The less than subtle lilt of what had once been Bespin’s second largest city, Tibannopolis, was, in a word, a pain. Everything was either uphill or downhill and heaven forbid you drop a bag of credits. If you did not dive to the ground to stop them from rolling away, you were sure to attract some unwanted vagabond who would just as soon shank you as help themselves to your dropped change; and they seemed to come out of nowhere. Even as he moved through the empty trash-strewn streets of the lilting ghost town, Xim Zhan was absolutely sure he was not alone.
He huffed as he made his way uphill away from the abandoned city center and toward the highest point, and still functioning repulsorlifts, of the aimlessly drifting city. For now, it drifted low and deep within the habitable zone of Bespin’s gaseous clouds. Still, the weak sunlight would be a welcome site. The whole trip had been nothing but a disaster. Contracted to make a delivery of a rather unruly bunch of hunting birds, things turned south just as soon as the Mandalorian had offloaded the shipment. Outnumbered and outgunned, the shadowy group of contractors he was supposed to meet apparently took a greater liking to his less-than-legally commandeered freighter. Staring down a handful of disruptors and red laser dots from a trio of distant rifles was enough to make Xim not put up a much of a fight. The preplanned double-cross had not grown to fruition as Xim had hoped and whoever wanted the birds had been out of luck as the next link in the chain promptly took off in Xim’s stolen freighter leaving the Mandalorian and several cages of smuggled poultry alone in the ghost town of a tibanna mine.
Things had not gotten better when moments later the notable paint job of the notoriously crooked Bespin Security Forces swooped in, their cloud cars peppering the empty service balcony with blaster fire as Xim soge for cover, kicking and upsetting several cates in the process as the hawks screeched loudly and otherworldly; many of them taking to the air in the commotion.
By a stroke of luck, the Wing Guard had set off; probably to find a more suitable place to land than the haphazard job Xim had pulled hoovering along the wall of the slanting city’s lower levels. Still, he counted it a win as he began to climb through the maze of slanted walkways, ladders, and conduits. More than once, Xim thought he had seem something or someone shadowy in the distanc. Once, he even exchanged blasterfire with an unknown troop of ne’er-do-wells before they scurried off for easier pickings. Xim guessed he had his blackened Mandalorian armor to thank for that more than anything.
Finally, he had found his way to the surface. At least the weak sun above gage a little light amongst the long shadows. The entire city felt empty; but the man had learned a thing or two during his time in this galaxy. One of which was that wherever people gathered, inevitably a cantina would pop up, and where there was a cantina there were pilots; just who might have a heap to get the Mandalorian off this slowly sinking abomination. Now, who owned that cantina might be another matter. Who inhabited it still another. A third was who had wanted to take in such a shipment here in the forst place. The birds were expensive and undoubtedly they‘d be unhappy that their smuggled booty was now dead and or flying over this forsaken place.
And so, with blaster in hand and bristling with all the trappings of his lot in life, Xim put one foot in front of the other as he continued the seemingly endless uphill climb in this post-apocalyptic cityscape not knowing who or what might be out for him.
@LadyRen
