Ask Coruscant Cornered On Coruscant

Cadu Leszek

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Coruscant
Level 1313

Cadu Leszek had not visited Coruscant since his stint as a Sector Ranger years ago, but everything looked and felt and sounded the same: chaotic. Coming from his recent adventure on Lothal, it had been somewhat of a rude awakening to zoom through the cloudcover and be met by the durasteel behemoth that was the spires and other contructions of the New Republic capital. To call it the hustle and bustle of city life would be a gross understatement; calling something a distinct part of life in a city only made sense when there was something antithetical to compare it to. Coruscant, however, was nothing but city. Planet-wide city. A city-planet. 'An ecumenopolis', in academic jargon. Didn't matter much what name one gave it; it was no way for any sentient being to live. Choose Kiffu over this any day, clan violence and all included. At least you get to die under an open sky with rain or sun or snow on your face.

The bounty hunter squinted as a small personal transport speeder careened past 'Arluy's Cause', zooming across the freighter's cockpit viewport, gone in the blink of an eye. He leaned forward, eyes following the speeder as it circled upwards in the underworld portal, towards the tiny shimmering dot at the end of the ginormous cylinder, the exit to Coruscan'ts surface. Gods-damned maniacs, he thought, veering the Cause into another lane of mostly spacecraft, putting some distance between himself, the small planetary speeders and their reckless drivers. The sooner I'm out of here, the better.

Needless to say, it was work that had brought Cadu to the New Republic capital. Easing the Cause into a soft, spiralling descend, the Kiffar kept one eye on the spacecraft in front of him while he looked over the bounty description on his datapad:


'Ferrin Lone
Bounty lodged by the Sector Rangers.
***
The Acquisition is wanted for, among other things, the bombing of a government

building on Corellia; the murder of a New Republic diplomat and her family;
the maiming of several Sector Rangers as they raided his hide-out on Nar Shaddaa.
***
Lone is considered highly capable and dangerous, fast on the trigger, unlikely
to show mercy or let himself be captured. He's wanted dead or alive.'

Cadu tapped the buttons necessary to access the hologram of the acquisition provided by the Guild. The ship's cockpit projector lit up and formed a grainy, blue-white image of an individual wearing Mandalorian armor. It was surveillance footage; the Mandalorian could be seen dual-wielding a pair of blaster pistol, firing fast but methodically at an opponent not visible in the hologram. Suddenly, he stopped firing and holstered his blasters; Cadu had to think that the opponent was an opponent no longer, not a live one, at least. The T-visored head turned slightly, almost as if it looked at the security camera, almost as if it wanted the camera to record him. And then Lone strode out of sight of the camera, and of Cadu.

Although he tried to not let himself be governed by his pride and arrogance - bounty hunters who did tended to live glorious but very short lives - Cadu had not been able to say no to the challenge. A Mandalorian. Famed warriors. Perhaps it was the Kiffar in him who couldn't stand down from a challenge like that. Whatever it was, Cadu had accepted the bounty, and he was here now, on Coruscant, where the intel provided by Cadu's contacts in the Guild had led him. And where, he suspected, the trail would go cold. A Mando does not end up working as a bagman for the Syndicates without the ability to cover up his scent.

A short while later, the bounty hunter veered the Cause out of the air traffic lane it was in and into a hangar he had contact upon his arrival on Coruscant to be able to dock in. The cockpit shook familiarly as the landing gear sat down on the duracreet. Cadu rose from his seat and went to the cargo hold where he donned parts of his armor that he could inconspicuously wear underneath a duster coat. It meant that he had to leave behind the helmet, and he replaced his chest armor with a tan-colored armored vest much less likely to draw unwanted attention to itself. It would be lunacy to go after Ferrin Lone without his proper gear, but Cadu didn't think it likely that he would encounter the Mandalorian anytime soon. First, Cadu needed to track his whereabouts. Provided that he succeeded, he would have time to double back to his ship and prepare himself before he took on Lone. First stop would be Deebi's Dungeon, a seedier-than-average cantina not far from where Cadu had docked. He knew someone there, an informant from his time as a Sector Ranger. Perhaps, this individual would be willing to part with whatever information they might have about Lone. There was, of course, also another approach to the issue of finding Lone; be on the lookout for other bounty hunters here to collect the prize of the Mandalorian's capture.

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Lorcan

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Go to the place - find the dude - kill the dude - get paid.

It was a fairly simply line of thought but it never really went anywhere near as smoothly as that. Even if the target wasn't an armed Mando (calling a Mando 'armed' was a bit redundant he would admit), there were a whole mess of things that could, and would, go wrong on any mission. That the mission was on Coruscant was both a good thing and a fecking awful thing.

He knew the streets of Coruscant like the back of his hand - that was a big plus.

The downsides? The fact that he was operating in the Sector Rangers' backyard and the local police had had it out for him ever since he exposed some of their members as dirty... and cut open their throats. It had probably been more that second part that had caused them to get angry.

But back to the hunt - it was time for Ferrin Lone to get his ticket punched.

Deebi's Dungeon was a shite hole but that was fine because he needed to find himself a good shite hole. Sitting at the bar, he idly watched as several fences and other, small time, gangsters milled around. He just needed to wait - someone here was sitting on something juicy and they wouldn't be able to hold themselves back from looking like they had something to say.

Then all he had to do was ask.

Politely.


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Cadu Leszek

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First thing that Cadu noticed was the stain of unidentifiable alien body fluids smeered on the doorframe at the entrance to the cantina. The sliding door - old and probably long overdue for maintenance - jammed halfway through; the Kiffar had to pry the rest open manually. He saw the stain as he squeezed through the opening; it was close enough to his face that he could smell a faint metallic odour mixed with something sweeter. Vomit? Blood? Hard to tell, but hardly surprising, he thought as he walked down the dimly lit corridor leading to the Dungeon.

Deebi's Dungeon was no longer owned by Deebi, hadn't been for years. Once affiliated with a local crime organisation operating under Black Sun's banner, the Twi'lek had become an example to other small business owners who disagreed with the payment rate of Black Sun's protection service. One day, Deebi was there, chatting with her customers and sliding glasses of tsiraki across the counter - and the next, she wasn't. Her son, Taam, had run the cantina ever since.

Back when Cadu was with the Rangers, Deebi's disappearance had landed on his desk. While Deebi's murder (for Cadu and his partner assumed that she had been kidnapped and executed by the Black Sun) was never solved or avenged, her son had appreciated the time and effort that they put into the investigation. At Cadu's behest, Taam's animosity towards the Black Sun turned him into an informant for the Rangers. Naturally, he'd appreciated the credits they were able to pay him, usually out of their own pockets, too.

But all of that was years ago. Taam might not even remember Cadu - kriff, he might not even be alive. But if he was, Cadu hoped that the Twi'lek still had eyes and ears open and was willing to share.

For the right price, of course.

Cadu's latter worry was quickly disproved. Taam was at work behind the bar with two other barkeeps, a Human female with a buzz cut and a piercing for every occasion and an Ithorian (Cadu had always thought Ithorians would be too clumsy for barkeep work, but this one moved more gracefully than he could have imagined). Cadu hesitated for a moment, recognition causing neurons in his brain to run a memory slide show, snap shots from his time in the force. It lasted but a moment, but it was long enough for the Twi'lek to notice him. He shot the Kiffar a quick glance, and resumed his business.

The Kiffar made his way down the steps to the cantina's main floor. He was unsure whether Taam had recognized him, but he couldn't just walk up the Twi'lek and make his presence known. Not only would that risk letting any potential eavesdroppers in on the bounty Cadu was out to collect; it also risked compromising Taam's position which, Cadu admitted, he had done an impressive job at keeping a secret, given that he was still alive. The obvious explanation, however, the one that Cadu didn't like to consider, was that the Twi'lek had given up informing long ago. If he had, well, then it was back to the drawing board, for as far as Cadu could tell, the information that the Twi'lek could potentially provide was his best shot at obtaining a clue about where the Mando might be hiding.

They'd had a system, Taam and him, in his Ranger days, for when Cadu wanted to contact him. Given that the Twi'lek had already noticed him, Cadu decided to put that system to the test. He strode past the sparse patrons occupying the aisles between dirty booths and tables, boots sticky on the filthy duracreet. It was warm inside, but he kept his duster coat buttoned so the blaster pistol at his hip and blast vest on his torso wouldn't show. He sat down in an empty booth out to one side of the room.

Then, there was nothing to do but wait.

In the meantime, the Kiffar took in his surroundings as inconspicuously as possible from his seat in the booth. The booths immediately to his sides weren't visible to him, but he could hear soft chatter from both of them. The bar and the table-and-chair setups in the middle of the room were visible from his position, although the smoke dimmed the room as well as any chances Cadu had of seeing the other patrons clearly. However, he got a general idea of the clientele. There weren't many patrons milling around, but those that did were undoubtedly of the seedy kind. Gamblers, fences, druggies and their dealers, syndicate muscle - distinguished people, really. The bar was the busiest area of the cantina; Taam and his two employees were hard at work mixing and serving drinks for the thirsty patrons. Cadu was scouting specifically for anyone looking out of the ordinary, but he didn't see anything that aroused his suspicion sufficiently to warrant his undivided attention. That comforted the bounty hunter. Ferrin Lone's last known whereabouts was undoubtedly known to more people than Cadu. The Dungeon would be a common place to go snooping for intel.

Ten minutes had passed when Taam came over to him. With him, he had an iridescent blue, sizzling drink that he handed to Cadu. "The usual, Mr Vance," the Twi'lek said. Cadu gawked at the Twi'lek. Then it hit him. Ah, yes, Mr Vance. Famed - and also fake - Coruscanti conman. It had been an undercover alias of Cadu's; he'd forgotten about it, and quite frankly he was amazed that Taam had remembered, given how much time had passed since. It had been openly known among the Dungeon's staff that Taam had a 'special deal' with the conman, something about storage space for Vance's counterfeit goods in the cantina's basement. Taam would sit down with Cadu - or rather 'Mr Vance' - for a conversation, after which they'd retreat to the backroom for their shady dealings. It was there, tucked away from any prying eyes, that Taam would provide Cadu with a time and a place for a meeting where the exchange of information would take place.

All of this came back to Cadu as the Twi'lek was setting his drink on the table. He cleared his throat, ready to personify Mr Vance once again, but before he could do so, Taam simply turned on his heels and walked off. Cadu stared after him, slightly dumbfounded. He looked at the drink and wondered briefly whether this was somehow Taam's way of making contact with him, or if the sizzling blue drink was laced with poison, a final 'good riddance, sleemo' from one of the many informants Cadu had left out in the cold after his sudden resignation from the force. Wouldn't have surprised him if it were. He might have done the same, had he been in Taam's shoes all those years ago. However, as he studied the nasty-looking drink, he noticed something stuck to the underside of the glass. Deftly, he tilted the glass just enough to be able to slide a finger underneath the bottom of it and free the little piece of paper, and - lifting the glass to his lips with the other hand, taking a sip - he slid his hand down by his waist, out of sight of the other patrons. It read:


Alleyway behind The Dungeon in ten minutes.
Knock on the back door.


Cadu drew breath through gritted teeth as the liquid cut through his esophagus and came to an uneasy rest in his stomach. So everything is still the same. Go figure. A planet that never sleeps and never truly changes - and so too its people.

He stayed long enough to force the drink down before he rose from the booth and headed for the exit. Outside, the sidewalk was bustling. He followed the flow of pedestrians for a block or two before he doubled back to the point where the alleyway behind the cantina convened on the main road. He looked around briefly to see if anyone was following him, and hurried down the alleyway. He knocked on the door, waited. It opened, and Taam stepped out. "Come on," he said, moving past Cadu towards the main road. "I don't have long. I told Kali I had to go drive my boy to his swoop practice, but if I'm not back within the hour she might get suspicious."

"Wait,"
Cadu said, following the Twi'lek.

"Not here," the Twi'lek said as he passed through the flow of pedestrians and continued towards a parked speeder a bit away from the cantina's entrance. Cadu followed suit and jumped into the passenger's seat, and within seconds they were in the air; Cadu only had time to notice what seemed like someone watching them from the crowd, but he didn't have a proper look, and it may have been nothing but his own paranoia.

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Lorcan

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The first sign that something was different was that the head bartender had actually reacted to someone. Which was new since the kid hadn't so much as twitched at anything the entire night so far and that had included a dude having his eye taken out with a broken glass so it was strange to see him react to someone at all. Especially just some nobody wandering up to the bar.

Curiouser and curiouser.

Watching the dude head off to a booth, Lorcan didn't move closer to him so much as he followed the bartender with his eyes. The man was easier to follow despite being a lot twitchier than he'd seen most people in the business. Nah the guy in the booth was probably another bounty hunter looking for information and that meant he probably had his head on a swivel.

Seeing their interaction by the booth, Lorcan didn't know where they were going to go but he knew that if he followed them he ran the risk of being spotted. So the only thing to do was to make sure he was already there so they couldn't see him following them. By his reckoning there was nowhere good within the bar that couldn't be seend by someone.

Probably by a multitude of someones actually.

Which left the outside.

Heading outside even as the bartender was dropping off the drink, he made sure to keep out of sight. But the only way to do that was to take advantage of something - most people didn't look up.

So Lorcan scaled the wall to stand atop the roof of the cantina's first level, waiting for them to appear.


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Cadu Leszek

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The speeder flew upwards, passed the roof of the cantina, and continued to fly parallel to the main road a level or two above the buildings. This area wasn't the narrowest on Level 1313, but it was narrow enough that Cadu was worried about the speed and the reckless veering in and out of other personal transports that the Twi'lek made the speeder perform. It didn't last long, however. A block or two away from the cantina, the speeder came to a rest, hovering underneath a platform jotting out from one of the apartments that honeycombed the multi-level walls of the area. They weren't far above the roofs of the buildings down below either. It couldn't be too 'hot' for Taam presently, the bounty hunter thought. Back in the day, they would never meet closer than a grid or two away from the cantina, and they'd never leave the cantina together, always arriving at the rendezvous site in seperate vehicles.

They were silent for a while, only the humming of the speeder's repulsorlift engines mixed with the general noise of the Coruscanti underworld. The Twi'lek turned and leveled a blaster at Cadu. Cadu had a hand on his own blaster pistol inside of the duster coat.

"I ought to smoke you in your seat, Leszek."

Okay, maybe he doesn't remember those days as fondly as I do. "It's been a while, Taam."

"Should've been a while longer, if you ask me,"
the Twi'lek said. "Didn't expect to see you again in these parts. Didn't think you were that stupid."

Cadu shrugged, a rogueish grin on his face. "Wisdom's not a Leszek family trait. So unless you plan on really blasting me, can you put that down? How've you been?"

The Twi'lek lowered the blaster begrudgingly. "Do you have any idea of the excuse I had to invent for Mr Vance's sudden disappearance?"


"An elaborate one, I imagine."

"An unlikely one. I'm lucky the Suns were caught up in a turf war at the time. It would have crumbled on me if they had looked into it."


Kriff. Talk about a tiny impact causing great ripples in the water. "I didn't have much of a choice, Taam."

The Twi'lek grunted. "Didn't leave me much of one either." He scowled at Cadu. "The kriff do you want now? Make it fast, so I can drop you off again and leave you, Vance, and the whole damn charade in the past where it belongs."

The bounty hunter sighed. "Fair enough. I'm looking for a Mando supposed to be here, on Coruscant, probably in the underworld somewhere. Ferrin Lone's the name. Heard anything?"


"Might have."

"Reckon a few credits could dislodge any such memory from your brain?"

"A few could hardly buy me the water to flush my arse with."

"A fair amount, then."

The Twi'lek looked away thoughtfully. "Show me."

Cadu burrowed into his pockets and withdrew a credit chip, which he handed to Taam. It was quickly scanned by the Twi'lek's datapad. "Okay," he said. "Gleeve Vas - Rodian guy, with the Suns. Overheard a conversation he had with some other Suns a few days ago. Joked about a 'Vod' holing up somewhere on the Level." Taam looked at the bounty hunter. "Rodian's your best shot."

Cadu smiled, found another credit chip in his pocket, and put it down on shelf on the speeder's dashboard. "Thanks, Taam."

The Twi'lek banked the speeder aggressively down towards the main road. "Whatever," he said, setting the speeder down by the sidewalk. "Show me your datapad," he said. Cadu did as he was told. The Twi'lek tabbed something into Cadu's datapad, then handed it back to the bounty hunter. "Rodian's address. Think he lives with a few other Sun cronies. Start there. And get out of my speeder." Again, Cadu did as he was told. As soon as he was out of the speeder, it shot into the air. Taam was gone, and Cadu left alone with the flow of pedestrians, and his thoughts.

Funny, when you burn bridges, they're deceptively hard to walk back across.


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Lorcan

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Looked like the bartender and the competitor of his knew each other – he managed to keep above them quietly by running across the rooftops and, on one occasion, using an idling speeder as part of a bit of leapfrog. But the downside of making sure you aren’t seen or heard is that you tend to be far enough away that it’s hard for you to hear what is actually being said. From body language and actions alone he could tell that they knew each other and, drawn blasters aside, their previous relationship had been a rather pleasant one. This being Coruscant, anything that didn’t involve actual blaster shots was a good relationship.

Maybe that was why people kept trying to insist he had bad relationships when he knew that they weren’t that bad – by Coruscanti standards.

And credits changed hands… either that or they were passing love letters. It was kind of hard to tell from this distance. He had the option of either sticking with the competition or getting the same rat to squeal for him as it had his competition. In the end the answer was rather easy to come to as the speeder was suddenly only occupied by the bartender and it was heading up.

Right up by him.

How thoughtful!

Lorcan leapt, landing heavily in the passenger seat of the speeder. The bartender, naturally, panicked and swerved with the speeder as he attempted to draw his blaster pistol. Lorcan didn’t bother with a blaster, instead drawing his knife and impaling the man through the left hand with it, pinning the hand to the central console.

“Hello there.”
He greeted the twilek brightly, twisting the knife as he did so, “Name’s Lorcan and I’m hunting a bounty – same as that feckless buckethead you just served. Do yourself a favour and input what you put into his datapad onto mine.”

He dropped the pad into the twilek’s lap as he watched him critically. The bartender spat at him and Lorcan didn’t so much as flinch as it hit his helmet. Did he really think that was going to do anything?

“Go kark yourself.”


Ah a brave one.

“Look kid – it was clear he knew you. Trouble is that I DON’T know you. So when I start cutting you apart piece by piece, not only will I not care but I won’t be able to tell when you stop lying and you start honestly admitting that you don’t know.”
He shrugged as the twilek paled, “So I’ll just end up cutting and cutting until you’re dead and I follow your friend. I’ll be behind but I’ll catch up. Or…”

He twisted the knife.

“You give me what I want now and we all walk away from this.”


The Twilek shuddered before, with his free hand, typing into the datapad the same information he’d given Cadu. Lorcan smiled and took the datapad back even as he navigated the speeder to hover about four meters off the top of a flat roof. With the information in place, Lorcan removed the knife from the bartender’s hand and violently kicked him out of the idling speeder to land with a crunch on the rooftop. Lorcan shuffled into the driver’s seat, glancing down at the bartender screaming with two broken legs.

“Well, you’ll walk away from this eventually.”


But he had an address to get to – with a handy speeder! Life was good.


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Cadu Leszek

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The speeder taxi set Cadu down in another district of the Level. It seemed as though Level 1313 grew poorer the further in you travelled, and the district that Cadu had travelled to by cab was a veritable slum compared to the area housing Taam's cantina. Shack-like structures were sprinkled on either side of the streets that criss-crossed the district, the monotony broken off occasionally by actual commercial-grade buildings. Dwellings for the more well-off sentients of the district, a group that had to consist mostly of gangsters who could afford to pay the amoral rents with their illicitly-sourced credits.

How very cliché of Gleeve Vas that he should live in one of those buildings.

The bounty hunter stared up at the side of the building. The Rodian's apartment lay on the fifth floor; Cadu could see the fluorescent yellow of cheap lights shining through the transparisteel windows. There was a small balcony attached to the side of the building on their level, where he could see a single silhouette leaning against the ledge, a small ember glowing near its mouth. He couldn't be sure what being it was, but he was fairly sure that it wasn't Human.

Cadu pressed the button on his helmet that made the visor drop down and engaged the thermal vision. Definitely a warm-blooded being, he thought to himself as the silhouette lit up in yellow, red, and violet. Taam had said that the Rodian lived with three other Suns, but there might be even more than that holing up - such was often the case with vermin. It would be a tough fight, taking on more than three, but Cadu had the element of surprise - or so he hoped, at least. He had doubled back to his ship to retrieve his armor, spending valuable time doing so, but as far as he knew, he wasn't being tailed. It had cost him even more credits to do so, and he'd already spent a fair amount on Taam's intel. He thought of the Twi'lek and hoped that he had done the right things by pulling him back into this messy business. Hopefully, the credits he'd received from Cadu as payment had been worth the trouble.

The bounty hunter rolled up the left sleeve of his duster coat, revealing his armored gauntlets. He lifted his left arm, aimed, and activated the grapple line built into the gauntlet. It shot upwards and buried itself into the underside of the balcony. Cadu hurried into a shaded spot underneath the balcony; doing so, he noticed that the figure on the balcony reacted to the slight sound the grapple line made as it connected to the balcony's underside. The bounty hunter waited, listening for any evidence that the being on the balcony had made him, and when he was sufficiently convinced that it hadn't, he started the slow climb towards the balcony.

Since Cadu has spent time going back to the ship, it's more than likely that Lorcan could have made it to the address before him. Feel free to write it as such if you want :)

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Lorcan

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The beauty of a speeder was that it was much faster than his running and jumping over the rooftops or taking any of the elevators. Those things were death traps anyway by his reckoning. He was a sector ranger and a native of the place – he knew how little maintenance those things got so he knew he was probably safer sucking on a rusty nail until it cut up his tongue and cheeks just to get the rust, blood and toxin flavour.

He was getting off topic though.

Arriving at the address didn’t take took long but that was only slightly less than half of the story when it came to killing a guy who knew what he was doing. The rest was a mixture of preparation and luck. Best way to tell a professional from an amateur was checking to see just how much of each they used.

Lorcan was the kind of guy who believed that preparation was the best way forward. Luck was always an element in any kind of attack but if you prepped hard enough you could get away with having some pretty terrible luck anyway.

So prep it was.

The address was one of the old style ones that had fewer windows than one might expect and he was using that to his advantage, setting explosives along the side of the exterior wall without actually being seen from inside. When they were in place he moved the speeder further away from the wall and set it into park as he drew out his blaster rifle. He started humming lightly to himself as he calibrated the sights.

“Flash… bam… alakazam and…”


He pressed the detonator and the wall exploded inward, showering the room with debris and leaving the occupants open to his sights. Lorcan waited a second for the dust to settle not on the ground but on people trying to move.

“… goodbye!”


He opened fire into the breach at the dust covered figures. They didn’t need to be his target but if one of them was his target that would be nice. In the mean time he would just unload on anything that moved in the dust and smoke.



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