A little something I wrote after reading too much Louis L'amour

Davra Cahan stepped down the ramp of the Skyfire checking his blaster.

“I’m sorry Captain.” An authoritative voice remarked. “But you will be required to leave your weapon on your ship.”

He looked up to see a young man wearing an official’s uniform absently tapping the controls of a datapad. “It’s a bad idea to go unarmed on a planet like this.” Davra replied.

The young official looked up from his datapad with a cold expression. “A planet like this?”

Davra shrugged. “Well, I mean, out here in the Outer Rim. Best to be careful.”

The cold expression remained, but the official nodded. “You still have to leave the blaster.”

Davra rolled his eyes, holstered his blaster and unbuckled his gunbelt. He returned up the ramp and put the gunbelt into a locker. When he came back down, the official had gone. He locked up his ship and headed into the nearby speeder rental kiosk. After begrudgingly handing over an inordinately large sum for a questionable speeder bike, he rode off into the town.

It was a small town, with several dozen buildings altogether. The buildings themselves appeared to be built to last and looked as though they had lasted through a lot. But towering over everything else at the center of the town was the rusted hulk of an early model AT-AT, frozen in midstep. Apparently a relic from some battle long past, and not the only one. What had originally appeared to be a large hill behind the town was actually the remnants of a capital starship, now overgrown with the native foliage. Whether the ship had landed there or had crashed was impossible to discern.

Davra directed the bike toward the tavern where he was expecting to meet the Duros who had his credits waiting. But he never made it to the tavern. He saw the ambush the instant before it happened. The muzzle of an ion rifle appeared from the shadows between two buildings and it fired a white energy beam into the bike. The thing dropped its nose into the ground and tossed Davra several meters. They were upon him as soon as he hit dirt and had him pinned, tied, and dragged to his feet quicker than he thought possible. His head was spinning from the impact, but he shook his head.

“What’s going on here?” He asked, though he had a sinking suspicion that he already knew.

A bedraggled Rodian stood before him with an ion rifle slung at his shoulder.

“Serrin’s bounty.” The Rodian informed him. “He has made it worth my while.”

“Oh, it’s you Pallak.” Davra smirked. “I thought I might be in trouble. Since when do you have groupies?”

“The good Admiral wanted to be sure that I brought you in this time. He has been… disappointed… lately.”

“Hey, your fault for getting mixed up with a bad crowd. Me, I fight shy of Imps every chance I get.”

“That’ll change soon enough, Cahan.” The Rodian replied ominously. “It’s now time for you to return to your old ship. Serrin has made it his home since he stole it from you.”

Davra’s eyes narrowed. “Mark me, Pallak. When I return to the Star, it will not be as an Imperial prisoner.”

Something in Davra’s voice must have hit home, because Pallak suddenly came up short. And then promptly crumpled to the ground. Immediately the men holding him drew their blasters and searched the area for some sign of attack. It did not take more than a moment or two for them all to fall to the ground, leaving Davra standing, hands bound behind him, in the middle of the street.

“You’re right.” A high pitched metallic voice remarked from the shadows. “You will not be an Imperial prisoner. You will be mine.”

Davra turned to see a small figure clad in black armor. Ubese, by the look of him. “Since when do Ubese speak basic? Or scavenge bounties?”

The hunter stepped forward, dart shooter in hand. “I am not your average Ubese.” He replied. “I am Shuural, and Admiral Serrin’s bounty on you has reached a sum that I cannot ignore.”

“Pallak said something to that effect, just how much is it this time?”

“One hundred thousand. He is becoming more desperate.”

Davra whistled. “That’s a lot of credits. Pallak’s not gonna be happy that he missed out on that, when he wakes up.”

“He isn’t going to wake up. I shot him with a very powerful neurotoxin.”

Davra’s expression softened and he glanced back at the dead Rodian. He’d been a pain in the backside, but Davra had never wished death on Pallak. He returned his gaze to Shuural with a new respect, as one would feel upon seeing a wild gundark. Davra realized that this bounty hunter may not be quite so easy to trick than Pallak had been, so for now, he decided to play along. “What’s the next move? To your ship?”

“No. The next transport off-world is due to arrive in three days. I have a ship waiting elsewhere that will take us to Serrin. We will go to my flat now.”

Shuural forced him to walk in front and Davra allowed it. A lot could happen in three days, somehow the hunter would slip and Davra would be watching for it.

And he did. And sooner than Davra thought. Before they even made it to Shuural’s place, they found themselves facing off a squad of rough looking mercenaries. “You, uh, got enough darts, there Shuural?” Davra murmured out of the side of his mouth.

“I can take these amateurs.” The Ubese replied. Shuural stepped forward and fairly erupted with nearly every manner of projectile and energy weapon imaginable. Four of the mercenaries were dead before they realized what was happening. But Davra didn’t stick around to see what happened next, he threw himself into a narrow space between two buildings and kept moving until he was at the other side of the town. He cut his bonds with the stillblade he kept in his boot and proceeded to make his way back to the landing field and the safety of the Skyfire.

Even without his blaster pistol, he was not defenseless. He still had the pair of compact stun pistols inside his jacket, as well as the powerstaff hilts in their forearm holsters up his sleeves. But those were only to be used as a last resort when no other options presented themselves. As of right now, he still had options. As he drew near to the landing field, he saw some commotion at the small building that served as a space traffic control center. He took his small electroscope from his belt and zeroed in on the building.

A group of people, more bounty hunters no doubt, were apparently trying to gain entrance into the town. But it didn’t look like whoever was manning the control center wanted them to stay. No doubt all entrances to the landing field were being watched and he’d be caught again if he went for his ship. Putting the scope away, he decided to find a place to lay low until things settled down. He glanced at the pretty blue shape of the Skyfire and silently told it that he’d be back soon. He edged back from the corner and tried to figure out the best course of action. He didn’t have any friends on this world. That much he’d known as soon as he stepped down the Skyfire’s ramp.

In retrospect, he should have known that something was up. This planet was enough of a backwater to not bother with spaceport officials. Not enough ships landed here for it to make a difference. However, Davra had seen at least twelve ships crowding the field. Serrin’s bounty on him had apparently made this place much more popular. That young man wearing the uniform had definitely not been working with Pallak, Shuural, or the merc group, that meant that there was still another group, possibly better organized and more dangerous, that he hadn’t met yet.

His first order of business was to find a new sidearm, or perhaps a rifle. His father taught him that a heavily armed man will have less trouble than a man who appears unarmed. He began to edge his way back across the town toward where Shuural had faced off the mercs. Perhaps one of the fallen men had left something useful. When he arrived at the place, he saw something unexpected. Shuural and the mercs were all dead. Davra’s intuition told him that they’d been ambushed by a third party, this mysterious fourth group. He sensed a trap, so he backed away into the deeper shadows and waited.

The voice was quiet, but Davra heard it, nonetheless. “You really think he’ll come back here?”

There was a long pause, then the same voice. “Vedner? Are you listening? Did he get you?”

“Shut up.” Was the only response from what sounded like a comlink.

The fact that there was at least one inexperienced member of this group put Davra a bit more at ease. This Vedner person, however, sounded a bit like the uniformed man at the landing field, maybe not the same person, but there was something similar in the voice. Davra had the position of the owner of the first voice pegged, he was above him and to the left, on the roof of the building beside him. Davra assumed they had the street covered from the rooftops, so he made his way back toward the landing field. He rounded a corner and came face to face with a very startled, very young, very female face and before he could react, there was a blaster in her hand and a blue flash, then there was nothing.

Davra didn’t know how long he was out, but when he awoke it was cold and dark and he was laying on a hard flat surface. His eyes adjusted enough for him to see that he was inside some kind of metal structure that almost reminded him of a ship. But it was no ship. He wasn’t bound at all, but he could see that he was in some kind of cell. He grunted with the effort to rise to his knees, the after effects of the stun beam sending his head spinning. “Hello?” His voice came out ragged.

He heard footsteps and there was light in the corridor. “Good, you’re awake.” An unfamiliar voice said. “Maybe you can tell us what’s going on.” There was a sense of foreboding in the man’s tone.

“Anything I can do to help.” Davra replied, happily realizing that he hadn’t been captured by the bounty hunters, but by whatever passed for law enforcement on this backwater. He looked up to see a middle aged man with brown hair and sharp blue eyes, Davra thought to himself that he didn’t look like the sort you wanted for an enemy. The young girl was standing beside him, there was more than a passing resemblance between the two and he figured she must be his daughter. “You’ve got a quick draw, kid.” He nodded at her.

She seemed very pleased with herself and she stood a little straighter. “Thank you! I’ve been practicing.”

“It shows.” He replied, then looked at the man. “What can I do to assist you?”

He crossed his arms. “First, you can tell me why we have bounty hunters all over town looking for you.”

“An insane Imperial Admiral wants me dead, so he has a bounty on my head for a hundred thousand credits.” He told them.

The girl stood there with her mouth hanging open.

“That would explain that.” The man said. “I suppose we don’t really need to keep you locked up.”

“Actually.” Davra replied. “Here, I’m safe from the hunters.”

The man laughed. “Yes, well, we need the cell for dangerous people.” He opened the cell door and Davra came forward and offered his hand. “Davra Cahan. Captain of the Skyfire.”

The man shook his hand and said. “I’m Captain Kloost, this is my deputy and daughter, Kalli.”

“A pleasure to meet you both.” He said. “I don’t suppose you could help me get back to my ship…”

“We were hoping to acquire your help.” Kloost replied. “I don’t care much for bounty hunters in my town.”

“And you want me to help you take them out?”

“We want you to help us apprehend them.” Kloost amended.

Davra nodded and gave him a tight smile. “Like I said, anything I can do… But I’ll need a sidearm, or a rifle.”

“We have both, come with me.” Kloost led him to another room along the short corridor. For such a little known world along an obsolete trade route, they had an impressive armory. “We keep our weaponry in prime condition, take your choice.”

Davra perused the extensive collection of firearms and selected a pleasantly heavy DL-44 that he strapped to his thigh, and an old style DC-15 carbine with a custom fixed shoulder stock that he slung across his back.

“Excellent choices.” Kloost remarked as he shoved a fresh power pack into his pistol. “Keep them if you like, we don’t need them.”

“Thank you.” Davra remarked a little surprised. “So, what’s the plan?”

“We call them out and stand them down. It’s not likely that they’ll submit to my authority, so we’ll have to fight them, I don’t want any more killing in my town, so we use stun only, or just disabling shots.”

Davra nodded. “Simple.”

“In theory.” Kloost replied. “Do you know how many there are?”

“I know of three, but there are most likely more than that. They have at least one rookie. They had an ambush set up for me and they had taken out a group of mercs and a very heavily armed Ubese who were also after me.”

“What about that dead Rodian and the two thugs that were found a few blocks away?”

“The Ubese killed them.”

“And the wrecked speeder bike?”

“The Rodian shot it out from under me.”

“You’ve had a busy day!”

“More than usual anyway.”

“Merchant by trade?”

“Most of the time, I’m actually here to pick up some credits from a Duros for a shipment I took to one of your moons.”

“I see, you’re the one who brought the ‘special item’.”

“You’re not going to arrest me are you?”

“No.” Kloost replied. “My jurisdiction is this town, anything beyond its borders is none of my business. Besides, without smugglers, this town probably wouldn’t survive another week.”

Davra smiled at the man. “Well, are we ready?”

“Ready as we’ll ever be, I suppose.” Kloost turned to his daughter. “You stay here and keep the scanners alive, if you absolutely have to, use the cannons and shoot over the buildings, it could serve as a good distraction.”

“Okay, dad.” She turned and headed down the corridor.

“Well, it’s time.” Kloost told Davra.

“Let’s go then, lead the way.” Davra followed him to a turbolift and was surprised to find that they’d been inside the old AT-AT at the center of the town. They were met by several men who had apparently also come to help, they wore some scant armor that looked to Davra like painted over storm trooper shell and they carried all manner of blasters. They were the town militia as Kloost informed him. Davra thought to himself that at least it wasn’t just two against an unknown number.

They came upon the hunters in the same area where Shuural made his last stand. There were five of them in the street and Davra pointed out several places where they could expect sniper fire from.

Kloost did the talking. “You people are not welcome here. Leave right now, or we will apprehend you.”

The cloaked man at the center of the five in the street spoke next. “One hundred thousand credits will be ours for bringing in Cahan. This isn’t your fight. Stay out of our way.”

“This is our town, so it is our fight. Leave now, or we will force you to submit.” Kloost countered.

The man pulled back the hood of his cloak showing a sickly white face and reddened eyes. “So be it.”

Davra got the feeling that suddenly they might have bitten off more than they could chew. And before he knew it, some massive invisible hand had picked him up off the ground and held his arms tight to his sides, making him unable to draw a weapon. He struggled against it, but there was nothing to be done. This was a fight beyond his ability. Never in a million years would Davra had guessed that Serrin would acquire the services of a Dark Jedi to bring him in. For the first time since his father’s death, Davra was scared.

Davra had almost succumbed to the inevitable when there was a blinding flash of red light and an explosion and the hold on him was released and he fell bodily to the ground. He rolled and came up with the carbine in his hands, ready for action. But where the Dark Jedi had been standing there was a small crater. He looked up to where the ancient AT-AT stood and saw smoke drifting from one of its cannons. The other bounty hunters were sprawled on the ground and were quickly surrounded and apprehended. Seeing their leader vaporized, the rest of them, six more who had their rifle scopes on them from the rooftops, gave themselves up.

Kloost came up to him. “You okay?”

“Yeah, thanks to Kalli.”

“I’m going to have a long talk with that girl.” Then he chuckled. “That was an amazing shot though…”

“That it was.” Davra agreed. “I owe her one. Never gone up against a Dark Jedi before, thanks to her, that’s still true.”

“Hey.” Kloost clapped him on the shoulder. “Let’s go find that Duros with your credits.”

Davra grinned. “Let’s go then.”