Kurtis Kayen
11:20am, January 07, 2010
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[Delete] | Kurtis stared dispassionately on the radar screen of his Firespray vessel as he waited for the coordinates to bring him to the core of Tatooine. It had been a long trip, and while he was
extraordinarily tired at this point, he had the steely reserve to see the rest of the mission through.
The bounty had been a difficult one. He wasn't sure what precisely it had been to make it so difficult, other than the expertise of the prey, who had been a New Republic government agent
specializing in intelligence, the kind of prey that most bounty hunters would fall short of delivering
and probably lose their lives in the process.
Not Kurtis.
He absently rubbed at the gunshot wound at his arm. He had removed the Mandalorian plate to clot it and treat it with a medpac, but it had punctured particularly deep.
"I have contacts," the man said without a hint of affection. "I could take care of that for you, get you fixed up, and we could both say we never saw each other."
"That would be a failed mission." The hunter chuckled faintly. "And I don't fail missions."
"Everyone has to make mistakes sometime."
"Not me."
He had chased the Republic agent to the underlevels of Nar Shadaa. The official claim by his employer, although it didn't matter too much, had been that the agent was selling secrets from his government to the Huttese crime lords. But he never really cared what the reason for hunting his target was.
He looked over to the man holed up in the forced quarters. The detention room was relatively comfortable with a couch that had been crafted out of special material, and there was a urinal, among other things. Kayen figured that as long as they were going somewhere unpleasant, they may as well enjoy their last motel.
He turned to observe the coordinates of the Firespray and changed them over to bring the ship in,
guiding it into the docking bay of his headquarters on Nal Hutta.
"I've seen that bracer on your wrist. It's a Mandalorian bracer, isn't it?"
"Yes, it is."
"I think I've seen that exact one."
"That's not likely." He was bemused at the man's insistence.
"Does that happen to have an engraving on it, on the bottom there? Does it say Ures Aaray?"
That got his attention. The T-shaped visor of Kurtis's helmet shifted to watch the man, who was expressionless, even though he had seen a response warranted. Not a great one, as Kayen's face wasn't shown, but a response, nonetheless.
"How," Kurtis responded slowly. "did you know that?"
"I knew your father."
"My father was an orphaned smuggler. What's a Republican agent doing with scum like him?"
"Your father was a Mandalorian lieutenant for the Ordo clan."
"You're a liar." His tone wasn't vengeful. Just certain.
"Let me go, and I'll get you the intel you need. You can look it up yourself."
He ignored him and brought the ship into the dockingbay. 94. The classic Tatooine bay. There was a group of men waiting outside. Republicans, likely intelligence judging from the black jumpsuits. He suspected that the Republic would secretly do away with the man, but it wasn't his concern. All he wanted was payment.
"Time to go." He stood up and moved to let the man out, pressing an activation sequence with one hand while holding a rifle trained on the man's head with the other. The agent stood up silently, shrugging his shoulders and stepping out of the cell. His hands were up in a defensive maneuver, and he had nothing on except a standard white undersuit.
"I could have helped you, Kurtis."
"Even if what you said was true, it doesn't matter. Not anymore."
He knocked the man in the back of the head with the butt of his rifle, and pressed for the hatch to open. Observing the man's facial expression, the absolute certainty displayed across his features, the hinting smile, his face drew into a stern line of indifference, but behind it, there was some hint of
desire, of a desperate need to find out if what the man had said was true.
When the other agents arrived, they were quick to place the man in a bodybag and take him out as discreetly as possible, even if it wasn't very discrete at all.
"Did he give you much trouble?"
"Just another job. What's going to happen to him?"
He broke the cardinal rule, the one where professionalism was traded in for personal curiousity, but he wanted to know, just incase there was some chance of him finding out the truth, if the man had been veracious.
The agent smiled thinly at the bounty hunter, tilting his head and smirking as if to go "tsk tsk" at the response. "Republic business, bounty hunter. Your bank account will be wired this evening. Just do your job, and we'll do ours."
It figures, Kayen thought privately. Just another Empire, just another era. As he watched the men go, he turned and made his way to his bunk. He hadn't sleep in over thirty-six hours, and he was tired.
His last thought was of how the man knew the contents of that bracer.
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