she kissed him on the side of the mouth.
For a second he just stood there, stunned. Then, before he had chance to ask what the hell she thought she was doing, the lift started grinding to a halt.
Time to go.
The greeting committee that he received as he headed out of the lift and into the personnel archive was rather larger than anticipated, but nothing that he couldn't handle. The security on this floor was even more pitiful than it had been down in bulk supplies: as lacklustre as their skills had been the guards down there had at least fought and died like men. Up here it was just kids in silly uniforms: big brawny boys, full of bravado right up until the moment when they caught sight of the wiry blue being emerging from the opening in the wall. Within the space of two minutes the bland white walls and grey floor covering of the archive reception had been enlivened by a liberal application of blood and scorch-marks.
The middle-aged human woman whose identity badge identified her as the Archive Manager was not stupid enough to resist when he demanded the records of the Cross Planetary Terraforming Committee, the Energy Policy Steering Group and the senate investigation into doping in the Galactic Games. Recalling how much of a fool he'd looked after the whole Rako Hardeen affair he then asked anything they had on Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Who knows, perhaps dey'll even be a buyer for dis stuff.
When the data was packaged and handed over, he shot two of the archive assistants who made impolite remarks about the hat, knocked out the Archive Manager and set off to plant the diversionary charges: one by the central elevator, one by the main staircase and extra one by a panel critical to the functioning of the static surveillance equipment from this floor up.
Choo can thank me later for dat last one, Sing.
When he heard a new set of guards rushing up the stairs, he detonated and fled.
It didn't take him long to reach the speeder dock reserved for Senators, high ranking bureaucrats and visiting dignitaries. The schematics Aurra had obtained had, for once, been accurate and he'd been playing this game for too long to opt for any of the obvious routes. His path out of the Archive was chosen to make it look like he was going to try and make for the roof until the last minute. He doubted it would matter though: surveillance was out and the civilians he passed would probably be too panicked to convey anything of worth to security, but it was stupid to leave these things to chance.
The vehicle Aurra had planted there was a gleaming red speeder belonging to Head of Information Systems. She'd had the thing stolen, modified and returned while the man was drunk in an Upper Level imitation of a Lower Level drinking den. The door, pre-programmed to accept his genetic print, opened for him as soon as he touched the handle and so he got into the driver's seat and waited. The chronometer gave Aurra three and a half minutes to show.
When it got down to forty second an uneasy feeling began to creep over him.
Dammit Sing, hurry up.
If she'd got herself killed or captured before taking out the marks, he'd lose his share of the bounty money. Though of course, if she'd got herself killed or captured after taking out the marks on the other hand, he could go to Brull and claim the whole damn lot.
For some reason the second prospect didn't cheer him as much as he might have otherwise expected it to.
Thirty seconds.
No chance of getting her in the sack, for one.... No chance of asking her what the hell that little kiss in the lift had been all about.
Twenty seconds.
Shoulda refused to do it unless she let me call the shots.
Ten seconds.
Just have to hope she managed to bag the targets before karking it up.
Zero.
He hit the power, reached for the steering controls... and paused.
Seconds ticked by: one, two, three... twenty, twenty-one....
On twenty-two a tall, slender figure with a large sack dropped out of a window three floors above and landed with surprising grace next to an ugly blue all-terrain vehicle. It was her alright. Annoyed and relieved in about equal measure he glowered as she climbed into the passenger seat, face exultant.
"Chur late."
"You're still here." Her smile grew.
He gritted his teeth and moved the speeder out of the lot.
Dey'll put an emergency forcefield generator on here too, he thought as they moved out into the traffic. ...and few patrol vehicles around the perimeter to stop people doing dis.
"What took choo so long anyway?" he said.
"The heads." She gestured to the sack, which she'd just unceremonious slung on the back passenger seat. "Brull wanted them."
"Dat it?"
Another smile. "Well, there was something else."
"Oh?"
"The chance to settle an old score."
He sneered. "Another of your damned grudges."
"I pulled it off, didn't I?"
"Thanks to me."
"Just under thirty seconds. I'm flattered."
"Choo owe me for dat one."
For a while neither of them spoke. Then, as they joined the central traffic stream, Bane cleared his throat.
"Dat little kiss is the lift."
"What about it?"
What de kark did you do it for? Was what he planned to say. What came out of his mouth however was, by some form of strange mental alchemy, subtly changed.
"Do it again."
And she did.
Then the sirens rang out and the chase was on.
Epilogue
He woke up to a warm body and a face full of auburn hair.
So, he'd finally done it and as the surprising absence of a hangover indicated they'd both done it in a state of near-total sobriety. The trouble was, he mused, that doing it once didn't always take away the urge. Hell, sometimes it just made you want to do it more.
Then, because he knew that he might not get another opportunity he pinched a chalk white breast before running blue fingers over the taut flesh of her stomach and down towards
Aurra's eyes snapped open as a hand slid between her thighs. "What time is it?"
This had not been quite the response he'd been anticipating... or indeed hoping for.
He looked at the old style clock on the wall. "Oh-nine-hundred, Station time."
Excited, she reached for the room's audio-visual controls and switched on the in-room viewscreen and clicked through the options until she got to the Galactic News Network.
They were the number one item on the Coruscant Feed.... The number two item was a semi-related story about how Senators Padme Amidala and Orn Free Taa had been found together, semi-naked and in a state of Glitterstim intoxication in a sanitation cupboard in the Central Administration Building by Coruscant Security Force personnel doing a floor by floor sweep of the building following the assassinations.
Bane couldn't quite keep himself from giving a rasping laugh. "Dat chur work?"
She lay back against the pillows and grinned. "She was there. I had some Glitterstim left over from Thatrecap. It seemed... fitting."
"Fitting?" Then he recalled how the good Senator had plastered the video of Aurra being taken down all over the holonet. "Chur a piece of work, Aurra Sing. A real piece of work."
"And that, Bane, is why you like me."
He pondered this for a few moments.
"Dat and your ass."