The Worthy Prey

The Chase

 The gravel road slides beneath my boots as I run after my escaping prey. Maybe I missed his leg and only grazed him with my shot. That would explain how he's moving so fast. Either that or his species is resistant to blaster wounds. It would be the first I've heard of. There's rustling in the building lining the roads. That could be the citizens ready to retaliate, or more snipers.

Passing through intersections in big cities is always dangerous. I didn't have time to look both ways and a giant brute grabs me by the chest plate and slams me on the ground, supine. The wind is knocked out of me and I can't tell if the crack was my ribs or the gravel. On the ground I look at the reptilian attacker. He's twice the size of a Wookiee and just as ferocious. He takes his hand of the Beskar and grabs me by the neck while I'm stunned. His clawed hands proceed to crush my windpipe. He raised me above his head with just one arm. I drop my blaster and use both my hand to pry away his fingers. There's armed guards on either side of him, pointing their rifles directly at me. Like those will make much of a difference after he snaps my neck.

"I can't wait to mount your head on my hall, Mandalorian," he hisses at me. His breath smells like a corpse.

"Yeah same here, buddy," I can barely get those words out before he begins tightening his grip. Now I definitely can't breath. Before I passed out, I point my left gauntlet directly in front of his eye. I fire a paralyzing dart. Those hurt when they pierce any part of the body. I wasn't sure if the dart would be able get through his scales, so I aimed for his eye. He drops me. He stumbles backward, covering his eye with his hands. The armed guard took their eyes off me, more concerned with the nine foot lizard screaming his head off. I take this time to catch my breath and message my neck. By the time the lizard-man falls under the effects of the dart and the guards look back at me, I'm on my feet with both blasters in my hands. Needless to say, I shot them while they were pointing their blasters at me. I leave the monster relatively unharmed. I'm fairly sure the dart went through his eye to his brain. If he's not dead now, he will be when I come back to gut him. Right now, I have to kill the man who tried to kill me first.

He's not running as fast as he was before. He must have used drugs to numb the pain and spike his adrenaline and the effects were starting to wear off. After my run in with the lizard I was feeling winded myself.

To my surprise, he stopped running. I kept my distance. His cloak hid his injury. I could still the bloodstains, and felt satisfied knowing that I hadn't missed.

"You've done well, assassin. No one has made it past my best capo before. You have my respect," he says. He turns around slowly, trying to add more suspense to the situation. He keeps the cloak drawn over himself, hiding his injury, "I would like to hire your services. Believe me when I say, no one in the galaxy pays a bounty hunter as well as I do," he smiled. I holster my blaster. The look in his eye shifts to certainty as I walk forward. He opens his arms in a welcome. I finally see the wound on his leg, and the puncture wound from the drugs. I draw the concealed knife from behind me, maintaining the same speed. His smile vanished, replaced with a look of horror. He drops his arms, the cloak falling back in place, "I can't say I'm not disappointed," whips of light shot from either side of me. One grabbed the arm that held the knife, the other grabbed the opposite leg. Simultaneously they released volts of electricity. My muscle contracted furiously as the energy poured into my body. Needless to say I dropped the knife. When they stopped I fell to my knees, "it's a shame," he spoke again, "we could have done great things together," he must have felt safe walking forward, now that I looked defeated. He couldn't be more wrong. I raise my right arm, bracing for the shock, and released flames onto the attacker to my right. The bonds loosen. I point my arm to the left and do the same. I pick up the knife again and see that Quin hasn't moved. Like he was the one I shot with the dart. Regardless, I pounced on him.

I jam the knife into his left shoulder and then his right. Out of habit I've pierced the artery in the shoulder, but what I care about is limiting his struggling for the next part. He whimpers and cries trying to bribe me into sparing his life. I can't make out what the hell he's saying and at this point I really don't care. I kneel beside his head and switch the knife from one hand to the other, "What are you doing," he says as I fill my left hand with his hair.

"Taking my reward," I say. He releases a scream I've never heard before as I separate his scalp from his head. He convulses, pleading for me to stop. With each stroke of the knife he slips away from consciousness. He's stopped screaming before I'm done. He either passed out from either blood loss or because all his screaming didn't let enough oxygen get to his brain. I pocket the scalp in my belt and clean my dirty knife on his cloak before sheathing it again. I begin to stand when I remember the necklace. I bend over and rip it off his neck. I tie it to my belt. I'm sure the Imperial won't mind.

I started to walk away when I noticed all the snipers on the roofs. They're not pointing their weapons at me. They're looking at the man, who now bleeds from the exposed skin on his head. They don't even seem to notice the two torched bodyguards. They seem unsure. I pull out my blaster and fire shot after shot into his chest. Now they look at me. I look back. After a few moments, they turn and run. I holster the blaster again, wishing I had a speeder to get me back to avoid the long walk back to my ship.