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Janus.
.
This particular night was a low point in Janus’ life. He was on his back, staring up at the currently storm filled sky of Corellia as three republic grunts kicked the ever living force out of him. The water pooling in the gutter he was lying in had turned crimson from the blood leaking from his various wounds, not least the smashed up mess that had once been a nose. Satisfyingly fat raindrops blinked into his eyes and soaked what little clothing the gutter mix had yet to seep through. He was blind, he was numb. He the soothing balm of unconsciousness beckoned.
He felt a rib crack, though it hardly hurt anymore such were the extent of his injuries and the level to which he had inebriated himself beforehand. His mind was elsewhere, dwelling on what exactly had led to this dismal, uneventful ending. What had he said again?
It started with a drink, it always seemed to.
The job itself had gone so smoothly. A suave suit, a few honeyed words and a pistol in the small of someone’s back had been all the force Janus needed to carry out the hit - some dug casino owner up to his eyeballs in debt to the wrong crowd. Janus had killed him, sent video proof to his client and taken a bottle from the dug’s private stash he liked the look of as a bonus. From there he had taken his prize to a nearby bar, there to enjoy himself and reflect on the sensation of fine whisky rolling down the back of one’s throat.
They had taken a disliking to him immediately. Some ruffian in the corner of a soldier’s bar drinking from his own bottle and leering at the bar staff - with the benefit of hindsight and the clemency granted by imminent death Janus decided he really had been asking for a beating. Still, the situation might have been defused had he said something diplomatic, something passive to take the spark out of the situation. Even at that point he could have sidestepped.
But he hadn’t said anything diplomatic, nor had he come across as passive. That would have been intelligent. What was it again? Something about democracy and shit, but the specifics escaped his addled mind.
Another boot connected with his jaw and his mind was brought violently back to the gutter at the end of the world. His head snapped to the side, whiplash burning through his neck. It hurt, but nearly so much as it should. He decided that must be his body shutting down, this was it.
Janus closed his eyes and waited to die.
The drop ship lurched and bucked under the stresses of re-entry, the old and frankly ill maintained hull reaching critical temperatures as the bulky craft negotiated the upper atmosphere of Mygeeto. Janus held on firmly to the overhead rail, watching the ominous yellow light over the sliding hatch and waiting patiently for it to flash green. Mentally he went over their plan: Take out the air defences in the first pass, circle back and hot drop his fireteam into the centre of the Neimoidian compound that was their target. How he had landed himself a triple cut he had no idea, but he thanked his lucky stars - for some reason Gaguula had wanted an experienced hand in charge of the grunts, and that just so happened to be Janus. Assuming he survived the drop and ensuing killing floor of the compound he’d be a rich man, at least until he paid his debts.
The rifle in his left hand felt reassuringly heavy, the armour plates he wore even moreso. They were simple metal woven into the fabric of his clothing, incapable of deflecting anything other than a glancing blow, but he didn’t let that put out his optimism. One last job and he was out, and this was that job. If he paid his debts.
A burst of static from the cockpit woke him from his reverie. He missed what the grizzled old twilek was saying but he assumed it was the preliminary strafing run beginning. The familiar pit-pat of small arms fire spanking into armoured hull echoed through the troop transport for a few seconds before it was drowned out by the thunderous chatter of the craft’s ancient flechette cannon opening up. A low rumble that was probably some kind of explosion came from somewhere beneath them and a couple of the other mercenaries he had been placed in charge of grunted in approval. Janus grinned, this was going to turn out fine.
The dropship rocked as a massive impact slammed into it, throwing everyone but Janus to the floor - he had managed to maintain his grip on the overhead bar. Warning klaxons blared through the cramped space and warning lights flashed, bathing them all in intermittent crimson light. It was obvious that they were losing altitude quickly, crashing most likely.
Another blurt of static from the cockpit and this time Janus didn’t need to hear what the pilot was saying at all, there was only one thing to do. He dropped his rifle and braced himself for the inevitable, shutting his eyes and loosening his jaw so as to not shatter every tooth in his head. He didn't have time to check if everyone else had the sense to do the same, it was only moments before -
The impact was bone shattering, tearing his hands from the overhead bar and sending Janus sprawling. The world was, for a moment, nothing more than a swirling kaleidoscope of flashing red, metallic plating and tumbling mercenaries. Fire sprang from somewhere, catching one of them ablaze in a matter of seconds. His screaming was horrible as he died.
Finally the craft screeched to a halt and Janus was able to stagger to some semblance of a standing position. The craft was on its back, that much was obvious from the fact that the smashed remains of the door light were now beneath the sliding hatch. He hit the emergency door release and, mercifully, was rewarded with the pneumatic hiss of compressed gas blasting the hatch from its railings. It hit the concrete floor with a clang, and Janus hauled himself from the wreckage before the now quickly spreading fire could claim him too.
He hit the surface of Mygeeto belly first, winding himself. He heard boots hit the deck behind him, no doubt one of his comrades. Ironically it was his failure to keep his feet that saved his life - blasters barked from somewhere above him and the mercenary hit the floor beside him, a cauterised crater of melted wax and jutting bone where his face once was.
There was only one thing to do. Janus rolled to the side, scrambled to his feet and sprinted around to the side of the blazing gunship that wasn’t facing angry neimoidian drug runners. He was joined a second later by another two mercs - one limping with a shrapnel wound to the thigh and the other some mandalorian by the look of her armour. Three survivors from a drop team of six: Not bad considering their dropship had taken such a bad hit.
That said two mercs and a wounded man without any element of surprise were just not enough for the plan they’d had in mind. Their extraction was now a fiery grave for their four other comrades, and also served as the only source of cover between them and certain death at the barrels of ten or more blasters. Their one reprieve was that the heavy blaster tower that had been the most dangerous defence the compound possessed was a smoking wreckage, at least the gunship had managed to take that out before it was downed.
Janus took stock, appraising his comrades and making mental note of his own gear: He was unarmed save for his trusty skinning knife that had remained in its boot sheath through the crash, but aside from that was relatively unharmed. The wounded merc appeared to be a Nautolan, carrying a pistol and a satchel of grenades but gasping for air and bleeding heavily. The mandalorian had come out best of all of them - still heavily armoured and toting a dangerous looking rifle, though she seemed unsteady on her feet as if suffering from concussion.
He risked a peek out from behind the dropship. The quickest headcount of his life counted nine shooters: less than he’d feared but more than he’d hoped. They were on the other side of the courtyard, too far to charge by a fair way and they were utterly outgunned. He pulled his head back behind cover as shots whined past his ear, but he was grinning again. He could do this.
“Mando, take the explosive satchel - here, let me take your rifle you can’t shoot straight right now as it is.” He didn’t know her name, but he didn’t need to. She complied, perhaps through discipline, or maybe simply thanks to her concussion, and looked at him blankly through her helmet. He nodded and gestured towards the Neimoidians. “On three.”
The wounded nautolan stood idly by, bemused at whatever Janus was planning. When the violent shove came, bemusement turned to shock as he was bowled off his feet, and then to pain as blaster bolts tore him to pieces. The alien never saw it coming.
“Three!”
Janus wasted no time, and neither did the mandalorian. She hefted the explosives up and over the blazing wreckage, sending them sailing off over the horizon. Janus watched them go for a heartbeat, before taking a breath and stepping out of cover.
The neimoidians saw the first mercenary break cover and as one trained their sights on him. He stumbled over, as if off balance, and they wasted no time. Automatic blaster fire riddled the nautolan, killing him instantly. Not one of them saw the backpack full of explosives sailing through the sky. By the time the second mercenary broke cover and they wheeled about to kill him, it was already too late.
One actually managed to get a shot off, but not before Janus.
The explosion blasted both Janus and the mandalorian off their feet, catapulting them backwards and flattening them. It was several seconds before Janus’ ears stopped ringing and he could turn his head to look at the mandalorian. There was a spar of metal skewering her into the ground through a gap in her plates around the midriff. As for himself, he looked down at his body. There was a scorch mark on his chest plate from where the one shot had miraculously bounced off, and he was otherwise unharmed, if dazed. He laid his head back, taking time to rest. It was a victory, of sorts.
The compound was no more, the Neimoidians he had been hired to kill were dead. Unfortunately his team were too, including their only way out before the authorities detected the firefight and moved in. If he was honest with himself, the whole situation was a mess.
Janus closed his eyes and waited for the authorities to come. A short life in prison beckoned.
Raindrops brought him to. Janus blinked away the water and rolled over, excruciating pain lancing through every inch of his body. Struggling to his knees, and finally to his unsteady feet, Janus looked around him. A back alley on Corellia, his ankles submerged in a sticky mixture of water and blood. Thunder rolled by in the background, he torrential rain relentless. At his feet were three corpses, one with a snapped neck, one with a skinning knife in his neck and the other with her brains dashed against a wall. He spat a thick string of gore and spit into the gutter, and painfully walked away from the scene. Wordlessly he clambered onto a parked swoop bike and clumsily hot wired it with numb fingers. He didn’t care about the people stopping and pointing, or the faint sound of sirens approaching.
Everything always, always ended the same way.
NAME: Janus Werner
AGE: 30's
SPECIES: Human
FACTION: None
OCCUPATION: Vagabond.
HEIGHT: 6'4
WEIGHT: 196lbs.
HAIR COLOR: Medium brown, streaked with grey.
EYE COLOR: Dark green.
AGE: 30's
SPECIES: Human
FACTION: None
OCCUPATION: Vagabond.
HEIGHT: 6'4
WEIGHT: 196lbs.
HAIR COLOR: Medium brown, streaked with grey.
EYE COLOR: Dark green.
This particular night was a low point in Janus’ life. He was on his back, staring up at the currently storm filled sky of Corellia as three republic grunts kicked the ever living force out of him. The water pooling in the gutter he was lying in had turned crimson from the blood leaking from his various wounds, not least the smashed up mess that had once been a nose. Satisfyingly fat raindrops blinked into his eyes and soaked what little clothing the gutter mix had yet to seep through. He was blind, he was numb. He the soothing balm of unconsciousness beckoned.
He felt a rib crack, though it hardly hurt anymore such were the extent of his injuries and the level to which he had inebriated himself beforehand. His mind was elsewhere, dwelling on what exactly had led to this dismal, uneventful ending. What had he said again?
It started with a drink, it always seemed to.
The job itself had gone so smoothly. A suave suit, a few honeyed words and a pistol in the small of someone’s back had been all the force Janus needed to carry out the hit - some dug casino owner up to his eyeballs in debt to the wrong crowd. Janus had killed him, sent video proof to his client and taken a bottle from the dug’s private stash he liked the look of as a bonus. From there he had taken his prize to a nearby bar, there to enjoy himself and reflect on the sensation of fine whisky rolling down the back of one’s throat.
They had taken a disliking to him immediately. Some ruffian in the corner of a soldier’s bar drinking from his own bottle and leering at the bar staff - with the benefit of hindsight and the clemency granted by imminent death Janus decided he really had been asking for a beating. Still, the situation might have been defused had he said something diplomatic, something passive to take the spark out of the situation. Even at that point he could have sidestepped.
But he hadn’t said anything diplomatic, nor had he come across as passive. That would have been intelligent. What was it again? Something about democracy and shit, but the specifics escaped his addled mind.
Another boot connected with his jaw and his mind was brought violently back to the gutter at the end of the world. His head snapped to the side, whiplash burning through his neck. It hurt, but nearly so much as it should. He decided that must be his body shutting down, this was it.
Janus closed his eyes and waited to die.
The drop ship lurched and bucked under the stresses of re-entry, the old and frankly ill maintained hull reaching critical temperatures as the bulky craft negotiated the upper atmosphere of Mygeeto. Janus held on firmly to the overhead rail, watching the ominous yellow light over the sliding hatch and waiting patiently for it to flash green. Mentally he went over their plan: Take out the air defences in the first pass, circle back and hot drop his fireteam into the centre of the Neimoidian compound that was their target. How he had landed himself a triple cut he had no idea, but he thanked his lucky stars - for some reason Gaguula had wanted an experienced hand in charge of the grunts, and that just so happened to be Janus. Assuming he survived the drop and ensuing killing floor of the compound he’d be a rich man, at least until he paid his debts.
The rifle in his left hand felt reassuringly heavy, the armour plates he wore even moreso. They were simple metal woven into the fabric of his clothing, incapable of deflecting anything other than a glancing blow, but he didn’t let that put out his optimism. One last job and he was out, and this was that job. If he paid his debts.
A burst of static from the cockpit woke him from his reverie. He missed what the grizzled old twilek was saying but he assumed it was the preliminary strafing run beginning. The familiar pit-pat of small arms fire spanking into armoured hull echoed through the troop transport for a few seconds before it was drowned out by the thunderous chatter of the craft’s ancient flechette cannon opening up. A low rumble that was probably some kind of explosion came from somewhere beneath them and a couple of the other mercenaries he had been placed in charge of grunted in approval. Janus grinned, this was going to turn out fine.
The dropship rocked as a massive impact slammed into it, throwing everyone but Janus to the floor - he had managed to maintain his grip on the overhead bar. Warning klaxons blared through the cramped space and warning lights flashed, bathing them all in intermittent crimson light. It was obvious that they were losing altitude quickly, crashing most likely.
Another blurt of static from the cockpit and this time Janus didn’t need to hear what the pilot was saying at all, there was only one thing to do. He dropped his rifle and braced himself for the inevitable, shutting his eyes and loosening his jaw so as to not shatter every tooth in his head. He didn't have time to check if everyone else had the sense to do the same, it was only moments before -
The impact was bone shattering, tearing his hands from the overhead bar and sending Janus sprawling. The world was, for a moment, nothing more than a swirling kaleidoscope of flashing red, metallic plating and tumbling mercenaries. Fire sprang from somewhere, catching one of them ablaze in a matter of seconds. His screaming was horrible as he died.
Finally the craft screeched to a halt and Janus was able to stagger to some semblance of a standing position. The craft was on its back, that much was obvious from the fact that the smashed remains of the door light were now beneath the sliding hatch. He hit the emergency door release and, mercifully, was rewarded with the pneumatic hiss of compressed gas blasting the hatch from its railings. It hit the concrete floor with a clang, and Janus hauled himself from the wreckage before the now quickly spreading fire could claim him too.
He hit the surface of Mygeeto belly first, winding himself. He heard boots hit the deck behind him, no doubt one of his comrades. Ironically it was his failure to keep his feet that saved his life - blasters barked from somewhere above him and the mercenary hit the floor beside him, a cauterised crater of melted wax and jutting bone where his face once was.
There was only one thing to do. Janus rolled to the side, scrambled to his feet and sprinted around to the side of the blazing gunship that wasn’t facing angry neimoidian drug runners. He was joined a second later by another two mercs - one limping with a shrapnel wound to the thigh and the other some mandalorian by the look of her armour. Three survivors from a drop team of six: Not bad considering their dropship had taken such a bad hit.
That said two mercs and a wounded man without any element of surprise were just not enough for the plan they’d had in mind. Their extraction was now a fiery grave for their four other comrades, and also served as the only source of cover between them and certain death at the barrels of ten or more blasters. Their one reprieve was that the heavy blaster tower that had been the most dangerous defence the compound possessed was a smoking wreckage, at least the gunship had managed to take that out before it was downed.
Janus took stock, appraising his comrades and making mental note of his own gear: He was unarmed save for his trusty skinning knife that had remained in its boot sheath through the crash, but aside from that was relatively unharmed. The wounded merc appeared to be a Nautolan, carrying a pistol and a satchel of grenades but gasping for air and bleeding heavily. The mandalorian had come out best of all of them - still heavily armoured and toting a dangerous looking rifle, though she seemed unsteady on her feet as if suffering from concussion.
He risked a peek out from behind the dropship. The quickest headcount of his life counted nine shooters: less than he’d feared but more than he’d hoped. They were on the other side of the courtyard, too far to charge by a fair way and they were utterly outgunned. He pulled his head back behind cover as shots whined past his ear, but he was grinning again. He could do this.
“Mando, take the explosive satchel - here, let me take your rifle you can’t shoot straight right now as it is.” He didn’t know her name, but he didn’t need to. She complied, perhaps through discipline, or maybe simply thanks to her concussion, and looked at him blankly through her helmet. He nodded and gestured towards the Neimoidians. “On three.”
The wounded nautolan stood idly by, bemused at whatever Janus was planning. When the violent shove came, bemusement turned to shock as he was bowled off his feet, and then to pain as blaster bolts tore him to pieces. The alien never saw it coming.
“Three!”
Janus wasted no time, and neither did the mandalorian. She hefted the explosives up and over the blazing wreckage, sending them sailing off over the horizon. Janus watched them go for a heartbeat, before taking a breath and stepping out of cover.
The neimoidians saw the first mercenary break cover and as one trained their sights on him. He stumbled over, as if off balance, and they wasted no time. Automatic blaster fire riddled the nautolan, killing him instantly. Not one of them saw the backpack full of explosives sailing through the sky. By the time the second mercenary broke cover and they wheeled about to kill him, it was already too late.
One actually managed to get a shot off, but not before Janus.
The explosion blasted both Janus and the mandalorian off their feet, catapulting them backwards and flattening them. It was several seconds before Janus’ ears stopped ringing and he could turn his head to look at the mandalorian. There was a spar of metal skewering her into the ground through a gap in her plates around the midriff. As for himself, he looked down at his body. There was a scorch mark on his chest plate from where the one shot had miraculously bounced off, and he was otherwise unharmed, if dazed. He laid his head back, taking time to rest. It was a victory, of sorts.
The compound was no more, the Neimoidians he had been hired to kill were dead. Unfortunately his team were too, including their only way out before the authorities detected the firefight and moved in. If he was honest with himself, the whole situation was a mess.
Janus closed his eyes and waited for the authorities to come. A short life in prison beckoned.
Raindrops brought him to. Janus blinked away the water and rolled over, excruciating pain lancing through every inch of his body. Struggling to his knees, and finally to his unsteady feet, Janus looked around him. A back alley on Corellia, his ankles submerged in a sticky mixture of water and blood. Thunder rolled by in the background, he torrential rain relentless. At his feet were three corpses, one with a snapped neck, one with a skinning knife in his neck and the other with her brains dashed against a wall. He spat a thick string of gore and spit into the gutter, and painfully walked away from the scene. Wordlessly he clambered onto a parked swoop bike and clumsily hot wired it with numb fingers. He didn’t care about the people stopping and pointing, or the faint sound of sirens approaching.
Everything always, always ended the same way.
