A cesspool of the downtrodden, the Refugee Sector on Nar Shaddaa is home to both the misfortunate and criminals alike. Offering their protection for credits, the criminal organizations that control the sector tax the populace outrageous sums. Unable to provide these fees, refugees are forced to work under hazardous conditions producing glitterstim and adrenals for their overseers. Some of these refugees are addicted to the substances themselves—for which the cartels increase the price of their tithes in exchange for a share of the product.

Crammed with stalls and makeshift hovels, several of the sector’s inhabitants find refuge on the streets and in the alleyways. Those who managed to avoid the dangers of drug production can be found selling their limited and often defective goods to others. Behind these stalls, a selective stock of black market wares is hidden, reserved for mercenaries and thugs.

Littered with garbage, it is obvious that no maintenance droids have been programmed to maintain the sector. The surrounding towers have fallen into decay, bits of debris falling every so often into the middle of the street. The duracrete streets are covered in a film of filth and chemicals from the abandoned warehouses, making movement cumbersome when traveling through the most inhabited areas.

Patrols armed with blasters and vibroswords come through these areas regularly, making a show of force to advertise the merits of their ‘protection’ while extorting the occasional shopkeeper. Screams and shouts are a common enough sound, which is never in the refugees’ best interests to interfere in.

You’ve been tasked with the retrieval of data from a thief who absconded with sensitive information. Not only is this to safeguard the Brotherhood, there’s also a substantial, but little-known bounty on the target, and the goodwill and favor to be earned from the source the data was thieved from. Of course, not everyone will go along with it. There may be those who desire to ensure the thief succeeds, and the source of the data is embarrassed. There are harsh penalties for those who return unsuccessful, and rewards for those who ensure the safe delivery of the information. No matter which side you’re on, you know success is vital.

Subterfuge was not on the menu.

Colonel Zentru'la of the Imperial Scholae Army, and Bale Andros, eminent bounty hunter, stood out like a sore thumb on the streets of Nar Shaddaa. Big guys, big guns, heavy armour, bulging muscles with a side order of explosives; two fathers' fates intertwined by the actions of their daughters. The huge frame of the twi'lek colonel was encased head to toe in white armour, carrying a heavy repeating cannon and a grenade launcher strapped across his back and wearing a belt studded with explosives. Bale was somehow even bigger than Zentru'la, with rugged armour cobbled together from various pieces, with a giant blaster rifle and an array of technology at his disposal. "So what do you think, blend in with the locals?" Bale joked as heads turned to face them wherever they walked.

"We'll need them eventually," Zentru'la responded, not there to joke about with the bounty hunter, but recognising that tolerating his casual approach would be critical to mission success. The bounty hunter came with a well-deserved reputation for unpredictability.

Despite his jovial front, the Empress' last words to Bale before echoed in his mind with unnatural clarity... 'Skye is safe with me'. It was not reassurance. That was not the Empress's way. It was a threat.

Dealing with the Scholae Empire had forced Bale into playing a game he did not wish to play, in understanding a mystery he did not wish to solve, where no one is who they say they are and everyone's a magic space wizard. The one thing he did understand was that the Empress was among the most gifted medical scientists in the Galaxy, and the only one willing to study Skye's condition. However, the price was heavy indeed.

He shuddered to think about what her true motivations were, the Empress had taken an unnatural interest in Skye, describing her as 'gifted', made vague promises about 'unlocking her true potential'. To make matters worse, he had failed his previous mission. A rash decision to kill the man he was supposed to capture had directly lead to the death of Proconsul Raiju Kang and the failure of the Imperial Scholae Army to secure the continent of Maqor. A second failure was simply not an option.

The mission at hand was one rather unfamiliar to the colonel, mainly placed there by the Empress to keep an eye on Bale and avoid a repeat of the Maqor Catastrophe. The military man was more used to a straight fight. "You ever had to disappear without a trace?" her inquired of Bale in a characteristically hoarse tone.

"Nope," the bounty hunter shrugged. "But if I wasn't any good at finding them I'd be dead by now, so we've got that going for us. I'll tell ya all the stories over a drink?"

"I don't really think now is the ti-

"Listen, it's always time for drinks," Bale cut him off, gesturing to a cantina sign on a street corner. "The Drowned Quarren?" A patron stumbled out of the cantina, barely able to stand, before being aggressively shoved to the ground by a security guard. The stench of alcohol wafted through the unclean air. Before Zentru'la could even respond, Bale had set off in the direction of the cantina. He didn't trust the bounty hunter, but he trusted his motivations: he was in no place to endanger the mission. Zentru'la followed him into The Drowned Quarren.

“Liven’ up, pops!” Bale slid a frothing drink across the table at the old man, his toothy smile an ugly gash against his black beard. He threw himself down into the nearest seat and kicked his legs up over the table, making himself comfortable despite his bulky armor.

Zentru’la took the drink without so much as a glance, but that was the extent of his comfort. Sitting awkwardly straight, he never for one second stopped scanning the seedy bar around them, eyes darting from one drunken lout to the next, his grumpy old frown a permanent feature on his chiseled face. Bale had had his fair share of Twi’lek partners over the years—he reckoned he much preferred the females—but he’d never met one quite like this ancient relic. All clenched up, head to the mission, his immaculate armor sticking out like a sore thumb against the dingy backdrop of the Drowned Quarren. Every bit the military man. The firepower he carried was enough to make even Bale Andros jealous, though. That, the Zabrak could respect, if nothing else.

“Ok. I’ve indulged you. Why are we here?” The Twi’lek growled. Any other time, Bale would have been content chipping away at the man’s patience, but they did have a job to do. So the Zabrak threw his head back, swallowed the contents of his mug in one loud slurp.

He spoke as he slapped the empty glass down on the table, “Think hunting. Do you run about blindly ‘til you luck out and find your prey?”

“No, you stake out its territory, you bait it out,” Zentru’la obliged, all business.

Bale tapped his nose with a pair of fingers, “There you go.”

One stiff nod confirmed his partner understood what the Zabrak was trying to convey. He left out the part where he was running on gut and intuition but then, there was no point getting the fella riled up. His gut had served him well enough in the past. He wasn’t about to ignore it on account of the Empress’ old fart. She’d picked Bale because he was the best at what he does. Kriffing Maqor be damned. She could send ten babysitters on the next mission for all he cared. Besides, Bale figured if their mark was about to come into some money, or at least expected to, he’d be looking to wet his whiskers somewhere nice. As far as nice places went, this stinking, backwater dive was the best in the area.

“So what’s next?”

“Not a clue.”

“You gotta be kidding me,” Zentru’la looked about ready to put that grenade launcher to use.

“I told ya. Liven’ up! I’m fragging with ya. I put out the word we were looking to hire an experienced thief.” Bale gave his most confident grin and he lounged back, arms crossed lazily behind his head, his chair hanging at a precarious angle. “So we wait.”

Zentru’la couldn’t have looked more doubtful, “Blunt.”

“Uh. I don’t do subtle.”

The Twi’lek gave a shrug, ready to move on. “You don’t make for a convincing client. Neither of us does. You really think they’ll buy it?”

Sure enough, Bale caught movement from across the room. They were shadows moving through the low-light crawl of the cantina, black shapes pooling together near the bar like drops of blood on concrete becoming one as they neared each other. It was hard to tell them apart with certainty through the smoky haze, but he didn’t need his gut to tell him none of these was their would-be thief. The broad shoulders and clumpy muscles were a dead give away, and they had a real mean look about them.

“No. I reckon they won't.” The Zabrak nodded in their direction. He didn’t move, kept his arms pulled back without a care in the world.

“I see them.”

The bartender pointed a grubby, blue finger in their direction and the thugs started filing through the bar, sidestepping patrons and tables on their way towards Bale and Zentru’la. One drunken fool got in their way. He all but disappeared from sight. That last Bale glimpsed he was flying over a table feet over his head. Few noticed and them that did couldn’t spare a second glance. As the thugs drew closer, the overhead lights washed over them and the shapes grew clearer. Coming their way was an assortment of thugs from various races and makes, Gran and Weequay, Humans and Rodians, lead by one lumpy, oversized Gamorrean swine with a vicious limp. There were eight of them and they all had one thing in common: an insignia, the same half-moon laid points down over the same row of four circles. A gang sign. Not quite what Bale had had in mind when he put out the call for a thief, but he was the adaptable sort. He glanced over at Zentru’la. Could have been a statue if not for his eyes darting their way and that. Bale didn’t much trust the fellow, but he could trust the guns he was carrying. You have to look at the silver-lining, he thought.

“Tough looking bunch,” assessed the Twi’lek over the edge of his mug.

“Yeah. Either I baited the wrong animal, or our little buddy is running with a fierce pack.”

“No gang affiliations in his profile,” said Zentru’la as he shifted, one hand disappearing below the table momentarily before reappearing as if it was never gone.

Bale had a few choice things to say about Imperial Scholae Intelligence and their ability to provide a complete profile, but he didn’t get a chance to. Little good it would have done them, either way. A hand tapped him on the pauldron. They were powerful taps that could have bounced a smaller person. The Zabrak glanced over calmly, unassuming at the hand in question, a big, green, meaty thing with fingers as thick as clubs, all ending in crusty, yellow nails. He then found himself staring up a glistening snout into beady, black eyes. The stench that assaulted his nostrils made his eyes water. Then, the creature squealed in his face. Bale didn’t flinch as phlegm and spittle doused his skin.

Zentru’la made to move but stopped short when Bale calmly wiped his features and said, “Huh. Funny lookin’ waitresses they got ‘ere, huh, pops?” He slipped his boots off of the table and sat up, twisting to face the Gamorrean. “Sorry, lass, I don’t speak pigskin.”

Some of the thugs were laughing, but the pig-faced creature wasn’t in that mood. Those fat green hands flashed out with speed that belied his mass, clamped down around Bale’s plastron and yanked the Zabrak out of his seat. Anyone with half a brain would have realized that was a mistake, but then, Gamorreans were renowned for their massive guts, not their intellects. As Bale unfolded and stood upright, a full head taller, the green-skinned thug appeared to shrink back.

“Funny looking and handsy too,” confirmed Zentru’la.

Bale was laughing when he crushed an armored fist into that fat pigface.

The Gammorean stumbled back under the power of Bale's strike, knocking the smiles off the faces of the other gang members. His attacks were raw, unbridled power, delivering damage through brute force rather than any refined technique. Zentru'la rose to his feet as the gang members closed in, catching a human punch on the pauldron of his colossal armour and wrenching the assailant to the ground by his shoulder joint. He only intended to take the thug to the floor but there was a sickening crunch and a from the joint as his shoulder popped out its socket.

"They outnumber us four to one!" the colonel observed, taking up a defensive posture as the gang members began to circle.

"Then it's an even fight!" Bale shouted as he smashed the Gamorrean's head with a bar stool. Where Zentru'la kept his guard up, reacting to strikes with solid, mechanically sound techniques, Bale was a whirlwind, hitting anything that moved, with whatever he could find, in any way he could, firing off bolts from his wrist laser left and right whenever there was space and time to aim. Blaster bolts began flying as some of the gang members had drawn pistols in response to the wrist laser.

The eight gang members fighting two men dressed for war and associated stray blaster shots had scared off even the patrons of The Drowned Quarren, who were no strangers to bar fights. Zentru'la drew his repeating cannon, sending the gang sprawling to the ground with a volley of shots and scorching the walls behind them.

"Nobody move!" Zentru'la shouted, pointing his giant cannon at the downed opponents. From the corner of his eye he noticed the human he had disabled earlier slowly reaching for a blaster pistol just out of arm's reach, but before he could respond, Bale had dealt with the situation, stamping on the thug's neck. His body went weak beneath his foot.

"Anyone else want to try anything?" Bale's words were a challenge as he stood with his foot still on the neck of the dead human victim, blaster pistol in one hand, his drink had somehow worked its way back into the other hand. The gang knew they were beaten, staying still on the ground, not out of fear, but out of acknowledgement that any sudden moves would be swiftly halted.

Zentru'la's keen eyes scanned the defeated gang. Six lay prone on the floor, disfigured and broken by blunt impacts and blaster shots. One lay dead below Bale's foot. The other... nowhere to be seen. He remembered the escapee from when the gang walked in the room, looking unlike the others, a human in the back row, smaller than the others, long black hair, seemed to shuffle as he walked.

"Where's your last member?" Zentru'la raised his cannon, pointing it directly at each hostage in turn. "Where is he?" "Where did he go?" The gang remained silent.

Bale had his own interrogation methods: kick them until they tell you stuff. Taking aim at the Gamorrean that started this whole incident, the monstrous Zabrak launched kick after kick at his ribs. Just like everything he did, it was not the most refined approach to obtaining information, but it was effective. Eventually, after minutes of physical assault, almost beaten to death, the pig did squeal. Zentru'la didn't approve of his methods, but as the Gamorrean produced a datapad with directions to the gang headquarters, he couldn't question their effectiveness. "That wasn't so hard, was it?" Bale teased, checking the location marked on the map. "Not too far pops. 10-minute walk."

"Good work, Andros," the Colonel acknowledged. "Now what do we do with these guys?"