Bounty Hunter Anon

by Sunny Solaire

Dark Secrets

You jog toward the cockpit, but lose your footing once you get there and fall down as the ship suddenly accelerates. "Haar'chak!" <"Damn it!"> You look up at Sunset, who is tightly gripping the controls as she flies after Trixie. You grunt as you get up and sit in the co-pilot's seat. "How's the damage?"

"We'll be fine." Sunset says, staying focused on Trixie. "Where did her ship come from?"

"She was waiting for us." You power up the ship's main guns.

"Where? I didn't see anything when I flew up!" She exclaims.

"She has a few tricks up her sleeve. It had cloaking panels, or active camouflage, or something. I don't know. She called it 'The Illusion'. Either way, the fact that it's a stealth ship means that it's fast. I'm powering up our tractor beam." You press a button on the control console in front of you. "Get as close as you can to her. We have to be in range before she leaves the atmosphere or else we'll never get her."

Sunset guns the engines and the ship gets closer and closer, until you're finally in range. You flip another switch and the ship lurches and rocks in response but you never falter from Trixie's tail. She's not going anywhere now. The tractor beam is active.

As your ships break through the atmosphere, you activate the ship's forward cannons and fire a few warning shots at Trixie's ship, just to see if she'll ease up. The bolts explode around her ship but she turns and rolls around in a hopeless attempt to shake you. The tractor beam holds firm and you stay right on her tail. That was her chance to do this the easy way, and she just blew it.

She's out in the open with nowhere to go and she can't make the jump to lightspeed while you've got a hold of her. You switch to your ship's ion cannons and aim them at her. Hopefully you can take her down before she gets the idea to lead your ship into a piece of space debris or something. She's moving erratically and desperately trying to shake you, but she generally stays in your crosshairs.

Once the cannon is fully charged, you fire a few shots at her ship. Seconds later, her engines completely fail and electricity starts arcing along the hull. Her ship has been deactivated.

You turn off the Ion cannon. "Okay, get on top of her. I'm going to fire the docking clamp and reel her in so I can board."

Sunset nods. "Let me know when you're ready."

You stand up and head to the ship's docking clamp station. It's right next to the exit ramp. You bring up the view of Trixie's ship on the terminal and move the clamp so it's pointed at her. Once you have a lock, you fire the clamp and it flies toward her ship and latches onto it.

Sunset comes on the intercom next to you. "Nice shot. I'm reeling her in now."

Trixie's ship starts to get closer, and within a few seconds, it vanishes from your view and you feel the floor rumble as you make contact. Your ship's mechanical systems latch onto Trixie's and magnetize them together.

You had modified your ship to have a docking port on the ground for situations just like this. That way, you can literally drop in on your targets and mess up their ship, just to add insult to injury. You grab a blaster rifle from the armory and your new lightsaber before making your way to the ground docking port.

Sunset comes on your comms again. "I know she pissed you off back there, but don't rough her up too much, Anon. I don't have to remind you, but we need her alive."

"Exactly how alive do we need her?" You reply.

She doesn't answer you as you open the docking port and drop down into it so you're standing directly on the hull of Trixie's ship. The magnetic clamp should keep everything pressurized, so you're not worried about flying off into space.

You activate and plunge your lightsaber through the hull of her ship and begin to cut a hole big enough for you to fit through. Hopefully, this is scaring the hell out of her right now. Once you're halfway through your cut, you take out your blaster pistol and aim down toward the hull, ready to fire when the section you're cutting drops to the floor. You also preemptively activate your helmet's night vision. With the electrical systems disabled on her ship, it's going to be dark in there.

You continue cutting through her ship until you reach the end. The cut piece falls inside with a loud clang, and you immediately fire a barrage of shots into the ship to scare her off, just in case she's waiting to attack. Among the sounds of your blaster bolts, you hear a scream come from inside.

After a few seconds, you cease fire and deactivate your lightsaber before dropping down inside. Your pistol in one hand and your lightsaber in another.

Trixie runs behind a corner away from you and you quickly bolt after her. "You're only making this harder for yourself, Trixie!"

You turn a corner in the darkened ship right after her and see her again at the end of the corridor. She whips around and fires a few bolts from her own blaster at you, and you instinctively take cover behind the corner.

She stops firing after a moment, so you move out into the open and begin to fire at her. She tries to move out of the way, but fails and you hit her twice in the leg, making her scream and fall to the ground.

You stop firing and activate your comms as you walk over to her. "Sunset, I've got her. Come on down."

It would be pitch black in here, but thanks to your night vision, you can see Trixie's face as she holds her leg and looks up at you in fear. "Please... Please don't kill me..."

"Don't worry, I won't. I'll let Diamond Tiara have that privilege." She gulps and pants as you stand over her. "I will say this, I was wrong about you. You're a lot smarter than you come off. Cloaking your ship and waiting? I'm impressed."

You put away your weapons and move over to bind her wrists together again. You hear footsteps behind you and glance over your shoulder to see Sunset walking up to you both.

She looks down at Trixie. "Nice work."

You turn your attention back to Trixie, who takes a couple shaky breaths, but doesn't fight you. Once you're done, you stand her up and hand her off to Sunset. "Get her situated in the holding cell. I'm going to see if she's got any info on employers or something."

"Will do." Sunset takes Trixie and they both return to the docking port, leaving you alone in her darkened ship.

You head into the main hold and look around. It's a lot smaller compared to yours. It's just a room in the middle of the ship with a table in the center. You walk through another doorway and enter the cargo hold, which is also relatively small. A few crates inside seem to be filled with scraps, parts, and various other things that seem pretty worthless. You're almost confused about the amount of garbage she has here for a moment until you remember that she's a smuggler.

You look down and begin knocking the toe of your boots on the ground. Since she is a smuggler, she might have a hidden compartment or two somewhere. You walk around the ship for a bit and carefully listen for a hollow sound or something to indicate a hidden compartment.

Upon reaching a floor panel in the corridor leading to the cockpit a few minutes later, you hear it. A hollow clang. You knock a few more times and listen to the slight echo coming from below the floor. You crouch down and feel for a place to lift the panel, but find none.

After a few minutes of a fruitless search for a way to open it, you take out your lightsaber again and cut a small circle into the panel, being careful not to puncture it too deep. You don't want to damage anything inside.

Once it's open, you holster the lightsaber again and lift the halves of the panel up and out of the floor. Looking inside, you expect to see death sticks, but instead find something else instead. An amulet shaped like a winged creature with a red jewel in the center. Strange.

Adagio's jewel looks a bit similar to this one. You take it out and compare them side by side. You give a thoughtful hum before you pocket Adagio's jewel again and place the amulet aside to look back in the smuggler's hole.

Past a few electrical wires, you come across a datapad and set it next to the amulet. That will come in handy. You reach back in once more and feel something long that stretches out beneath the floor. You can't see what it is, but you grab a hold of what feels like a metal cylinder and slide it out.

To your surprise, you pull out a sword.

"Woah..." You breathe.

It's an ancient sword that looks like it belonged to some kind of royalty. It's intricately designed, black as night, and very sharp. What the hell is Trixie doing with something like this?

You set it aside and continue to rummage through the smuggler's hole for anything else, but it feels empty. After quickly confirming that you got everything, you take the sword, along with the amulet and the datapad, and proceed to back to the docking port. You set the objects inside your ship before climbing back up yourself and closing the port behind you.

You head into the main hold where you see Sunset giving you an expectant look. "Find anything good?"

"You could say that." You set the sword and amulet down on the table and turn on the datapad.

"What the hell?" Sunset walks around the table and picks up the sword. She stares at it for a few moments while you take off your helmet and the datapad hums to life. "What is Trixie doing with stuff like this?"

There's a single message on the datapad. "I have a feeling we're about to find out."

You open the message and a few lines of text appear, but it doesn't say from whom. There is absolutely no indication of where it came from. Literally, the only thing on here is the text you're reading.

It reads: <DEAL THE SUBSTANCE TO THE INHABITANTS OF MALASTARE. YOU WILL BE SUPPLIED WITH MORE WHEN NEEDED. UPDATE ON YOUR PROGRESS. WHEN INSTRUCTED, TAKE THE ARTIFACTS TO OUR CONTACT ON MUSTAFAR. BE QUICK AND UNPREDICTABLE TO EVADE POSSIBLE REPUBLIC TRACKING. YOUR FAILURE WILL RESULT IN SEVERE PUNISHMENT.>

You finish reading and hand the datapad to Sunset. "It looks like we're doing Trixie a favor by taking her in."

Sunset takes it from you and reads it herself. "Substance. Most likely the death sticks." She reads more before switching off the datapad and setting it down on the table. "Mustafar..."

"Not a bad place for a hideout." You shrug.

Sunset nods. "Yeah. Unfortunately, all we have is a location. Diamond Tiara won't accept that alone. I don't think we'll be getting a bonus on this one."

You sigh a little. "Oh well. We can't win them all. At least we have her."

Sunset nods again and sits up. "I'm setting a course for Tatooine. Let's go get paid."

You grin. "Good idea."

Sunset sets the amulet down and walks to the cockpit while you walk to the exit ramp and prepare to release the docking port off Trixie's ship.

You turn to the intercom and press the button. "You all set?"

"Yeah." Sunset replies. "Go ahead and release it."

You hang on to something and press the button next to the terminal. A second later, the entire ship rocks and rumbles as it detaches from Trixie's. On the terminal, you see Trixie's ship start to float away with a few objects from inside being sucked out of the hole you made into the vacuum of space.

You walk back to the cockpit and sit down in the co-pilot's seat next to Sunset. Trixie's ship is floating away right in front of you.

"Should we blast it?" She asks.

You nod. "Yeah. There's probably more stuff on there we missed. The galaxy doesn't need it though."

Sunset presses a few buttons and targets the ship. She pulls the trigger and two of your ship's missiles fly toward it, before impacting a second later. Trixie's ship goes up in a ball of fire. Pieces of scrap begin to scatter in every direction.

Sunset smiles. "That's always fun."

You chuckle. "Yeah it is."

She switches to the navicomputer and presses a few more buttons on the console. The ship adjusts its direction in space. She pushes the throttle forward and the ship takes off into lightspeed.

She takes a deep breath and reclines in her seat with a big smile on her face. "Tatooine, here we come."

You look over to her and smile. Despite how happy she looks, you can tell that she's tired. You should give her some good news.

"Back on Nar Shaddaa." You begin. "Remember what were you saying about taking a break?"

She looks over to you. "Oh, about after catching Aria?"

You nod. "I've kinda been thinking... Aria's not worth it. Trixie was worth the same, and this whole situation with the jewel is just curiosity at this point." She sits up slightly, the smile on her face becoming more genuine. "You were right. Once Diamond Tiara pays us, let's just take a break from this for a while. Like you said, there will always be bounties to hunt and we've got lots of money as it is. We might as well spend some of it."

Sunset stays there for a second before reaching over and taking your hand in hers. "Thanks, Anon. We both have really needed a vacation. Especially you."

You're taken back at that a little. "Why me?"

"You work so hard." She smiles again. "You're the best bounty hunter I've ever known, but even you need to take a break every now and then. You're not invincible."

You stay silent and think. As much as you'd like to believe you are invincible, it would be pure hubris to actually think so. Sunset's right and you know that she is.

You nod at her and smile again. "Where would I be without you?"

She giggles. "Like I said before, you'd probably be on your ass somewhere on Raxus Prime."

"Oh, that's right." You laugh and stand up to face her after a minute. "You're tired. Go to sleep and I'll stay up here."

She yawns and stretches her arms in front of her before also standing up. "Okay."

She faces you and you both hug each other tight. Neither of you speak, you just stay silent in each others' embrace and listen to each others' breathing.

You feel her rest her head against yours and take another deep breath. "Thank you."

You smile. "You're welcome, love." You turn and give her a soft kiss on the head, and she tightens her hold on you. Finally, after a few moments, she pulls back and you smile at each other. "Now, go to bed."

She smiles. "You sure you can handle it up here by yourself?"

You nod. "I'll find a way."

She giggles. "Alright, fine." She walks away, but continues to hold your hand loosely until she gets past arm's reach. "Goodnight, Anon."

Your hands stop touching as she walks away. "Goodnight, Sunset."

She turns and walks out of the cockpit, leaving you there alone. You sigh and turn around to sit in the pilot's seat. It's a good time to think about where you're going to go for your vacation. Naboo? Coruscant? Maybe head back home to Mandalore? You don't know, and you don't really care either.

As long as you get to spend your time with Sunset, you're happy with wherever.

Author's Note:

The amulet found on Trixie's ship.

The sword.