Hey-Ho the Merry-O

[Tsu Ordan]

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Jakku____________________________________________________________________________

Cratertown Space Port​

________________________________________________________________________0900 hours​

"A-hunting we will go, a-hunting we will go..."

Tsu switched the comm channel to play into her commlink instead of through her ship's PA. She pulled her hood over her head as she moved from the cabin to the cargo hold, too focused on preparation to leave the ship to tell Shim to quit singing on her comms. The ship had come to rest peacefully and the ramp began to lower.

"Why would a sith come here, anyway?" Shim chirped into the comms.

Blogus responded-- from the engine room of the Wicked it sounded like, by the noise behind her voice. "Why would anyone go there, really?"

The hot, gritty air rushed into the hold of the ship as the ramp touched down to the ground of the landing pad, and Tsu beat back a scowl at the change. She had grown used to the clean temperate air of her ship and the space stations she frequented, and was estranged from the sandy atmosphere of the planets she grew up on. She pulled her scarf over her face until the breeze fell away, taking her first step down the ramp. The sun hit her face as though he had stepped into an oven, and she narrowed her eyes to scan the spaceport of the sparsely-populated planet.

"Hey, if you find the guy, ask him where they get their robes from. I was never able to get the stain out after Blogus tried her first Gamorrean Ale."

Tsu adjusted the volume of her commlink and grimaced at the voice in her ear. "Cut the chatter, Shim. Emergency only." No response came back, and she was fine with that. The crew back at the Wicked were initially very happy that Tsu wanted to play this one the cautious way; the boys had been expecting a hard-drop deployment into the unknown to hunt down a Sith. But Tsu knew they needed more intel on a target like this, and so she had the Wicked fall into a slow orbit and took her old ship Space Heater to the surface.

She had no idea what this former Sith could possibly have to do with Yuri, or why he would know anything about where he might have gone. All she knew for sure was the type of ship the Sith owned. It was a private vessel registered with an Empire prefix, and it carried licensed military-grade munitions; that meant the owner was high-level current or former Empire. A months-long effort to loosen the lips of a Daedalus dock worker earned her the ship's VID number, and that allowed her to track it by dock registry to the Shinto station where security wasn't so tight. There, Shim was able to get a bug inside the cargo bay by tacking it to some incoming cargo-- looked like some kind of junked vehicle parts-- that were loaded aboard. With the ship bugged, she followed its ping to see where it would end up; the ship stayed local for much of that time, until it plotted a course for the backwater planet of Jakku, and Tsu took the opportunity.

That ship was docked here now, and according to the ping on Tsu's datapad, the parts were still aboard the ship. The owner was taking his time, it seemed.

Leaving the docks behind, she moved into the dusty street and to get her bearings. It was late in the morning here, and the relatively few occupants of Cratertown were out and about. She checked the ping again-- still staying put-- and turned for the one mainstay she could count on in any settlement: the bar. Her feet carried her swiftly, and as she entered, she pulled down her scarf and took a look. There were more people here than she might have guessed were in the town altogether, not that she could blame them; booze beats hot sun and sand every day of the week. She stepped to the counter and leaned her elbows on it, idly wiping some of the grit from her face. The uthuthma bartender eventually came her way, and spoke in short phrases of broken commonspeak. "Drink?"

"Bourbon," she replied, pointing to a brown bottle behind the counter. She hoped one of the two indications would make sense to the alien barkeep. He seemed to understand, and turned to snatch up the bottle and a dingy glass; it clattered to the counter as he poured the amber liquid, his odd and hasty movements not indicative of his skill as a bartender. Tsu took the drink and held out her credit chit, which he scanned and moved on. Glass in hand, she swirled it a bit so that a clear film of the thick honey-colored liquid stuck to the sides of the glass, and turned to get a view of the other patrons. She didn't see anyone that resembled her mark, and few seemed to notice her presence. That suited her fine. Laying her datapad before her on the counter, she took a seat on a high stool and kept one foot on the ground, allowing herself to relax a moment. Save your energy and take a breath, she thought to herself, because you're f*cking with a Sith today.

 

[Livgardist]

"I'm looking for a Sith."

"Try one of the Imperial planets. They're more common than dirt there." Roe Gascard replied, the bartender growing impatient with the off-worlder. He saw his type all the time; bounty hunters and smugglers who came to Jakku and Cratertown to do their shady business out of sight of Imperial authorities. The problem was, they attracted Imperial ISB agents, which meant trouble, which was of course bad for business, and bad for Cratertown. In general, and specifically for this reason, off-worlders were generally not welcome in Cratertown, and often met by suspicion and hostility.

This off-worlder looked like trouble if Roe had ever seen it. He wore desert colored camouflage fatigues, with a ballistic vest, and carried more weapons and tactical tools than Roe cared to count - more than your average bounty hunter, or even a Mandalorian. It was off-putting, but what was even more so was the bomb he had just dropped in Roe's lap. Gascard was known as a highly skilled information broker on Jakku, but even he knew better than to get in the way of Sith or Imperials.

The man, however, didn't flinch at his words. He sipped his drink, and then shok his head.
"On Jakku. He would have arrived only a day ago. A private ship, Imperial plates." Roe shook his head as he wiped down the bar with a wet rag.

"I told you, stranger. I don't know anybody like that."

"I can pay well for the information." The man insisted. Roe reiterated:

"I can't tell you what I don't know."

The man let out a slight sigh as he looked around the bar, sipping his drink. He studied a few of the patrons subtly, but none of them were close enough to hear anything, nor did they look like they were watching the duo. There was a cute girl by the bar, ordering a drink from the Uthuthma bartender. She stuck out from the dirty looking Jakkuans. The stranger felt like he had seen her before, but he couldn't place the face off-hand. A tiny wrinkle appeared between his eyes on his forehead. Then his cold gray eyes turned back towards the human, Roe Gascard, and he spoke again.

"I'm trying to be patient with you." Gascard put down his rag, and met the gray eyes. Both men stared at each other in silence for several moments, two unyielding men, both with an exensive past history of violence. Finally, Gascard said:

"I won't tell you again. I can't help you."

"Very well." The stranger emptied his glass, stood up, and dropped a credit chip on the counter - a hundred credits, far too much for the cheap swill he had been served. Suddenly, he reached over the bar, grabbed Roe by his hair, and slammed his face down into the bar, nose first. Ther was a wet sound as cartilege gave way to the brute impact of solid plasteel, and Roe groaned in pain and surprise. A few patrons looked their way, but quickly looked away again when they met the eyes of the stranger, who quietly sat down again, though without letting go of Roe's hair. He leaned in closer, and said, reinforcing his words with a slight edge of Force manipulation, a trick he had learnt from a Jedi many, many, many years ago.

"A Sith. Imperial plates on a private ship. Goes by the name Lord Renard."

Between the pain and the Force manipulation, Roe finally gave in.

"He hired....ugh...a speeder early this morning. Headed north, out into the wastes."

"What is he looking for?" The stranger asked, his voice still a quiet murmur so as to not draw attention to himself.

"He asked for directions to a crashed Imperial star destroyer. I don't know why. I only gave him the coordinates." Roe yanked, trying to get free, but the stranger's grip was unrelenting. "I swear, that's all I know."

"Give me the coordinates."

Roe surrendered this last bit of information that he had. The stranger didn't write it down. He let go of Roe's hair, and the barman stood up and backed away with grasp of air. The stranger stood up, and said:

"Keep the tip."

There was no emotion in his body motions as he walked through the cantina towards the exit. It was as if nothing had happened. As he passed her, his eyes for a brief moment met with those of the girl by the bar, but he neither acknowledged her presence with a nod nor a word. As he looked away, he yet again had the feeling he had seen her before. Not met her, but seen her, somewhere, somehow...

As he stepped outside, he stopped, and looked down at his hands. They were trembling. He gritted his teeth.

Cobalt never showed any emotion, nor did he let it affect his actions, or his work. Never used force to extort information, unless it was the absolutely last resort. This was different though. This Sith, he had a history with Cobalt. It was a man that had been targeted by COBALT, the organization, no less than three times during the existence of the secretive group. All three times, he had survived and escaped - but the last time, which was worse, he had also killed four COBALT operators, one of them a good friend of Cobalt's. Cobalt himself had never had the chance to participate in any of the operations against Lord Renard, which only added to his desire to find and kill the wretched Sith.

He took a deep breath, and his hands immediately stopped shaking. Adjusting his combat vest slightly, he made course towards his speeder.

 

[Tsu Ordan]

There wasn't much in the way of a datanet news network for Jakku. The whole planet seemed like a disjointed broken connection from the rest of the galaxy, like it was dropped into a corner of space and forgotten about. She sighed as she swiped through panels on her datapad searching for a place to start without having to flip over any rocks, when there was a disruption down the bar. As her face hovered over the datapad, cheek resting on her palm with her elbow on the bar, she turned her eyes upward to nonchalantly observe the spectacle. Just as she began paying attention, the barkeep's face made contact with the bar; the sudden crash made her jump, and her moment of rest was over. Just the sound of a fight made her adrenaline surge, and she lifted her face from her hand and sat still for a moment, watching.

The crowd in the bar was startled, but as their gasps turned to an intrigued hush, Tsu believed she heard the word "Imperial" and began listening intently as best she could from her distance. The barkeep, his head still pinned to the counter, murmured some unintelligible words that Tsu inferred were coordinates, and the man released his hostage. He even had the courtesy to pay for his drink, and then some. Tsu grinned crookedly at his style.

She tucked her datapad into her pouch and took a sip of the drink as she stood-- but she recoiled as she realized that whatever was in the brown bottle was definitely not bourbon, and dropped the glass of repulsive liquid to the counter. Evidently it was a bit too hard, and the glass broke, leaving the brown alcohol all over the counter. The alien bartender turned his attention to her and made some kind of complaint in his language, throwing his arms in the air; Tsu pointed at the stranger's hundred-credit chit on the counter and said, "No, it's okay-- it's on his tab." With that, she slipped through the door.

The man was headed towards a parked speeder, looked like. Perfect. She took a few long strides to catch up to him before calling out, "Hey, stranger. Give a girl a ride?" She put on her best, most wicked grin and brushed the dark hair from her steel eyes as she closed the distance between them. "The wastes up north are a dangerous place, and I could use a big, strong man to protect little ol' me. You know, in case any dodgy bartenders get in my way."

Tsu hoped what little charm she had was enough, because she needed his intel and his speeder, and a capable hand might be invaluable for the fight she probably had a head of her.

 

[Livgardist]

"Hey, stranger. Give a girl a ride?" The voice pulled Cobalt to a stop, and made him look over his shoulder. He wasn't surprised - it was almost as if it was meant to happen, as if he shoiuld have expected it - when he saw the beautiful girl from the bar, a wicked grin playing on her lips. He tensed just slightly as she came closer, but his body relaxed quickly, if only not to tip her off on anything. She didn't seem to have noticed, as she pressed on; "The wastes up north are a dangerous place, and I could use a big, strong man to protect little ol' me. You know, in case any dodgy bartenders get in my way."

Cobalt closed his eyes for a moment, then offered an apologetic smile;
"You saw that, huh? I don't usually assault innocent people like that." He continued; "I doubt you need anybody's protection, ma'am. Nonetheless, I can't jeopardize the life of a civilian. My apologies."

He turned to leave, approaching his airspeeder, considering the conversation over. He opened the side hatch, and rummaged through the equipment in the back seat, all of it confined to his backpack, making sure he had everything he needed for the job. He had a high calibre sniper rifle tucked into the back seat as well, a trusted old companion from his days in COBALT. It was highly effective against force users, but this particular Sith? It would probably not even scratch the man. No, this one would have to be finished up close, and personal. There was a ball of tension in the pit of Cobalt's stomach.

He threw a glance over his shoulder to the girl, adding;
"There's a speeder bus leaving for Tuanul in an hour. That would be your best bet if you need to go north, ma'am. It's a lot safer than where I'm going."

 

[Tsu Ordan]

Tsu was surprised. Not many people blew her off these days, and fewer still called her a civilian. She hadn't been a civilian since she had become a galactic criminal-- at least, not to any of the lawdogs she'd tangled with. Still, this guy was a man on a mission, and she could respect that-- in fact, that was exactly what she needed, and it was about to drive away.

Just as his dismissive words left his lips, Tsu called out, "You tracked his ship here, didn't you?" She hoped that would grab his attention. "I did, too. And if that beautiful longgun there tells me anything, it's that you're here to end him. Or to try, at least."

Tsu paused for a moment, then opened her arms and added teasingly, "So you gonna give a girl a ride, or am I gonna keep shouting sensitive details across the desert?"

 

[Livgardist]

Cobalt was about to climb up into the speeder when the girl called out to him:
"You tracked his ship here, didn't you?" His face frowned slightly. She pressed on. "I did, too. And if that beautiful longgun there tells me anything, it's that you're here to end him. Or to try, at least." Cobalt let go of the rails on the sides of the step leading into the speeder, and stepped back down to the sand. He looked her over once more, as if sizing her up to see how well she matched her latest words.

"So you gonna give a girl a ride, or am I gonna keep shouting sensitive details across the desert?"

Cobalt had not worked with another operator for the last twelve years, not since the Galactic Alliance had fallen, and COBALT had been disbanded. Over time, he had become accustomed to working alone. COBALT's members had scattered all across the galaxy after the end of the war, and even then, in an organization like COBALT, few operators knew the real names of their comrades.

He jerked his head towards the speeder, and as he climbed up, he said;
"I will try to ensure your safety, ma'am. You may come aboard."

As he took his seat in the pilot's seat and started switching knobs and pressing buttons, the engines began to whine as they came alive. As the girl closed the hatch behind her, he spoke loudly to overvoice the now roaring engines. He pushed the throttle forward, and slowly, the speeder took air and began to propell itself forward. As he did, he spoke with a loud voice, to be heard over the noise of the engines;

"I hope you take no offense if I don't offer you my name. However, you may call me Cobalt."

@Tribunal Power

 

[Tsu Ordan]

Tsu wasted no time in clambering aboard the speeder. She took a seat beside him and turned to give him a sly smile, shrugging at his disdain for introductions. "What a colorful name," she mused teasingly. "Call me Tsu. Good to meet you."

As the speeder whipped across the sand, travel dust began to blast the windshield and some of it made it past. She dropped her goggles over her eyes to protect them and pulled her scarf a bit higher over he mouth, but kept it far enough to be able to communicate. "I don't imagine that you'll share your reasons for hunting this bastard, but I'll make a deal with you," she began. "The target has some Intel that I need. If you help me get it out of him, not only will I help you kill him, but I won't even concern myself with whatever contract or payment you've got lined up. Deal?"