Contract Dispute

Posted on Sat Aug 1st, 2020 @ 3:06pm by Spacer Mardonis

Mission: Episode 1 - All Roads Lead to Nowhere
Location: Planet Kluistar
Timeline: 19 BBY - Concurrent to Order 66

Mardonis nudged the stumbling man in front of him perhaps just a little harder than he absolutely needed to, and sent him sprawling on the floor before the Hutt in front of him. It was nothing personal, just another job to be completed and credits to be transferred. Mardonis was a Mandalorian and as such he was a mercenary, a bounty hunter and the man sprawled on the floor was just another in a long line of bounties tracing back almost twenty years.

"There you go Sibarra." He said in Huttese, nodding to the man whimpering at his feet. "There's your code slicer. Don't know and don't care what you want him for, but there he is."

"You do good work Mandalorian. Only take you two weeks to complete the job."

Mardonis shrugged, a smile playing over his features inside his helmet. "He wasn't particularly hard to find, just time consuming to get there and back again. Anyway, there's your prize, so where's my credits?"

The sneer was almost as easy to hear as it was to see flickering across the Hutt's face. "I tell you to bring him here alive and intact. Why is he missing a hand? What good to me is a code slicer with one hand?"

The smile that had flickered over his features was just as quickly replaced by a scowl. He'd expected something like this. Hutts were notorious for trying to find ways out of paying for services rendered. At least Jabba knew better than that. "No Sibarra." The tone of Mardonis voice was almost cold enough to frost the inside of his helmet. "Our contract was for me to bring him in alive. You never said anything about how many pieces he was supposed to be in. You wanted him alive, he's alive. Pay me my credits."

"A slicer with one hand won't be able to do the job I had you acquire him for. If he's of no use to me, why should I pay you for him?"

"So, throw him in a bacta tank for a few hours and have your medical droids whip him up a prosthetic. He'll be good as new. You owe me a few thousand credits, payable on delivery. Consider him delivered, now pay up." His hand twitched and a thermal detonator appeared as if by magic. "And if those chakaar of yours behind me take another two steps I'll bring this place down on top of us all."

"You do that and you'll be as dead as the rest of us."

"Maybe, maybe not. I've got faith in my armor. Wanna test it and find out? Pay me and the det goes back in my pocket, after I leave and your minions behave themselves. Don't pay me and we'll test my armor against the explosion. Which one do you want?"

"Pay the bounty hunter and take the slicer to the medical droids."

"Now see? I knew we could bring this to a mutually satisfying conclusion." Mardonis said with a smile as a servant handed him a small sack of credits. "And if I'm missing just a single credit of what you owe me Sibarra, I'll bring this entire casino down on your slimy head. Not right away mind you, you'd be expecting that, but at a time of my choosing. Now, are you sure that was the entire payment?"

"Give him all of it." The Hutt ordered in a resigned tone. "What's stopping me from putting a bounty on your head for all this?"

"Well you can if you want to, but you see the thing is that bounty hunters in the guild don't chase bounties on other hunters. Nor do we steal another's bounty from them. Goes against our code dontcha know." Mardonis explained as he took a second, smaller sack of credits. He deposited both sacks into a pouch on his belt and started to back for the door. "Pleasure doing business with you Sibarra. Really, it was. Call me if you ever require my services again."

Once he was safely outside and on his way back to his ship, he slipped the thermal detonator back into its pouch. It was gonna be a good idea to get off this rock before the Hutt decided to get any ideas.