It's always odd, the way you feel staring down the barrel of a blaster, but it seems like that's where I spend a lot of my time these days. I was sitting reclined in a shady cantina on Nar Shadda looking down the barrel of this thugs illegally modified blaster. One quick squeeze is all it would take to remove my head from existence yet the expression I wore was one of someone who had just one a game of Sabaac.
"You're coming with me, Drake someone's paying big money to get you to them alive, you don't want to keep them waiting do you?" The bounty hunter said threateningly. I grinned, "I just don't like blind dates" If I could have seen the man's eyes I'm sure they would have been red with anger, he snarled "Well I'm afraid you don't have much of a choice in the matter Mr. Kessel" My grin faded, "Captain, captain Kessel, get my name right, I don't appreciate you bothering me on my day off as it is, and I won't tolerate you degrading a title I worked for."
All humor was gone from the conversation, "Well Captain Kessel, you will come with me willingly or by force, the choice is yours." I looked sideways at him, "No there's a third choice, you're going to lay face down on the cantina floor while I pay for my drinks and leave."
The bounty hunter was fast, and two bolts disintegrated the chair where I had been sitting, as I rolled away I tossed a small adhesive charge that stuck to my armored foe. Immediately electrical currents overtook the poor arrogant fool as he convulsed on the ground. I put two blaster bolts in his head and paid my tab with a little extra to keep the bartender from talking.
Not that anyone talked on Nar Shadda, the smuggler's moon, a man's wildest dreams and worst nightmare's could come true all in the same instant, and here it was all about how you played the cards you're dealt. Mercy isn't frequently rewarded, and I'm all about rewards, especially the kind that keep me breathing.
I staggered back to where my ship was docked only to discover that it was gone! I searched for my datapad, and double checked to make sure I was at the right place, the dock was correct but no ship... I swore just about every curse word I knew, managing to even turn the heads of a few of Nar Shadda's respectable citizen's. My crew had taken my ship, right out from under my nose! Here I was trying to get us paid and get us another job, and they left me for dead as far as they knew.
Well I had a few surprises in store for them, I had tracking features installed on my ship long before I acquired this particularly nasty crew. With any luck they'd be dumb enough to keep the ship, and not chop her. I count on stupidity on a regular basis. Everyone has the potential to be stupid on a long enough timeline, it was just a matter of capitalizing on people's stupidity, and not playing up your own intelligence too much.
You see, if people start expecting intelligence out of you then you now have a reputation for being smart, when that happens people start properly estimating your skills, and then you end up deep fried. That's why I had to kill the idiot bounty hunter, if he had a second chance at me he'd expect me to do something smart, and I'd probably end up making an appointment with death.
I ducked into another hangar managing to narrowly avoid being detected by the private security protecting the small personal starcruiser, I had to guess it was some Sith diplomat, because the ship was lavishly adorned in Imperial enscriptions praising the Sith Empire and it's glory. I had to chuckle at the irony of me stealing this vessel, I also had to chuckle at the likelihood of me having another price on my head for stealing some pompous rich idiot's ship.... again.
I strolled up to the ship and checked for countermeasures, the security system was easy enough to slice, and I was on board in no time. I fired up the engines sparking the interest of the security guards. Oh someone's head would roll for this one, I punched the accelerator and shot out of the hangar like a hawkbat out of hell. Nothing quite beat the rush of stealing a ship, the thrill of angering some of the galaxies most prominent officials was just too enticing for me to pass up. I checked my datapad for my ships last known location. They're last known position indicated that they were heading towards Hutta.
"Damn" I said aloud to myself, "I hate Hutta" Problem with Hutta is that not only is it a planet where bounty hunters like to hang out, but about three different Hutt cartels there have a price on my head. Hutts were industrious like that. They wouldn't just place prices on your head for disrespecting them, but also acted as third party sponsors for anyone else in the galaxy who was on their payroll. I punched in the coordinates and hesitated before starting up the hyperspace engines. "I have a bad feeling about this." I said before lurching into hyperspace.
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