The Bedlam Raiders were always a rowdy bunch, but this time around, they had made three critical errors. The first was accepting a contract to intercept a shipment of refined tibanna gas bound for a mid-level Hutt distribution network. The second was choosing to store the stolen cargo in an abandoned processing facility on Nar Shaddaa's Level 42, a location they believed to be sufficiently hidden from interested parties. The third, and most fatal, was assuming that the retrieval specialist sent to recover the shipment would be a standard enforcer.
Cole Betriv, known professionally as Moxy, was not a standard enforcer.
He moved through the facility's ventilation system with a patience that bordered on meditative. The Raiders had posted six guards at the main entrance, four at the secondary access point, and two on a rotating patrol through the interior corridors. Seventeen hostiles total, according to the surveillance he had conducted over the previous two days. The tibanna canisters were stored in what had once been the facility's primary cooling chamber, accessible through a reinforced door that required both a keycard and a biometric scan.
Cole had acquired the keycard from a Raider lieutenant three hours ago. The man had been cooperative after Cole explained, in precise detail, what would happen to his fingers if he chose to be difficult. The biometric component was more problematic, but Cole had long since learned that most security systems on Nar Shaddaa were installed by the lowest bidder and maintained by whoever happened to be available.
He dropped silently from the ventilation shaft into a storage closet adjacent to the main corridor. Through the thin walls, he could hear two Raiders arguing about a sabacc debt. He waited until their voices faded down the hallway before easing the door open.
The first Raider he encountered never saw him coming. Cole's vibroblade found the gap between the man's helmet and chestplate.
He lowered the body to the ground without a sound and continued forward.
The second and third were together, standing guard outside a doorway that led to the facility's former administrative offices. Cole considered his options for approximately two seconds before deciding that efficiency outweighed subtlety. He stepped around the corner, drew his blaster, and put two bolts through the center of each man's chest before either could raise their weapons.
The noise would draw attention. He had perhaps forty seconds before the remaining Raiders converged on his position.
And so Cole moved.
The next four minutes were a blur of controlled violence. He killed two more Raiders in the corridor leading to the cooling chamber, another three who came running from the main entrance, and a fourth who made the mistake of trying to flank him through a side passage. The man had been fast. Cole had been faster.
By the time he reached the cooling chamber door, eleven of the seventeen Raiders were dead. The remaining six had barricaded themselves inside with the tibanna shipment, which was precisely what Cole had anticipated they would do.
He knelt beside the door's control panel and removed a small device from his belt. The slicer kit was Corellian manufacture, expensive and highly illegal. It took him less than thirty seconds to bypass the biometric scanner entirely.
The door slid open.
The Raiders inside opened fire immediately, a wall of blaster bolts that would have killed any normal intruder. Cole had positioned himself to the left of the doorframe and was already moving before the door finished cycling. He threw a flashbang through the opening, counted to two, and went in low.
The first Raider was still blinking away the afterimages when Cole's vibroblade opened his throat. The second managed to bring his rifle around before Cole shot him twice in the face. The third and fourth died together, caught in a crossfire they hadn't anticipated from an enemy they couldn't see clearly.
The fifth Raider, a Weequay with elaborate facial tattoos, threw down his weapon and raised his hands.
"Wait," the Weequay said. "Wait, we can negotiate."
Cole shot him in the knee. The Weequay screamed and collapsed.
"That was your negotiation," Cole said. He walked past the writhing man toward the tibanna canisters, counting them quickly. Twelve, as expected. "Your employer is going to be unhappy with you."
"Kark you," the Weequay spat through gritted teeth.
Cole shrugged. He activated his commlink. "Package is secure. Twelve canisters, minimal damage to the merchandise. Sending location now."
A voice crackled back, speaking in Huttese. Cole responded in the same language, his accent flawless. The conversation was brief; the pickup team would arrive within the hour.
He turned back to the Weequay. The man was trying to crawl toward a fallen blaster, leaving a smear of blood across the floor.
"I wouldn't," Cole said.
The Weequay's hand closed around the blaster grip anyway.
Cole sighed and shot him twice in the chest.
Sixteen of seventeen. The last Raider had apparently fled when the fighting started, which was the smartest decision any of them had made tonight. Cole didn't bother pursuing. His contract specified retrieval of the merchandise, not extermination of the thieves.
He settled in to wait for the pickup team, his back against a stack of crates, his blaster resting across his knees. Around him, the cooling chamber was silent except for the hum of environmental systems and the distant rumble of Nar Shaddaa's ever-present machinery.
Eleven confirmed kills. Good night's work.
Cole felt nothing in particular about that.
....
...
..
.
The Meltdown Café occupied a corner space on Level 88, wedged between a pawn shop that never seemed to have any customers and a tattoo parlor that catered exclusively to spice runners. The establishment's sign flickered constantly, casting erratic shadows across the entrance. Most of the letters had burned out years ago, leaving only "M lt own" visible to passersby.
The interior was dim, smoky, and perpetually crowded with the kind of clientele that preferred not to be seen clearly. Bounty hunters shared booths with information brokers. Smugglers drank alongside enforcers. The occasional off-duty Imperial officer could be found in the back corner, carefully pretending not to notice the criminals surrounding them.
Uralak, the Besalisk who owned and operated the Meltdown, ran a clean establishment by Nar Shaddaa standards. He didn't water down his drinks, didn't allow fights to escalate past a certain point, and didn't ask questions about his customers' business. In exchange, his customers paid their tabs, kept their weapons holstered, and didn't cause the kind of trouble that might attract official attention.
Cole walked through the front entrance shortly after midnight, local time. His jacket was clean; he had changed out of his operational gear before leaving Level 42. The only visible weapon was the blaster on his hip, standard for anyone in the Corellian Sector who wanted to be taken seriously.
"Moxy!" Uralak's voice boomed across the crowded room. The Besalisk raised one of his four arms in greeting. "You look like you've had a productive evening."
Cole allowed himself a small smile as he approached the bar. "Productive enough. The usual."
Uralak was already pouring before Cole finished speaking. The drink that appeared before him was Corellian whiskey, mid-shelf, served neat. Cole had been drinking the same thing at the Meltdown for nearly four years now.
"Heard the Bedlam Raiders lost some people tonight," Uralak said conversationally, polishing a glass with one hand while his other three performed various tasks behind the bar. "Terrible business."
"Terrible," Cole agreed. He took a sip of his whiskey.
"Also heard someone recovered a tibanna shipment they were sitting on. Funny coincidence."
"Hilarious."
Uralak chuckled, the sound rumbling deep in his massive chest. "Your payment's already cleared. Gratta sends his compliments."
Cole nodded. Gratta was a middleman who worked for one of the smaller Hutt operations on Level 60. The tibanna job had paid thirty thousand credits, which was good money for two days of surveillance and four minutes of actual work. Cole's reputation allowed him to command premium rates, and he had spent the last five years building that reputation with careful precision.
Moxy was known for three things: he completed his contracts, he didn't betray his employers, and he was very, very good at violence. That combination of reliability and lethality had made him one of the most sought-after independent operators on Nar Shaddaa.
"You planning to celebrate?" Uralak asked. "I've got a bottle of Alderaanian wine I've been saving. Pre-Empire vintage. Only three thousand credits."
"I'll pass." Cole finished his whiskey and set the glass down. "Anyone asking for me tonight?"
"Couple of the usual suspects. Nothing urgent." Uralak paused, his expression shifting slightly. "Although there was one message. Came through about an hour ago."
Cole raised an eyebrow.
"Grakkus wants to see you."
The name hung in the air between them. Around the bar, conversations continued uninterrupted, but Cole noticed several people carefully not looking in his direction.
Grakkus the Hutt was not a typical member of his species. Where most Hutts were content to grow fat and sedentary, ruling their criminal empires from the comfort of ornate palaces, Grakkus had modified himself extensively. Cybernetic legs allowed him to walk, to climb, to physically dominate spaces in ways that other Hutts could only dream of. His compound in Hutta Town was legendary, filled with artifacts and treasures from across the galaxy.
And Grakkus had an obsession. One that made working for him both extremely lucrative and extremely dangerous.
"Did he say what he wanted?" Cole asked.
"His messenger didn't elaborate. Just said Grakkus had a job offer, and he wanted to discuss it personally."
Cole considered this. Grakkus paid well, but his jobs tended to be complicated. The Hutt's particular interests often put his employees in conflict with the Empire, which was a complication Cole generally preferred to avoid.
"When does he want to meet?"
"Tomorrow evening. His compound. He said you'd know the entrance protocols."
Cole did know. He had worked for Grakkus twice before, both times retrieving items that the Hutt deemed essential to his collection. The pay had been excellent. The risks had been considerable.
"Tell his messenger I'll be there."
Uralak nodded and turned to serve another customer. Cole remained at the bar, nursing a second whiskey that had appeared without his ordering it. The Meltdown's usual evening crowd ebbed and flowed around him, familiar faces mixed with strangers passing through.
A hand settled on his shoulder, fingers trailing across the fabric of his jacket with deliberate familiarity.
"You're brooding again."
Cole didn't turn around. He didn't need to. "Aurra."
Aurra Sing slid onto the barstool beside him with the fluid grace of a predator settling into a comfortable position. Her pale skin seemed to glow faintly in the Meltdown's dim lighting, and her eyes, those distinctive dark eyes, studied him with amusement.
"I heard about the Bedlam job," she said. "Sixteen kills in under five minutes. Impressive."
"Fifteen. One of them bled out after the fact."
"Still impressive." Her hand was still on his shoulder, fingers tracing small patterns. "You're getting a reputation."
"I already have a reputation."
"A bigger one, then." Aurra signaled to Uralak, who produced a glass of something green and viscous. She drank half of it in one swallow. "People are starting to talk about you the way they used to talk about me."
Cole finally looked at her. Aurra Sing was many things, few of them pleasant. She was a bounty hunter of considerable skill and even more considerable cruelty. She had a body count that stretched across multiple systems and a list of enemies that would have given most beings nightmares.
She was also, for reasons Cole had never fully examined, someone whose company he occasionally enjoyed.
"Should I be flattered?" he asked.
"You should be careful." Her fingers moved from his shoulder to the back of his neck, nails scraping lightly against his skin. "Fame attracts attention. Attention attracts problems."
"Speaking from experience?"
"Always." She finished her drink and set the glass down with a sharp click. "Grakkus wants to meet with you."
"I heard."
"Do you know what he wants?"
"Not yet."
Aurra leaned closer, her breath warm against his ear. "Be careful with that one, Moxy. His obsession makes him unpredictable."
Cole turned his head slightly, bringing his face close to hers. "Are you worried about me?"
"I'm worried about losing a good source of entertainment." Her smile was sharp, predatory, and not entirely insincere. "You're one of the few people on this rock who can keep up with me."
"In which context?"
"All of them."
They looked at each other for a long moment. The tension between them was familiar, a game they had been playing for nearly two years now. It never went anywhere permanent, and neither of them wanted it to. Aurra Sing didn't do permanent. Cole wasn't capable of it, not anymore.
But they had found something in each other. A recognition, perhaps. Two people who were very good at violence, trying to find moments of connection in a galaxy that didn't encourage such things.
"Come back to my place," Aurra said. It wasn't really a question.
Cole considered the offer. He had no other obligations tonight. The Grakkus meeting wasn't until tomorrow. And after the Bedlam job, after the blood and the noise and the clinical efficiency of sixteen deaths, there was something appealing about spending a few hours with someone who understood exactly what he was.
"Alright," he said.
Aurra's smile widened. She dropped a credit chip on the bar to cover their drinks and stood, extending her hand. Cole took it and let her lead him toward the exit.
Behind them, Uralak rolled his eyes as he watched them go.
Tonight, Cole allowed himself to be human for a few hours. Or something close to it.
It was, he had learned, the only way to survive.