The Deal

Jaq Rand takes another mouthful of whatever liquor it is that they serve in this dump and smiles widely at his opponent. “Oooh, busted out again. That’s… three games, right?”

His Twi’lek opponent shoves credits across the table, gets up, and mutters vague curses over his shoulder. Jaq tucks the credits into his pocket, and shuffles his deck some more. Someone else will be along shortly; they always are. In all it’s been a most interesting day — in a few hours he’ll sneak back inside the refugee sector with the little bits and pieces he’s scammed out here, he’ll have made a tidy profit on the pazaak tables, and he’ll be able to pay his protection to the Exchange. It’s all good.

“Hello, Jaq,” a voice coos from behind him.

Oh, and of course there was Tanna. She was a pleasant surprise; unusually stunning for for a smuggler crew’s captain, all tight black combat suit and red curls, not at all like the skin-and-bone spiceheads you normally see hanging around this side of Nar Shaddaa. He turns to face her, breaking out his most winning smile. “Hello you,” he says. “I thought you were leaving for Peragus this morning.”

“Oh, there’s just a small complication I need to take care of, first,” she says. “This is my crew, by the way.” Tanna gestures to the three large men standing behind her, all humans. They don’t look like people to mess with.

Something about this situation makes the hair prickle at the back of his neck. “Hi,” he says. They say nothing.

“When you left this morning…”

“Mmmm?”

“You took something of mine.” So subtly, the smile on her face changes from sweet to feral. “The list. What do you want with it?”

The list. Any thoughts he might have had of charming his way out of whatever it is she wants disappear, and instinctively Jaq drops his drink and runs, out the cantina door and onto the street. Two or three blaster shots zing past his shoulder and he thanks all his lucky stars, not for the first time, for his reflexes. This is a part of Nar Shaddaa he isn’t familiar with, but he figures the principle is pretty much the same. The entire planet is one big gizka warren, and if he can be quick enough he’ll find a little spot to hide while Tanna and her goons either give up or get lost. Then he’ll take the long way back to the Sector, and he should be OK. Should be.

He cuts through a makeshift store set up in a residential module’s hallways, knocking over some late night shoppers, then down a side door into a maintenance area. One of the goons is not far away; he can hear the guy’s footsteps. There’s a transit platform and a shuttle nearby; he considers leaping onto the transit shuttle, blending into the passengers and letting it take him wherever it’s going — no, it begins to pull away from the platform. He won’t make it.

The goon is close. Jaq pulls his blaster and fires haphazardly behind him, then without waiting to see the results he ducks down some side alley. Nobody’s following him. He runs as far as the nearest doorway, and ducks inside. It’s full of junk. He scrambles up over a makeshift scaffold and down between them and listens for the sound of footsteps.

It’s silent. Maybe he did hit that guy.

He keeps running, a little slower and quieter this time, keeping an eye and an ear out for anyone who might be following. The maintenance alleys are scattered with junk and the occasional filthy pile of rags. A good ten minutes ought to get them well off his tail.

What the hell is in that datapad? I wish I’d never laid eyes on that schutta.

The list — he’d seen her toying with a datapad full of names and locations. He figured they were contacts: spice dealers, smugglers, something else. He’d picked it up while she was in the fresher and copied its contents into his own datapad — never hurts to get some good leads on new business, right? But that’s the cardinal rule: don’t mess with women, especially not beautiful women, definitely not redheads, and especially not the ones who get you drunk and take you back to their ship. Idiot, he tells himself.

Eventually he finds himself in some flophouse. There’s no one, he’s sure. He pulls his comm from his pocket and considers calling the guys for a little help, and then —

“There you are,” Tanna says, blaster in hand, and as his feet explode into white-hot pain he crashes to the dirty floor. All the beggars nearby who know what’s good for them pick up their bundles and run.

“Give me the damn datapad,” she says, as cool as you like. Jaq scrabbles inside his jacket for the datapad and flings it as far away from him as he can manage. His eyes barely work; he can just make out the shape of her, standing over him with her blaster pointed out.

“Good boy,” she says. “Now. Who did you show this to?”

“No one,” he grates.

“I can’t hear you, Jaq.”

“No one,” he repeats, and to his shame he can hear his voice cracking.

“We’ll see.” She punches a few commands into the pad. “Seems like you’re telling the truth.”

“You’ve got the blaster, sister.” And he’s quite sure she’ll use it. The white noise is subsiding; he can see the look on her face now, and she’s not kidding around at all.

“You’d be surprised, some of the stunts people try in this position.” She crouches down beside him. “And now. How much of it did you read?”

“I…” He can’t remember, and he can’t catch his breath. Some names, some systems.

“How. Much.” Tanna takes some of his hair in her hand and yanks his head up to face her.

“I don’t know. Some people on Telos, Coruscant… Peragus, I don’t know…”

“Hm.” She lets go of his hair. Jaq’s head flops forward and the burnt leather of his boots wafts up into his face.

“I guess this is where you shoot me,” he says.

“Oh, maybe.” She stands again. He doesn’t have to look to know the blaster has been pointed squarely at his head the entire time. “I’m still dying to know why you wanted that list.”

“I… contacts. Last night, you said you had good contacts. Thought I could…”

“Oh, they’re not the kind of contacts that’d be of much use to you.” She drops his datapad on the floor and cracks it into several small pieces under her boot. “Not after I’m done with them.”

It clicks — the very advanced blaster she’s holding, how she managed to creep up on him. They weren’t contacts; they were contracts. He’s been messing with an assassin.

“You’re a bounty hunter.”

“Sometimes,” she says. “Who are you working for?”

“No one, I’m… look, I’m just a stupid cantina rat, OK. I’m not out to get in on your… turf, whatever it is. I con people and I beat them at pazaak.”

“Oh no.” She’s still smiling that damn smile. “You’re a bit more than that, aren’t you.”

“What?”

“You’ve had military training.”

Jaq wonders why she hasn’t just shot him yet. “I’m not involved in anything. And there are a lot of veterans around here, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

“Not like you. You made a pretty tidy getaway there. Made a pretty good mess of poor Beran, too. I’m short a crew member now.” She looks at him carefully. “Whose side were you on?”

Oh, no. No way. He takes a gamble. “Does it matter?”

She laughs. “I suppose not. What did you do?”

“Infantry.” It’s partly true. He holds his breath.

There is an uncomfortable, far-too-long pause. To his surprise Tanna holsters her blaster, reaches into her pocket and pulls out a pair of medpacs. “I believe you, Jaq, and for whatever stupid reason, I like you. And that’s why I’m going to offer you a deal. I don’t think it’ll be a difficult decision for you.”

“I’m listening,” he says cautiously.

“We do a lot of dangerous things for our… employers. I’m not just talking about jumping in a cruiser and taking half a box of spice to some rich kid dealer on Coruscant here. I’m talking about people, weapons, secrets, bounties. It keeps us busy between other jobs.”

“Right.” He has a fair idea what she means here.

“Your talents are wasted making a few credits here and there from drunk spice runners, and I’ll be looking for a new crewman. And I don’t think I’ll come across another one quite as... entertaining as you. So the deal is this, Jaq: you can join my crew, or I can shoot you in the head right now.” Tanna holds out the medpacs. “What’ll it be?”

It’s the easiest decision in the galaxy. “I’m in,” he says.

“Good boy.” She hands him the medpacs. “Get yourself sorted out.”

His first thought is: Rand, you’re the luckiest bastard.

Then: How the hell am I going to get myself out of this one?