Chapter 28 (Patreon)

Once my mercenaries joined us, the Hammerhead left Coruscant for Corellia for scheduled maintenance and upgrades, six hundred thousand credits landed in my account, and preparations for our next adventure began.

Arvik spent a couple of days prowling the shittier cantinas of the lower levels, collecting rumors and sifting through them for the few scraps actually worth a damn. Then we started drawing up a list of potential benefactors. You know—the generous sort of sentients willing to make a completely voluntary contribution to the poor-orphan relief fund. Specifically, their souls. And whatever astronomical—or merely respectable—sums happened to be lying around. The orphan in question being me, naturally.

One interesting development during that time was Arvik discovering that he was being followed—which was about as surprising as rain on Jabiim. This was the capital, after all. We’d met with the Chancellor, made contact with the Jedi... Naturally, everyone with even the slightest reason to care had taken an interest in us: the Chancellor himself, the Order, Senate Security, the Chancellor’s opponents, and assorted political factions besides.

I think we might actually have missed the surveillance if there hadn’t been so damn much of it—and if everyone involved hadn’t been working from completely different levels of paranoia, from “send someone to have a look at those Jabiimites” all the way up to “put those suspicious bastards under constant observation.” But... Hecate is wise. After Arvik’s first outing, the four of us were laughing like lunatics. Surveillance droids. Hired organics. Even a pair of Jedi Padawans—the last two only appeared once, admittedly, so that might genuinely have been a coincidence... The whole thing was turning into a farce. The spies were tripping over one another, and when half the clientele of yet another cantina seemed to arrive right behind the Mando, subtlety had clearly packed its bags and gone home. I’m sure there were competent professionals in the mix somewhere. The amateurs simply announced everyone’s interest on their behalf.

All of that initially made me consider calling off our plans to rob the robbers, but after a little thought, I decided the entertainment could still go ahead—just under full concealment.

The thing was, our shuttle had gone from the Great Turtle to the Cramped Dorm, and I was not a fan. So I decided it was time to change ships. From the listings on Coruscant itself, I picked out three options: a cheap Gozanti-class light cruiser, a mid-priced Consular-class cruiser, and an expensive cruiser-transport. That last one confused me even after our Togruta tried to explain it—the Diamond class.

The Gozanti was pretty tempting for the price, even allowing for the upgrades it would need. But... forty-odd meters long. A bit cramped, if you ask me. Especially since, during the trip, I’d come up with a few ideas for magical modifications—and mana-pump seals need room.

The Consular was better. Over a hundred meters long, with spacious cabins, private showers, a lounge, and a dining area. Naturally, there was a lot more room to work with as well—though still not quite enough for everything I had in mind.

Both ships could manage just fine with a crew of two, but in an actual space battle there simply wouldn’t be enough hands. After scratching one of her montrals, Romri suggested buying droids instead—cheap ones, perfectly capable of replacing organics for the job. I had no desire to take on more people, especially since I had no idea when I’d be flying again after this little vacation. Sure, synthetics wouldn’t be as good as an experienced living crew, but they had one very convenient advantage: when I was done with them, I could simply switch them off and stick them in a corner until next time instead of paying a crew to sit around doing nothing.

But the Diamond class... now that flying cheburek* with engines, I liked! Two hundred by five hundred meters! Vast stretches of unused space in the cargo holds, and enormous potential to turn the thing—if not into a proper flying home, then at the very least into a mobile country estate. I could build genuinely spacious cabins, fit in a hangar, set up a library! But... expensive. Dozdrogodul take it! Nearly three million for a used one, and that was before modernization or rebuilding. Even a droid crew would cost somewhere around a hundred and fifty to two hundred thousand, and once the upgrades were factored in, we’d be looking at five million credits easily. Maybe six—the price of a brand-new ship.

Then there was another major downside besides the purchase price: the cost of keeping the thing running. A droid crew would save me a fortune in wages, sure, but repairs and maintenance bills weren’t going anywhere. Magical upgrades could extend the lifespan of the hull and some of the mechanical systems, but they’d also make shipyard maintenance a much bigger headache. And Jabiim didn’t even have a shipyard.

I wasn’t exactly thrilled by the prospect of rumors spreading that some sorcerer could reinforce armor, strengthen materials, and create alternatives to conventional starship shields—especially since I intended to do all of that to my permanent flying residence. Sure, I could probably get clever and find ways around the problem, but I had no desire to make life more complicated than it needed to be. Nor did I particularly want to spend my time fending off shipyard owners showering me with offers—or trying to kidnap me...

Personal protective gear was one thing. Ship-scale systems were something else entirely. We were already going to have a steady stream of interested parties showing up—some to buy from us and fatten the Guild’s coffers, others to try and lure our mages away. Though I suspected that second problem would mostly solve itself once the JMG started offering paid training to anyone willing to sign up.

Come to think of it... I’d have to talk to Alto about that. I wonder how much Kuat would be willing to pay us to train a mage in something as basic as reinforcement enchantments? It would take a year at most: a bare minimum of theory, the design for a simple mana-pump artifact, and a durability enchantment powered by it. Interesting idea. Still, there might be pitfalls I wasn’t seeing. Who knew what might occur to the corporate magnates once they realized they could potentially secure a monopoly on modifications like these?

Still, inspecting the Diamond-class cruiser was the main reason we chose to relocate to practically the other side of the planet for a few days—well away from both the Jedi Temple and the Senate building. According to Arvik, there were even more criminals down there in the lower levels, and far fewer Force-sensitives. Once we’d looked the ship over and made a final decision on our new ride, we could always go sightseeing among the local “attractions.”

So, in the end, all of us went—everyone except the droids. Oh, right. We’ve got two metal bores now... Shmi had another 3PO-series droid tucked away in her luggage, though hers was a civilian model. Her son had built it for her and given it to her before he left. Something had broken on Tatooine, and Skywalker never got around to fixing it—then we showed up, bought her out of slavery, and after that came the cramped shuttle. But on Coruscant, she finally managed to buy the part she needed and bring her son’s gift back to life.

Threepio, as Shmi called the droid, hit it off with our other metal bore almost immediately, doubling the amount of eye-rolling from the rest of us. I am never buying a droid from that series. Ever. Suti thought they were adorable, admittedly, but those electronic idiots drove me up the wall. And when the two of them started talking to each other... Brrr.

“Sir, may I?” An armored man poked his head into the office of the LCP** sector chief.

“Yes? What is it?” The broad-shouldered, mustached man behind the desk looked up at his subordinate with tired eyes. Gray was beginning to show in his hair, and his helmet sat off to one side.

“Another massacre, sir. Level 3012. Seventy bodies.”

“Fuck!” swore the solidly built, middle-aged man who had spent nearly three decades with the Lower Coruscant Police. “Who was it this time?”

“They shot up a bunch of dealers. I wouldn’t have bothered you, but the spice was left untouched. Nobody saw anything, nobody heard anything, and the whole ‘clinic’ was wiped out.”

“You move the spice?”

“Yes, sir. I called in the old hands. They handled it cleanly.”

“Right.” The chief rubbed a hand over his tired face. “Bring me everything you’ve got. Tell our people to keep their mouths shut for now. If this pans out, the boys get a bonus. And if anyone starts asking too many questions, you can quietly let it slip—off the record—that the fucking hospital got hit. Everyone inside was killed, the place was cleaned out, and we’re working the case.”

“Yes, sir!” The subordinate snapped off a salute, a note of satisfaction creeping into his voice. The old hand knew exactly how to handle things. And just as importantly, he never forgot to look after his own.

Left alone, the officer let out a heavy sigh. Dancing with a drunk bantha again. Risky, but profitable. The scheme itself was nothing new. Every now and then, the “medication” from one of these “clinics”—which were really just spice supermarkets with a medical sign out front—ended up in police custody. And from there... well. “The medicine needs to be returned to a medical facility.” “Do your best, officer.” That sort of thing.

Back when the mustached officer was younger, the whole business with spice had been enough to make his teeth grind. The upper levels were tolerable, at least. The lower ones were another matter entirely. Places like these “clinics” sold narcotics almost openly, feeding addicts everything from comparatively harmless relaxants to vicious chemical cocktails that could burn a body out in a matter of years.

And there was nothing anyone could do about it. Places like these were too well protected, and officers with an inconvenient excess of conscience had a curious habit of either changing their tune—or disappearing altogether.

It would have been funny if it weren’t so damn depressing, but down in the lower levels, the CSF** even provided places like these... “medical facilities” with protection from the more lawless gangs whenever their own muscle wasn’t enough for the job.

And he would return the spice to its owners—for a modest token of gratitude, of course. Chak Korl, one of his fellow officers, had needed a new arm prosthetic for a long time now, so the boys could certainly use the “bonus.” The same went for the money set aside for informants—the kind who knew when to keep quiet about certain things, so long as the police kept slipping them little “gifts” in return for favors that were not entirely legal. All he had to do was wait for the next gang shootout. Then his people would just happen to “discover” the missing spice at the scene.

For the past three days, what was presumably yet another vigilante crew had been operating in the officer’s district. This time, though, they seemed to know exactly what they were doing—wiping out gangs and drug dens with surgical precision and barely making a sound in the process.

The man allowed himself a thin, mean smile. Keep it up, boys. Don’t worry about the cops—we’re looking for you so hard we’ve just about worn grooves into the cantina seats. As for the reports going upstairs, he could hold those back for another two or three days without anyone getting too suspicious. The old cop was trying to handle it in-house, didn’t want to bother his superiors until he had something solid—all the usual bullshit. A reprimand was a fair enough price for letting someone clear a little trash out of his district.

“Buckethead, why the hell haven’t we been doing this ourselves?” Romri was sprawled across one of the beds in the guys’ room, lovingly polishing the credit chip that held her bonus for the job.

“Take your boots off,” the Mandalorian grumbled from his chair at the table. Romri was keeping her feet off the bed, but apparently that still wasn’t good enough for Arvik. With a long-suffering sigh, the Togruta started tugging off her boots, muttering under her breath about her commander. “Without the sorcerer covering for us, you’d have lost your lekku and had your montrals snapped off by the second or third run. And he already said this is the first and last time we’re doing anything like this.”

“That’s what I don’t understand,” Romri muttered, sounding genuinely baffled. “Sure, Coruscant is Coruscant. But it’s not like this is the only planet drowning in criminals.”

“Once coincidence turns into a pattern, that starts looking suspicious, though,” Koit chimed in, tinkering with the electronics inside his spear. “This time we came to Coruscant, went sightseeing, disappeared from view, and then... gangsters and spice dealers started dying while their accounts and secret stashes mysteriously emptied out. First time, folks just look at us funny. Second time, they start digging. Third time, they come hunting. Black Sun or the Pyke Syndicate would put two and two together real quick and start chasing that aurodium ass of yours. And that’s not even getting into Security or the Jedi...”

“Exactly,” the Mandalorian said with a nod. “And our employer doesn’t need that kind of headache. He’s busy saving up for his ‘floating castle.’”

“Mmm...” Romri drawled. “Fine, then. I’ll just call it a one-off side gig. A very profitable one.”

The Togruta looked down at the chip again and let out a heavy sigh. The thought that their little “fat bantha hunts” would soon be coming to an end saddened her more than she cared to admit. The sorcerer had said, “Nothing motivates like a cut of the profits,” and he faithfully handed each of his mercenaries a share of every haul. Romri, though, preferred to call what they were doing “good deeds.” Criminals down, credits up—look at it any way you liked, it was good all around.

“Oh, yeeeah,” the Gungan said with a grin. “Made a nice pile of credits, though. I already had Boss-sa help me find a plot on the coast, not far from the city where he lives. Gonna build myself a little place on the surface—and another one down below.”

“I thought you wanted me to talk to him?” the Togruta asked, surprised.

“Eh, what’s it matter? I only told him I was looking for someplace to settle down. Never said nothing about signing on. Our sorcerer looked pretty pleased when he heard I was interested, though. Me thinks that’s a good sign.”

“Yeah, pretty much,” the Mandalorian said with a grin. “Call it reconnaissance done. You gonna finish fiddling with that thing anytime soon? We’re heading out in an hour...”

“Yeah, yeah,” the Gungan said, snapping out of his thoughts and getting back to work on the spear. “Ten minutes, tops. Gonna have to swap the batteries soon, though. Another couple jobs and they’ll be done for, me thinks.”

“My friend, you don’t have many options,” I told yet another leader of yet another gang with a pleasant smile. “Either you transfer every credit you have to the accounts I give you, nice and painlessly, and we walk away... or you make this difficult and spend the last few minutes of your life helping me move the money anyway. Surely you can see how incredibly generous the first offer is. Especially if you take a good, long look at what happened to your friends.”

The local gang boss stared in horror as his recently deceased bodyguard tore into a man who was still very much alive—the same man he used to call his right hand. The victim couldn’t move his arms or legs. He was sobbing in pain and screaming himself hoarse. Not that any sound came out. Then the walking corpse glanced his way. The gang leader went white, then green, and a moment later began to smell distinctly unpleasant.

“Boss,” the Togruta beside me said with a downright creepy grin. Hmm... seven out of ten. She was improving. “Why don’t we just go with option two? Saves us wasting time trying to talk him into anything.”

“Well, you’ve got a point, my little aurodium treasure. Why make things complicated?” I gave the clever girl an approving grin and started raising a hand toward the criminal, who was drenched in cold sweat.

And that was pretty much it. The big guy started stammering out promises that he’d do everything we asked, just please, no option two. Then, in the most ingratiating tone he could manage, he asked whether we really were going to leave afterward and whether we really wouldn’t kill him. I answered quite honestly that we wouldn’t do anything else to him and that we would indeed leave. Why bother doing anything to a man who already had a death curse hanging over him—one that would trigger the moment he got more than ten meters away from me?

So ten minutes later, I had chips worth three hundred thousand credits in my pocket, and a little over a million more had landed in an anonymous account.

I thanked the gangster from the bottom of my heart, laid the zombie to rest now that it had finished mauling its accomplice to death, and we left the hospitable establishment behind. That was our last job. The local gang might have been the richest around, but it still answered directly to the Syndicate, and those were serious people. You could poke that kind of crowd in the ass with a fork, sure—but carefully. And preferably only once.

Jango stood in the office of a small-time gang leader, studying the man with some surprise. The gangster was clearly living out his final minutes. The Mandalorian had almost arrived too late: by the time he slipped into the gang’s territory, every last gunman was already dead. Fortunately, the boss was still alive.

The bounty hunter put a plasma bolt through the target’s head. Whatever had happened here didn’t matter. What mattered was that the “client” had ultimately died by a Mando’s hand. No one was going to ask him for a detailed report.

The job itself had been easy enough. Hiring Jango was more about making a statement than the difficulty of the work. Some local idiot had decided to defy the Pyke Syndicate, practically spitting in the faces of his patrons, and he’d done it publicly. So they sent Fett himself after the man’s head—a reminder that punishment was inevitable.

Lately, the Mandalorian had been trying to stick to jobs like this—low-risk ones. It didn’t always work out; his line of work wasn’t exactly known for being safe, but he did what he could. The last of Clan Fett was raising a son now: Boba. The boy was growing up on Kamino, where the bounty hunter’s main contract kept him. Dull work, for the most part, but it paid well enough. All for the clan. All for its rebirth. Jango had no intention of dying as the last Fett.

There was a world of difference between an entire clan falling in battle and meeting its end with honor, and being the last one left alive, forced to shoulder the burden of a choice: rebuild the clan or let it die with you. Jango had chosen the first. It would have been ridiculous to think that a warrior born of warriors would shy away from the hardships of restoring his clan. But... now he had to be far more careful. He needed to raise Boba, train him, and teach him what it truly meant to be a Mando. Ideally, he would raise another couple of children as well—even adopted ones would do—and live long enough to help with the children they would one day have in turn.

The bounty hunter sighed, once again feeling the weight of all the responsibilities waiting for him—responsibilities that had nothing to do with combat, the one place where he felt completely at home.

There was movement outside now, which was actually a good thing. Jango fired up his jetpack, made sure a couple of police officers caught a glimpse of him, and headed for the hidden transport he’d arranged for extraction. Yes, they would recognize the armor, but they wouldn’t be able to prove a thing. For all they knew, someone had simply decided to dress up as the galaxy’s top bounty hunter. The client, on the other hand, would know that the Mando had been there. All in all, things had gone pretty well. And the fact that the job had turned out easier than Jango expected was a bonus. It meant he could get back to Kamino—and to his son—that much sooner.

Obi-Wan Kenobi found himself thinking about his Padawan. Anakin was his first apprentice, and the circumstances that had placed the boy in his care had been... unconventional, to say the least. Right after Obi-Wan had been knighted, no less.

If he was being honest with himself, the newly minted Knight hadn’t planned on taking an apprentice anytime soon. A Padawan was meant to learn under a wise, experienced mentor—as Obi-Wan himself had under Qui-Gon. Knighthood, especially in those first few years, was supposed to be a time of learning to stand on one’s own.

The young Jedi had heard the same reasoning many times from older Knights, and he had always seen the wisdom in it. Taking a few knocks, making mistakes of his own, finding ways to make amends for them... those were things best gone through alone, perhaps with another Knight at his side, but not in front of a student for whom his Master was supposed to be an example.

And with Skywalker... yes, the boy was growing into a good young man, and the two of them got along remarkably well. But theirs was difficult to call a true Master-and-Padawan relationship. They felt more like two comrades, one simply older and more experienced than the other. Not that there was anything inherently wrong with that, but Obi-Wan often found himself aware of a certain lack of authority. Nothing serious, nothing critical—and yet the feeling lingered that, as a teacher, he was always falling just a little short. Just a fraction. The tiniest bit.

Now, though... his Padawan’s emotions were in turmoil as he read his mother’s letter over and over again. The first time through, the boy had actually burst into tears, though he’d tried to hide it from his Master.

Kenobi understood the boy. Jedi were not emotionless dolls, no matter what some people seemed to think. They felt joy and grief, and everything else that came with being alive. What mattered was that those emotions remain balanced—without violent surges, sudden peaks, or sharp swings. Self-control was one of the most important skills a member of the Order could possess, and calm, inner peace was the state they were expected to strive toward.

He and Master Yoda had discussed the letter. The teacher of teachers had left the final decision to Obi-Wan as Anakin’s Master, but advised that, if he chose to give it to the boy, he should allow him some time alone afterward. Anakin needed to come to terms with the fact that his mother was no longer a slave—that the fear which had been gnawing at him could finally be let go.

The Knight felt a little ashamed before the Grand Master over Skywalker’s emotions—or rather, over his own failure as a teacher to help his Padawan overcome them. But Yoda, reading him like an open book, merely gave him a kindly smile. “Your fault, the boy’s worry for his mother is not. Know this, I do. And know it, you do as well. Ashamed, you need not be. Late to the Order, your Padawan came.”

In the end, Obi-Wan gave Skywalker the letter—but only after word came that the sorcerer who had hired his mother had left Coruscant. It wasn’t that the Jedi feared his Padawan would do something foolish. He simply saw no reason to put temptation in the boy’s path.

“Thank you, Master,” Anakin’s voice pulled him from his thoughts. “Thank you for giving me her letter.”

Kenobi merely sighed as he looked into the teenager’s happy eyes.

“You’re welcome, Anakin. But I can’t take all the credit. Master Yoda gave the letter to me, and Master Siith gave it to him. He’s the one who bought your mother out of slavery, freed her, and gave her a job.”

“You’ve met him?” Hope lit up the boy’s eyes.

“No, I haven’t. The Masters spoke with him, though, and he didn’t leave a bad impression.” Obi-Wan decided that Master Rancisis’s description of Siith as “a rather cheerful sentient” was probably not something worth sharing with the boy. Still, there was nothing truly alarming about the man... Ahem. Well, aside from the unsettling smile, the way his speech occasionally slipped into something reminiscent of Masters Yoda and Yaddle, the jokes about autopsies, the Mandalorian company he kept, and the pet that killed by eating its victims from the inside out... Force, why did all of that sound so insane when put together? “He is rather unconventional, though. Then again, so are many gifted individuals.”

Author’s Note:

Cheburek* — Crimean or Caucasian meat pie.

CSF** — Coruscant Security Force. The Lower Coruscant Police (LCP) operated as part of the CSF.