Competition: May the 4th Be With You!: Legendary Encounter III

“Hold on, tell me again what you are doing.”

The older bounty hunter sighed. “Tavens I have told you twice already, I’m selling my DNA to the Kaminoians who are going to turn it into a massive clone army. You better not start…”

Tavens started laughing uncontrollably again. Tears streamed from his eyes as actively had to work at regaining his composure.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” the other Mandalorian repeated as his chuckling died down again. “This is the most moronic attempt at a con job that I have ever heard. Jango why don’t you stick to shooting things because you are the galaxy’s most terrible liar.”

“And you are the biggest idiot that has ever left Mandalore,” Jango spat, “but since you are also one of the only Mandalorians left with some fighting spirit I need you to join me in training these soldiers. You’ve seen how good the pay is.”
Tavens lifted his helmet off of his head and placed it on the table in front of him. “The only catch is I have to leave, with you, right now, and live in total seclusion for…”

“As long as it takes.”

“As long as it takes” was not a number that Tavens was comfortable with, nor was it really a number at all. Looking down at his datapad and the pile of credits he was being offered, well that was a number he was very comfortable with, and hopefully a very real number. If he was being honest with himself, the seclusion wasn’t a deal breaker. There was a side of him that would be happy not to be shot at, bit, stabbed, blown up, punched, kicked or otherwise assaulted for the indefinite future. As a bonus, he also thought that being fed and sheltered by the long necks wouldn’t be so terrible either.

No, the real issue that Tavens was concerned about was if he could trust even Jango. The two Mandalorian bounty hunters were not enemies but they definitely weren’t friends. They had shot at each other on multiple occasions and, if he was being honest with himself, Tavens didn’t much like the other man at all. Thus his concern for a professional rival dropping in out of nowhere with an offer of more credits than he could spend in a lifetime… well maybe half… or a quarter of a lifetime at least.
Jango was never known for his subterfuge, nor his ability to play the con game, but that is what made the entire situation even more suspicious to Tavens. The best trick one could pull is the trick nobody expects you to be capable of.

“Can I take my weapons with me?” Tavens asked as a test. A “no” would be a major red flag, probably indicating a trap.

“Sure but you won’t need them,” Jango responded, “the clones will be training with all custom made pieces. Weapons, armor, everything. I’ve seen the blueprints, it’s not bad for mass manufactured gear.”

Even if Jango wasn’t going to fall for the obvious tell, Tavens thought he’d at least be able to defend himself if the other bounty hunter was going to attack him. “Ok then, I’m in. I’ll need to make arraignments for my ship and…”

“No you won’t, I already sold it.” As Jango spoke, Tavens noticed that his credit balance increased significantly on his datapad.
Tavens grew furious. “You had no right to sell my ship, do you have any idea how much trouble I went through to acquire it!”
Jango shook his head and put his face in his hands. “Listen you aren’t getting this are you? Sure that was a pretty nice ship, I will give you that. But I got twice what it was worth, which isn’t an insignificant sum on its own, and when you are done on Kamino you’ll have enough credits to buy five more if you’d like.”

“Or something even more deadly,” Tavens continued. He thought that with the credits he was due that he might even be able to buy some sort of surplus cruiser and even upgrade all of the systems on it with custom stuff. He could afford to go from lone wolf to a full crew easily. “Ok count me in, I suppose we have to leave on the weird as frak ship of yours since you sold mine.”

“Yep.”