(Solo) Be Sure Your Sins Will Find You Out

Tribunal Power

Hand-to-Hand Wombat
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Fobuda Cantina, Nar Shaddaa
1019 ABY
1720 hours


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“The way I see it, you got yourself two options.”

For the first time in a long time, Tsu was legitimately startled as the man seated himself at her table, sweeping into the both across from her. She looked up cautiously, datapad in her left hand and a brand new vodka mix in her right, and peered at him. He didn’t look especially sneaky—with his worn wide-brimmed hat, reflective shades, and rugged black beard over a drawn and scarred face, he looked like the kind of man that would kick a door down before sneaking around it. But if there was one feeling Tsu got from him, it was experience , and she knew this was no two-bit bounty hunter.

Calmly feigning disinterest, Tsu went about her business on her datapad, presumably surfing the holonet. But she had already pressed the emergency command, a silent button that sent a signal to Kess, telling her she was in deep shit. ”And you are?”

Ignoring her question, he went on to say, “You can either come along quietly, and me and my pal over there—“ he motioned to a man leaning against door frame of the entrance to the cantina, blocking the only easy escape path, and the man nodded back— “can all take a little trip.”

Tsu gave him an amused smile and said, ” What’s behind door number two, pardner?

“I put two slugs in your gut with the revolver I’ve got pointed at your ladyparts, and we drag your ass through the front door in grocery bags.”

Tsu couldn’t tell by his posture that he had a weapon under the table, as was usually telling, but neither could she see his hands, so she had to take him seriously. ”The exit’s covered, the public is unaware, and the target was caught off-guard,” she observed. ”You’re pretty good.”

“The best, ma’am,” he replied in a gruff voice.

”Maybe,” Tsu conceded, ”but you brought two men for a four man job. With a two man crew, you should have taken me down in a quiet place—maybe wait for me to leave…”

“You’re too smart for that, Tsu, and so am I. Only fools and felons go where they can’t be seen on Nar Shaddaa, and you try not to look like either one.”

She chuckled lightly and nodded in approval, taking a moment to look at the man. He wasn’t hard to look at, if one likes the grizzled veteran look; Tsu did, of course, but she already had a grizzled veteran of her own—and compared to her Yuri, this clown wasn’t shit. ”So how do you think this will go?”

The man’s beard lifted slightly with a grin. “I think you’ll make a move I haven’t thought of, and me or my pal will have to put you down like a sick bantha; that’s what I think.”

He was probably right. For a moment, Tsu sat there peering at him, determined eyes of steel grey against the stoic resolution of his reflective sunglasses. Neither of them flinched, neither backed down. Tsu knew the chat was over. It was time to fold, or play her hand.

”Can I buy you a drink first?” she said, glancing down to the glass of vodka mix in her hand.

“Stand up. Time to go.”

”A toast to a job well done, she said, tapping the glass against the table.

The man leaned forward. “I said stand up.

Tsu leaned in as well, perching herself on the end of her seat. ”What’s the hurry, rustler? It’s just a drink.”

Just as the man opened his mouth to start to speak, Tsu made her play. She tossed the glass in his face, and it clinked off his shoulder as the liquid washed over his face. ”He’s got a gun! she screamed, like a terrified civilian, shoving off the wall and the table, which rocked and rolled toward the man as she lunged out of her seat. No sooner had she screamed when a loud shot rang out, and she felt an impact on her body as she rolled to the ground, rushing for the back of the cantina. Her legs wouldn’t carry her the way she wanted, and she stumbled, slamming into the bar and quickly ducking around the corner as more shots rang out and cantina customers screamed. She sprawled for a huddled crowd of civilians, hoping it would deter her captors from firing, and it seemed to work— she moved through the group without hearing another shot, and once past them, she grabbed a plate from the table beside her and hurled it through the circular window on the wall over the table. Still no more shots came as she scurried up the table and dove through, glass tracing deep red lines over her forearms and shoulders.

The ten-foot plunge hurt less than realizing she’d been shot, a through-and-through in her right thigh. She swore aloud as she pushed to her feet, limping as fast as she could around the corner of the cantina to the walkway of the shelf upon which this section of the city sat. The Smuggler’s Moon was a busy place, and so she hoped to meld into the crowd—but the trail of blood spots her leg was leaving behind could complicate things. With heavy breathing, she ducked into an alley two buildings down to manage her wound as sirens began to wail in the distance.

Slumping against the wall, she shoved her datapad into its holster on her hip and yanked open the largest of the three pouches on her belt. First she pulled from it a small vial of pale blue liquid, quickly breaking the seal and pulling open the bullet hole in her pants. That’s what I get for not wearing my kriffing armor on a kriffing parts run, she thought bitterly as she widened the hole a bit, revealing the bloody pallid flesh beneath. Taking a deep breath, she pressed two fingers on either side of the large circular wound, and spread it open; she grimaced, gave a straining groan, and mashed down on her lip as she dumped the entirety of the vial’s contents into the wound. Some of it trickled out, but a good deal made it through the wound, a cooling feeling tracing through her thigh to fight the pain. The bacta started working immediately, and the pain slowly ebbed as the blood began to clot. Thank you Yuri, True King of the Hutts. Being with someone so heavily with the Hutts had its perks, such as personal vials of the extremely expensive healing juice the Hutts were so protective of, and this time it truly paid off. She discarded the vial, not caring if her pursuers recovered it or not considering the blood trail would lead them there anyway, and snatched the two thick foam bandages from the first-aid pouch meant for just such an injury. Tearing the paper from the adhesive, she applied one to the entry and one to the exit, covering the wound to allow the bacta to work and keeping from bleeding so badly. Letting the scraps fall to the wind, she shoved to her feet, took a quick look around, and skulked behind the building.

Space Heater was docked at E-45, on the same shelf as the cantina. She knew she could make it there, although the going would be slow. Did they know what ship she came in? A pirate is most often recognized by her ship, but the Wicked was still at the Daedalus. How did they even know she was here? With questions circulating in her head, she emerged from an alleyway into a crowd again, turning toward the docks. Trying to look casual, she checked her datapad to see if Kess received her emergency beacon. There was no response yet. Swearing under her breath, Tsu resolved that she would leave the little runt behind if she didn’t get back to her before Tsu made it to her ship.

The sirens still wailed a few blocks behind her. Hopefully the Nar Shaddaa authorities, corrupt as they were, would detain the two wannabe-lawmen for a while. Tsu had no idea how long she had, but she was already moving as quickly as she could; she couldn’t risk flagging a taxi right now, as she needed to blend in and avoid standing out amongst the faces milling around the city shelf. So she walked, trudged, limped her way to the docks, all the while waiting to hear from Kess.
 
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Tribunal Power

Hand-to-Hand Wombat
SWRP Writer
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When she finally reached the docks, she moved through the unoccupied terminal toward her Barloz-class freighter. Her pistol rattled in its holster as she moved toward the ship, the cargo ramp still down from when they landed only a few hours ago. Taking a quick stride toward it, she stepped out of the terminal onto the walled circular dock.

“That’s far enough,” came that gruff familiar voice. Tsu stopped, as the man stepped from the corner in front of her, revolver trained on her chest. Parked behind a mound of shipping crates, she spotted a brown airspeeder—probably theirs, considering how quickly they beat her to the dock. As if from nowhere, she felt his partner behind her yank the Larboard pistol from its holster on her hip. She cursed loudly as the weapon she’d had for years, since the Retrade and the war and her survival on Kabis-3 and every moment in between until now, was taken from her. The swear didn’t seem to bother the two that hunted her, as the man behind her tossed Tsu’s pistol to the fellow with the beard.

Hard hands grabbed her wrist, pulling it behind her back. Cold steel touched her, handcuffs that fit neatly into the scarred grooves on her wrist where many pairs had been before. “Name’s Ross, by the way. That there’s my pal Ben. Sorry it’s gotta end this way, Tsu. You seem like you might be a slick lady if you weren’t such a piece of shit.”

”I was thinking the same about you, sugartits,” she spat defiantly as the first ring of the cuffs clamped down on her wrist.

“Make ‘em extra tight, Ben,” the man said, tucking Tsu’s pistol away in his belt.

The cuffs squeezed down on her wrist, and she twisted and grimaced in anguish as she felt the skin being mashed to the bone. It was then that she heard it; the familiar whirr of her airspeeder, the split-second sound of it cutting through the air. It all happened in a flash; the sleek black vehicle soared over the wall of the dock terminal and came down on them, slapping against the ground before pushing into the air again and cruising directly into Ross. A stray shot blasted from the revolver before it fumbled from his hand, the gruff veteran rolling hard over the nose of the craft and slapping into the windshield, sending even the shatterproof duraglass spraying in beads into Kess’ face in the driver’s seat.

The instant it happened, Tsu capitalized. She yanked free of Ben’s grasp and spun sharply, using the handcuffs attached to her one wrist like a wrecking ball. The free and open cuff sliced into Ben’s face, who struggled to recover in time to block Tsu’s incoming elbow. It connected, and Ben went down hard-- but he lashed out with a hard kick that landed at the inside of the knee on Tsu’s shot leg, and Tsu went down as well. Still a little dazed, Ben traipsed to his knees just as Tsu realized Ross’ revolver had clattered to the ground just beside her. She reached for it, and just as he stood Ben drew his, and the two fired at the same time.

Permacrete splashed against Tsu’d cheek as the slug blasted into the ground inches from her head, leaving a ringing in her ear. Ben was less lucky, and he crumpled as red soaked the gut of his tactical vest. Tsu backed away quickly, taking careful aim and putting two more rounds through his chest to be certain she wouldn’t catch a shot in the back.

In the couple of seconds that Tsu and Ben had fought, Kess had reversed the speeder and pulled to Tsu’s aid. Ross was just rousing to his feet, stunned from being struck by the speeder, but in his hand was Tsu’s pistol. Wasting no time, Tsu dove onto the hood of the vehicle and Kess punched it for the cargo ramp of the ship, just as the crack of the Larboard pistol began to sound and rounds ricocheted from the frame of the speeder. The vehicle came to a hard and sudden stop once they climbed the ramp, and Tsu slid violently from the hood to the ground with a clatter and a yelp, but Kess leapt from the driver’s seat and slapped the ramp button with a bloody hand to lift it. “Come on!” she yelled. “Get up! Go!

Tsu shoved to her feet and rushed to the cockpit, slumping dizzily into the chair. Kess was right behind her, leaping into the copilot seat as Tsu engaged liftoff. The ship lurched upward quickly as the thrusters blasted it from the ground. I hope it cooks those kriffers.

“Shit,” Kess said, seeing the amount of blood and the bandages on her thigh. ”I tracked your beacon to you. I figured you were in some shit, but I didn’t think you were—“

”I’m fine,” she barked. Seeing the blood on Kess’ hand and face, she asked, ”You hit?”

“No, just—just glass and debris. Did you see that? I rolled that nerfherder like a convenience store!”

”You did great, Kess—saved my ass. Thanks. But next time, answer your kriffing pad. With the ship now in auto launch, she turned and looked at her twi’lek companion and let out a sigh, reiterating, ”Really, though. Thanks.”

The younger woman gave a subtle smile, before it faded and she cast her glance back toward the bloody, mangled air speeder. “Who were those kriffers?”

”I don’t know,” Tsu replied with a heavy sigh. ”But I know the type… And I know I killed one, and now they’ll never stop.”

Kess fell silent as the pale blue around them painted to black. The clouds were replaced by stars near and distant, and the dim glow of the sun off of Nar Shaddaa and Nal Hutta illuminated the bottom of the viewscreen. Tsu leaned back in her chair, lifting the revolver in her hand with a sigh. She opened the cylinder to see that, of the six shots, only two remained. One for her leg, three for old Ben, and one into the ground when Kess nailed him with the speeder… And one more bullet, just for me. The only way I’ll never see Ross again.

Tsu set the revolver on the console, pushing it away along with the grim thought. Next time, send more than two men.

. . .
 
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