Assassination or Slavery

[Tank]

Lirax was trembling in fear. Lirax felt at the end of his rope. He was being cornered by three men and there was no one here to save him. Where were the police? Where was the security?

"Two million credits you say?" Lirax was getting even more nervous now. Between paying for his security, the apartment, and charter; he only had one and a half million left.

"What if I gave each of you five hundred thousand credits?" Lirax knew he was pushing his luck but the three mercenaries might just take the deal. Five hundred thousand credits might be more than any of these guys had ever seen or dream of seeing in their life time. Lirax pulled out three identical high value credichips out of his pocket.

"Take them, tell your boss, Jet, that I was killed and that you took all the credits you could find. Do it and we'll never see each other again I promise!" Lirax attempted to smile but it came out in a nervous, visibly uncomfortable snort.

This was Lirax's last ploy. If this didn't work he truly was cornered. He had no more moves up his sleeve.

 

[Fantasy Liver]

Audric kept the Muun pinned down but nonetheless whistled at the sight of so much money that could be potentially his for the taking. However, he regained his composure and looked at the other two - unsure of what to do.

 

[Ten10dix]

Karl hesitated, but only briefly. 500,000 credits was not something to be turned down lightly, but turned down it must be. He loved money. He lived for money. More money, as he liked to say, was always a good thing.

However, he did not want to have a reputation as someone who will simply sell himself out to the highest bidder. He probably would, but only if said bidder was powerful enough. This Muun was not. He heard the Abyssin whistle. A sudden fear overcame him. While he himself was disciplined and smart enough to know that, tempting as this offer may be, it had to be turned down, what of the other two brutes? Could they be trusted? He doubted it.

He quickly stepped back, raising his gun to point at the Abyssin's head. He spoke loudly and clearly, but also with a reassuring tone. He didn't want anyone to do anything rash, after all.

"We are professionals. Bribery is above us. Either complete the job we all came here to do or I shall be forced to eliminate you."

He glanced over at Viktor.

"You're dazed, your reactions are slow. I will know whether or not you will attack me and will be able to stop you before you can do anything."

It was their choice. Either they kept to the job and they all came out of this happily ever after, or they don't and someone was going to get hurt. Of course, what they didn't know was that Karl was a horrible fighter. He put on a very tough front to dissuade them from turning on him, but he knew that if he spotted any hostile movement, he would run for his life. He briefly wondered that, if they did go back on their word, whether or not he would be hired to hunt them down. That would be ironic.

 

[Fantasy Liver]

The Abyssin honestly would have backed down if his teammate asked him to, albeit grumbling and perhaps with a surreptitious pocketing of some of the Muun's credit chips. But when Karl whipped out a gun, Audric lost it.

"You think you can tell me what to do!?!" Audric almost screamed, though he did not raise a fist or blaster due to the gun against his head.

"Get the kriffing gun out of my face!"

 

[Saul Perth]

Standing calmly between the two, Viktor made a show of slowly raising his hands away from the pistols on his hip, but stopped his left once his wrist was angled at Karl.

"Dizzy or not, I'm no fool, and I don't have to aim." He said in the same cold voice, referencing the inbuilt flamethrower now pointed at the man. "Now why don't you drop that gun and start walking away, slowly, before I get a bit more hot tempered."

 

[Tank]

Lirax watched as the situation grew more and more intense as the moments passed by. The one mercenary had pulled a gun on the other two. Then the one in body armor turned his wrist flamethrower on the same man. The third bounty hunter was yelling in a low and gravely voice. Lirax's emotions went from frightened to almost jubilant. He might, just might, be able to continue to turn these men against each other. If he could get them fighting he might just be able to slip away in the scuffle. He was no longer pleading for his life but gambling on his escape.

"Of course not all of you may have survived the scuffle...I did hire a professional body guard after all. Maybe he killed one of you? Maybe two of you? 1.5 Million credits can get men of your stature very, very far in this day and age." Lirax proposed keeping a straight face and playing up the situation as good as he could.

 

[Fantasy Liver]

Audric suddenly turned his tenseness and anger towards Lirax and smacked him upside the head...again.

"You keep quiet. This doesnt concern you, Muun." Audric spat. Then he turned back towards Viktor.

"Let's think this over a bit now, huh?" he started. "We take this guy out" he said, gesturing to Karl "And we get 750. That aint a bad deal. And we could still keep our jobs if we spun the story good enough."

 

[Ten10dix]

Karl was almost regretting turning his pistol on the two mercenaries. If they were after the credits, they would have killed him off immediately. The fact that they had not made any move against him seemed to suggest they would keep their word.

That is, until the Abyssin suggested they take him out and keep the credits for themselves. It was at that moment Karl knew he had made the right choice where the Abyssin was concerned. But what about the other mercenary? Viktor was angry at the thread Karl had issued, understandably, but he had made no mention of whether he wanted to take the bribe or not. The Muun started talk, but the Abyssin told to stop before Karl could. Keeping his full attention on Audric, Karl began to speak to Viktor.

"I am only trying to get the job done. I wasn't sure whether you could be trusted, 500K is quite a large sum. You would have done the same were you in my position. I heard you mercenary types have a sense of honor. I would like it if both of you appealed to it. Loyalty is a respected virtue in the Underworld, and I can assure you turning this bribe down will make you look very good to our employers.

If you cannot, then let me persuade you using logic. Do you really thing anyone is going to believe the money was simply "lost"? Do you really think that the M.U. will simply dismiss this? An agent such as myself dying on an easy mission such as this and all the money vanishing would raise quite a few eyebrows. I'm certain both of you are very capable in a fight, but I doubt the M.U. will let you walk away with their money. They'll send people after you, and those people will kill you. You know why I'm not taking my 500K share from him right now? Because I value my life, and I know that it is not worth any amount of credits."

As a sign of good faith, he lowered his blaster pistol. He very dearly hoped they would be convinced by his arguments, which were all very valid anyway. He knew more than anyone, however, that Greed was a powerful motivator. Hell, it was only the fear of being hunted down by the M.U. that kept him from going along with it all. Fear and Greed balanced each other out quite nicely, he thought.

 

[Saul Perth]

As Trevor lowered his pistol, Viktor dropped his arm.

"Fair enough, we still have a job to do."

The merc turned to face the Muun.

"And since you can't pay up completely, we get to take a little walk."

He grabbed the Muun and slapped a single cuff on his wrist.

"I press the trigger and you'll get enough volts to drop a rabid Wookiee, don't know what would happen to you. Play along and we won't find out."