Ask Nar Shaddaa The Slicer and the Rodian

[Preef Callo]

If movies were made about the life and (mis)deeds of the infamous rodian gunslinger called Preef Callo then today's events would definitely make it into the essentials. As today, quite simply, was the day where all plans to usurp the Xaa Hafven as the leading family in the Crymorah Syndicate culminated in a single opportunity. A brief moment where Preef would quite literally shoot his shot to end Gori Xaa Hafven's reign.

Years ago the Xaa Hafven bullied the Zaa Fenn nearly into extinction. They poached their best enforcers and forced them from their homeworld of Sullust. One could say that's where all of this started, but the Zaa Fenn only started fighting back when Marissa Hesse and Preef Callo bought into their family some time ago. Within the first weeks they hunted down the enforcers that had jumped ship and not only killed them, but also ended the Xaa Hafven rackets they were in charge of. Next step was building alliances with the other Crymorah Syndicates, like the Mothraki Crime Family, to make sure that when the time came the Zaa Fenn wouldn't stand alone.

The Zaa Fenn Crime Family's rise was meteoric. They were striking up partnerships and alliances, their members ranked among the best known and most accomplished criminals of the Five Syndicates and more importantly; the Xaa Hafven failed to respond. Capitalizing on Gori's inactivity, the Zaa Fenn orchestrated not only more direct attacks on Xaa Hafven assets, but a direct attack on the crimelord himself.

Knowing that the leaders of the Five Syndicates were meeting on Nar Shaddaa soon, Preef devised a plan. Gori's sky palace would be made to crash, robbing him of private landing pads. His top enforcers would be killed so they can't be there to protect him and his private yacht would be made unavailable. All of this would culminate in the following moment: Gori Xaa Hafven had to leave his slicer's den to step on a public landing pad to get a ride from a rent-a-shuttle.

The shuttle was ready, its engines ready for takeoff and waiting for the crimelord to arrive. Unbeknownst to Gori, there was another inside that wasn't a pilot. It was Preef Callo, waiting patiently for his target arrive.


@Mr. Teatime

 

[The Gatekeeper]

It could be said, quite accurately, that things were not going well for the Xaa Hafven family. Their leader's personal guards had been wiped out, his yacht taken out of action, and his palace in ruins. But he couldn't show signs of weakness before the other Syndicates, no. He had to present a united front on behalf of his family.

So it was with great haste that Gori Xaa Hafven collected three guards, strapped a blaster to his belt, and left his den to catch a shuttle he'd arranged beforehand. He was a step ahead, as usual, having already planned for the eventuality of targeted attacks against his assets. He had contingencies in place, plans upon plans, hidey holes and back alley buildings, friends in other Syndicates that relied on his slicing services to get things done. He just had to get on this shuttle and everything would pan out.

The shuttle was there on the landing pad when Gori arrived, the cloak of his hood drawn up over his head. His boots moved quickly over the filthy durasteel of the public landing pad, though there was no foot traffic in the area due to a few credits left in certain hands. He approached the shuttle with his guards arrayed in front of him, their eyes nervously darting around. They weren't the best, but they'd been promised a lot of credits just to get him to a meeting.

The four of them, three armed thugs and Gori Xaa Hafven himself, stopped before the shuttle door. A guard moved forward to open it.

@Eccles

 

[Preef Callo]

The shuttle door opened just before the guard's arm reached it and before he'd quite realize it a shot was fired from point-black range, aimed directly for his face. Two more shots rang out, both at close range and with pitch perfect precision going for the faces of the other two thugs. Preef was never more in tune with his legend as he was right then and there. His stance was perfect and his eyes provided perfect vision of Gori Xaa Hafven and his three pathetic hired blasters. Even if the thugs by some unexplained miracle managed to dodge the bolts coming at them from the infamous peacemaker, Preef's reflexes would give him the opportunity to beat them to the trigger anyway. Preef Callo simply was that good.

If all three went down as expected, Preef would step out from the cover of the shuttle and onto the ramp, coming face to face with Gori Xaa Hafven himself. His blaster aimed from the hip at the crimelord of the Xaa Hafven and the boss of the Crymorah Syndicate. Preef radiated confidence and if anyone had ever seen any of the wildly popular HoloMovies about Preef Callo or heard the chart-topping song of his duel against Jakku Red, they'd know that when he was pointing his blaster at you like that, well... then your life is completely at his mercy.

"Any last words?" the rodian asked, though the sincerity of the question was to be questioned after he dispatched the other three so quickly.


@Mr. Teatime

 

[The Gatekeeper]

It could be said, with pitch perfect precision, that things were REALLY not going well for the Xaa Hafven family.

Preef Callo himself had shown up in the doorway instead of the shuttle pilot and, quite before any of the last-minute guards could really process, shot each one the very instant his pistol had cycled through to the next bolt. The infamous gunslinger was known for his skill in exactly one thing, the subject or song and terrified whispers, and this was an excellent example as to why.

Now, Gori Xaa Hafven was a hardened criminal with a reputation for getting things done. As legendary as Preef was for blasting bolts, Gori was for slicing systems and running a tight ship. He was well aware he couldn't out-shoot Callo, or even a more dedicated gunslinger. Gori has- or had, in this case- people to do that for him. He did, however, have a plan for this sort of eventuality.

Gori held his hands up in surrender, well away from his single blaster pistol. He was a smart guy, but it didn't take much brain to figure out a slicer can't match a quick-draw artist in the art of quick-draw, especially when the faster hand has the element of surprise.

"Now come on, Callo, we can work this out somehow can't we?" he buzzed through a translator mouthpiece. Pride was high up Gori's list of traits, but it absolutely wasn't more important than his life. He rather liked being alive.

"I'm worth more to you alive as an asset than as a corpse."

@Eccles

 

[Preef Callo]

It was a poor choice for last words, so somewhere halfway Gori's first sentence Preef pulled the trigger and a bolt flew straight toward his syndicate boss' chest. Regardless of whether or not it would hit, Preef stepped forward and stretched his arm for even better aim as he fired another shot towards his target's torso. A second lapsed as Preef stepped even closer and then fired another shot towards Gori's face. There was no way someone could survive that.

Confident he had just assassinated the boss of the Crymorah Syndicate, Preef looked around for witnesses. An old habit, for who would dare rat on a vanguard of the Five Syndicates on what was essentially their homeworld and galactic powerbase? Still, the rodian didn't want to linger about so he checked Gori's pockets to see if there was some kind of special keycard that he used to get into the council of bosses. After all.. that has been his intended target today, hadn't it?

If Preef were to find such a keycard, or other relevant and valuable items, he'd pocket it and return to the shuttle. It was time to introduce himself to the other syndicate bosses as the one who would represent the Crymorah Syndicate from now on.

@Mr. Teatime