He Said I Was His Friend

[Darth Osano]

CARIDA
SPINARA CITY

Startled again by the harsh knocking at his door, Greg Ison got up in a hurry. He wiped at the cheese puff stain in the corner of his mouth and shambled over, tugging nervously at the ends of his poorly fitted t-shirt. This was the third time he had heard that harsh knocking. The first was when he missed a few payments on one of his loans to a crime boss. The Helix Syndicate purchased the debt and now they were the ones he owed money to. So they beat him up and told him not to do it again. Then they came back a few days later because they needed help with something weird, but Greg still didn't know what. Had something to do with those kidnapped Jedi...

He looked through the eye-hole and, sure enough, there were the Syndicate goons again. The spooky-skeleton and the two Enforcers, just like last time. One of them was holding... A violin case? He gave an anxious sigh, undid the latch, and opened the door. "Look, I'll pay it all, I promise, but I don't want-"

Greg's debt had been forgiven a couple hours earlier. Wiped clean, along with any record of it. Pollux wasn't here to announce his generosity, however, just to clean shop. The silenced hold out blaster slid smoothly into his hand. He depressed the trigger as soon as Greg's small, porcine face stuck itself out the door, placing a blaster bolt square in his forehead. Death was instantaneous. Greg spasmed and fell backwards, allowing Pollux to push the door all the way open and step inside, followed by the two Helix Syndicate Enforcers. They shut the door behind them, dragging Greg's body farther into the decrepit studio apartment and flipping him onto his back.

"Let's get this over with."

The Enforcer carrying the violin case cracked it open, removing a custom-made "THE EMPIRE REMEMBERS" old-fashioned cattle brand and a blowtorch. He rolled up Greg's shirt to expose his lower back, then began to heat up the brand. Here Pollux had expected a government like the First Order to be a little more civilized about this kind of business, but apparently not. Branding was something he'd expect more from Hutts, not the upper echelons of Imperial command. Whatever. The price was right. While they were waiting for the brand to turn red hot, the second Enforcer placed a commlink call to [member="Ahren Panteer"] to let him know it was time to come up and pick up his quarry.

 

[Atlas Kane]

The auction itself may have been a waste of time, given Ahren's lack of resources, the aftermath of it, however, was quite the different story. As a result of the auction, a high ranking Imperial Admiral of the First Order had posted a bounty on one of the bidders. It was quite the sum of money, a million credits and a few ships that also carried some value. An amount of money that high would be more than just useful for the young Sith, they would enable many of his projects and give him far more leeway to operate the way he wanted to. There were several projects on his mind already, some involving replacements for the Jedi, others involving expensive research equipment, others again involved the amassing of more credits and construction of a great palace on some abandoned planet.

But those were dreams of the future, currently it was time to focus on the miserable fool who was going to serve as the replacement. The plan was to present the branded corpse of the one who had attempted to trace the signal, along with logs and DNA matches from the holoterminal that was used for the trace attempt. As the man, Graf, had no other information on the bounty, the man Ahren was assisting currently, this should allow them to cash in on the money without any complications. The Admiral will think the target was dead, Ahren and his associate would be richer and the risk of failure was extremely low, as the duo's wiggle room in who or what they presented was fairly expansive.

The commlink beeped as he was in the middle of contemplation, a signal. It was time for him to get the body of the poor soul that had been chosen as Pollux' substitute. He started the engines of his speeder, making his way towards the residence he's been told to come to. Once there, he jumped out of the speeder onto the walkway that led directly towards the door, opened it and was greeted by an enforcer about to brand a dead man's lower back.

"I see you've got everything handled in that department. Any logs or other evidence that he did the deed to make it a tad more believable?" The Epicanthix said as he turned towards the Givin. He hadn't met many of that species, heard they were pretty good at maths and such. Seemed like decent enough folk, cold, logical, calculating, all the good stuff.

[member="Pollux"]

 

[Darth Osano]

"Yes." Pollux reached into the folds of his overcoat to retrieve a datapad, which he held out for Ahren to take. "This is the evidence salvaged from his computer. It will prove his involvement in tracing the signal from this location. We included holo-mail exchanges indicating his obsessive hatred of all Jedi and a desire to kill them for sport."

The mail was doctored, but Pollux already had his own staff do a psych profile on Greg, access his mailing history, and imitate his style of writing. Unless anyone knew Greg particularly well, they would read the fabricated messages and easily assume it was him. The other evidence from his computer's history did not need to be manufactured: there had, indeed, been an attempt to trace the signal from this very home. What would be missing was the fact that Pollux had coerced Greg into doing it. Then again, there would be no way to conclusively prove that, seeing as this building wasn't rigged with security cameras. That was the perk of doing business on the seedy side of town.

In any event, Pollux continued. "This is the only copy. The computer itself was destroyed in the struggle."

On cue, the other Enforcer began to bludgeon the computer with the butt of his rifle. The screens shattered, the case cracked, and the internal components did not fare well under the assault. In the next few minutes, Greg's entire setup would be reduced to a useless pile of scrap metal and mangled electronics. Were he alive, he would have wept to see the destruction of his beautiful machine. Then he would have wept because of the red-hot brand being pressed into his lower back. A tramp stamp brand. The First Order would be pleased to see just how deplorable this entire operation could be made. As if that wasn't enough, the Helix Syndicate's arson specialist was going to be swinging by this apartment later. Perhaps it would put the other residents in danger, but they should have thought about that before becoming poor. It was just business and Pollux prized his ability to be thorough over the well-being of the bungled and the botched.

"You can take the money. The Helix Syndicate will take possession of the shuttles."

The total retail value of the shuttles cr1,096,000. A slightly higher amount than the cash reward of cr1,000,000, but it seemed to Pollux that the Helix Syndicate would have better luck selling them on the black market than Ahren would. [member="Ahren Panteer"] was, of course, welcome to haggle for a more nuanced distribution: haggling with a skeletal information broker over the smell of cooking flesh and the brutal destruction of an expensive computer set-up.

 

[Darth Osano]

Pollux waited... And waited... For quite some time, or at least it felt as if he had. The Givin slowly began to realize that [member="Ahren Panteer"] was not merely undergoing an internal monologue of some sort as he debated his current position, but just staring vacantly into the void. Behind his eyes, Pollux could see now that there was no activity. Neurons were not firing. Cognition events were not taking place. New memories were not being created or old ones reviewed. The tragically goatee'd Sith Acolyte was just standing there, no more an active part of this galaxy than a vegetable; an onion perhaps. Pollux narrowed his eyes at the Sithling, an aggrieved scowl tugging at his normally unchanging features.

"Hello?"

Both of the Enforcers turned around from what they were doing, momentarily believing that the Givin was talking to them. Once they saw that he wasn't, they returned to their duties: one Enforcer dutifully grinding a memory card into useless refuse beneath his heel and the other packing up the still-hot branding iron. If Panteer was not feeling up to this specific task, perhaps some other ne'er-do-well could be found. A bounty hunter, maybe. Pollux would perhaps force them to undertake some sort of exam to make sure they would not be rendered brain-dead in the middle of a conversation. What a trying, abysmal time for the galaxy that Pollux's hand was forced to do so. The Givin eyed Panteer for another moment, but if he saw no response quickly, he would be leaving Panteer here alone and taking the corpse with him.

Whether or not Panteer would still be sitting there, slackjawed, when Helix Syndicate Enforcers returned to burn down the apartment complex would no longer be any concern of Pollux's.

 

[Darth Osano]

SOMEPLACE ELSE
SOME OTHER TIME

[member="Arian Lenar"] had been called.

Several days after the acolyte Pollux had originally contracted fell into an apparently irreversible comatose state, the Helix Syndicate arranged for someone else to collect the bounty. Two days after Pollux had left the apartment with Greg Ison's branded corpse stuffed into a trunk, the whole building had burned down in a freak gas leak. What a terribly strange coincidence that had nothing to do with the Helix Syndicate's dedicated Inconspicuous Arson Division. In any event, this meant that the only item left connecting Greg Ison to the crime was a copy of his hard drive. There had been no reason for the Syndicate to tamper with the hard drive because Greg Ison was actually guilty of the crime he was accused of.

The only thing missing from the drive was who Greg had been acting on behalf of and why. Information that would die with him. Besides, the individual that posted the bounty need not be concerned with such paltry details as who ordered who to do what. Still, Pollux did not want to risk publicly collecting the bounty himself. An intermediary would need to be used and since the Panteer luddite had failed, someone else was being called in. Pollux, flanked by two Helix Syndicate Enforcers, waited patiently in a remote alleyway for Lenar to show up. Behind the trio was a heavy, magnetically sealed trunk.

Air-tight, too. So it wouldn't smell.

 

[thegreatbeyonder]

How long had it been?

Too long.

Arian hadn't found himself this far into the heart of the galaxy since he left the Republic. A distant memory, and with its recent collapse no doubt such memories would find themselves buried under new conflicts certain to erupt in this region of space. Concern, however, was not his--people are going to kill each other; that's business. The spacer landed his vessel in an inconspicuous part of the city to avoid two things: Customs and law enforcement. Neither were quite pleasant to deal with, and when one has a record of smuggling amongst other things you don't exactly want prissy nostrils deep in your business.

There were alleyways after alleyways, and eventually he wanders into the right one. Arian could be described as a sight for sore eyes, he didn't stand out as a criminal of any sort. His very posture made him walk like a cop more than a smuggler or any other illicit individual. Nor did he conceal his blaster which hung out quite openly for all to see; a modified luxan penetrator. His approach was slow, but not suspiciously so. Merely he didn't want to come at them too quickly and it also gave him the opportunity to discreetly examine his immediate surroundings for traps.

Further into the alleyway he felt comfortable enough to speak up, "I hope I'm not late... Are you the one selling ration bars?" He spoke suavely with a calm demeanor, but deep inside his chest the man's heart paced like a bloodthirsty kath hound. There was never getting used to these situations, but you could at least act the part.

 

[Darth Osano]

The Givin narrowed his eyes. "What?"

One of the Guavians cautiously reached for the pistol in his holster, but Pollux stopped him. Painfully stereotypical coded question aside, Pollux recognized [member="Arian Lenar"] quickly enough. Pollux did not frequently arrange meetings with people he could not readily pick out in a crowd, much less alone in an alleyway. This was the man. Strange, though, that the more Pollux squinted at him the more pungent the aroma of nervousness hanging around Lenar became. Nervous or not, he at least didn't walk like an amateur. The smart people in this business remained nervous well, well after their first few years. Kept them on their toes. Pollux, however, hadn't felt anything except casual disdain and aloof ambivalence ever since he took on this form.

Or maybe it started when he finally got into the position that he could take armed guards with him wherever he went. Maybe both.

"You're alone. Good." Pollux observed. Another motion and the two Enforcers stepped away to pick up the trunk, which could now be seen to have a datapad and a hard-drive duct-taped to the top. It was also now clear that it was mounted on a hover-sled. Good thing, too, because it would have been cruel to leave Lenar to hoist it all the way back to his ship on his own. They wheeled it towards Lenar and left it in front of him while Pollux kept talking.

"Your... Ration bars are inside. As is the necessary information to prove their authenticity."

Ration bars here meant the branded corpse of a college-aged slicer. What a time to be alive.

"Deliver this bounty to Imperial Elite Shipyards. Once you've collected the reward, we will contact you with instructions on where to drop off the shuttles. You will keep the cash."

Very generous on the Givin's part, considering how the Syndicate did most of the leg work here. More likely it was just his way of getting Lenar to ask as few questions as physically possible. One million credits to deliver a corpse and some evidence? Most overpriced courier gig ever.

 

[thegreatbeyonder]

"You're the boss, boss. I'll keep comms open," he nods once and quickly takes control of the 'ration bars' container.

Could've done something about the smell, though... Arian thought to himself, but he wasn't about to ask questions--everything pointed to a rush job, but then again dead bodies aren't exactly standard shipping.

Without further delay, Lenar quickly shuffled off through the way he came. The hoversled reminded him of the Balmorra Job; only then they were delivering spice--lots of spice--and the hoversled broke down due to the weight, forcing he and his Ugnaught companion to haul it off in droves by hand. Of course a body wasn't trouble, thankfully it wasn't a Gamorrean or that would've at least given him trouble; not just the weight but the smell too. A Gamorrean alive already smelled like a walking cesspool.

It wasn't much longer that he spun around his final corner and saw his starship in sight, and thankfully he wasn't given any trouble on the way there. Certain areas meant law enforcement was thin and careless. Besides, who would've been stupid enough to haul a dead body in the middle of a street? It was such a dumb idea that it worked.

After hauling the hoversled on board, Arian took off and made his peaceful getaway, and thus far it appeared to be a well-paying blue milk run. What could possibly go wrong?