Chapter Text
Crosshair swore as he pulled himself through the window, tumbling into a roll around the crate in his arms. He sprung to his feet and bolted for the nearby alleys. As he disappeared around the corner, shouts sounded behind him, followed by orders to spread out and search. He kept moving, closely following the route he’d mapped out before the job as he wound through the town to the east road out. Outraged and alarmed cries followed him, but he ignored them as he shoved his way into another alley.
More cries and thundering footfalls pursued, but he didn’t dare look back. He instead focused on staying on his feet and on target. He risked a glance back as he burst from that alley onto another main thoroughfare. As he was shoved sideways, he spotted the two figures chasing him as they turned the corner. One spotted him with a, “You! Stop!” and the chase continued.
He reached the speeder waiting for him at the edge of town and secured the crate in front of him before taking off. His pursuers’ shouts faded into the distance as he left them in the dust. As the town disappeared from view behind him, he glanced down at the pair of large eyes staring up at him from the crate with a small “mrrp.”
He huffed. “You better be worth the trouble.”
He sped along wide plains, going until the noon sun had sunk onto the horizon behind him. The dark hardly impeded him as he continued into the tall trees of an ancient forest, ducking low over the crate to avoid low hanging branches reaching for him.
A glow appeared among the trees, and he slowed, approaching carefully before pulling to a stop outside a house. Keeping the speeder running, he got off and hauled the crate to the door, earning a startled yowl. Hands full, he kicked the door. Inside, he heard something clatter to the floor and some shuffling before the door opened. An older human man appeared with a gasp.
“Oh, you got her!” He grabbed the front of the crate to peer in. He let go and waved for Crosshair to follow. “Come on in.”
Crosshair levelled him with the flat stare of his green visor. “Just give me my credits so I can go.”
The man frowned. “But it’s getting late and…” He trailed off when Crosshair didn’t budge. “Fine, fine…” He muttered as he re-entered the house and rummaged.
Crosshair waited impatiently. The crate in his hands almost fell to the ground when it tipped dangerously with the movements inside. He hissed at it to stop. He had better things to be doing than playing pet catcher for the local loon. He shouldn’t even be here but after the job he’d come for fell through he’d needed the credits, and apparently this was the way to get them around here. He couldn’t say he missed the Empire’s seemingly unlimited resources, they’d have gotten him off this rock days ago.
Finally, the man returned. Crosshair put the crate down and accepted the credits, then promptly turned to leave. A quick look told him he hadn’t been undercut, and it would be just enough to get him out of there. He got back on the still-running speeder and took off into the darkness.
Hyperspace streaked by as Crosshair cleaned his armour, scowling at the state it had ended up in. The quiet hum of the ship was briefly interrupted by a shudder before returning to normal. It wasn’t anything fancy, just a small ship big enough to live in between jobs. It didn’t fit much in terms of cargo, but he’d never needed it in the month he’d had it, and he didn’t plan on that changing. It was a piece of junk, but it had gotten him where he needed to go so far.
His eyes darted to the dash when it pinged. He wouldn’t go so far as to call himself a bounty hunter, but setting up an alert system for people needing a hired gun had been necessary to scrape enough credits together to survive. And if those jobs happened to overlap with those of bounty hunters, well that suited him well enough. So long as he took enough to not have to stoop to the low of that last ‘job.’
He put his gear down and checked it out. It seemed someone needed some guards for a smuggling operation. Past an Imperial blockade if he had to guess, those were becoming more common by the day. Hell, it wasn’t that long ago that he was enforcing one himself. It was risky, and he was about to dismiss it on that basis alone when the payment caught his eye. That was a lot of credits. And for someone who’d spent the last few days searching for a lost tooka for money, it was enticing.
Out of curiosity, he looked deeper into the details of the job. Frustratingly few were given, but he could fill in many of the blanks. Some insurgents on the Outer Rim were realising how hard it was to scrape by while defying an Empire that would otherwise provide for them if they’d just stayed put, and now they were reaching out to whatever contacts they had to get supplies. They had to be somewhat organised in order to send out job openings on lines like this one, but he didn’t recognise any of the alias’s attached.
His knowledge of Imperial operations could prove useful, but they could also get him caught if the wrong people found out. He closed the message with a scowl. It was too risky, something else would come up.
He looked over at the helmet sitting on the seat beside him. The green visor stared back. He picked it up and stared at it. At the sleek black paint and the thin green visor that had only served to cause him problems. The solid black paint was marred with small scratches that refused to buff out. He reached for the oiled towel he’d been using on his armour and got to work on them.
After a few minutes of buffing, he stopped with a huff. The scratches had faded, but refused to disappear. With a growl of frustration, he threw the towel across the cockpit and tossed the helmet over with the rest of the armour. It broke the silence of the ship as it bounced and clattered before coming to rest. He focused his glare away from the accusing green.
He rose from his seat and fled into the back of the ship. He’d eat something and rest before he left hyperspace. After this overdue supply run, he’d figure something out.
Crosshair scowled as he was forced to shove his way through the crowded market. He kept his pack tucked close to his side. This place was seedy, but at least there was no Imperial presence this far out yet. The only suspicious people to look out for here were the faceblind loan sharks and opportunistic thieves. Those he could handle.
He shoved his way towards a stall. It was little more than a blanket with various bits and pieces of varying quality. He scanned the offerings before nudging a hyperdrive with his boot.
“How much?”
The small alien running the stall eyed the part, muttering to herself. “Hm. Considering the condition, can’t forget demand… Eh, that’d run you 8000 credits.”
“8000! This is hardly worth half that.”
The vendor just shrugged. “It’s gotten more difficult to source these things. Either pay up or move along.”
He curled his hand into a fist, but shoved his way back into the throng.
Grumbling filled the landing bay as Crosshair dug around the guts of his ship. Finally finding what he was looking for, he worked the hyperdrive free. He sat on the ramp with it, pulling tools from the box at the top as he fiddled with it. It had been stuttering on him since he’d gotten the ship. It was part of the reason he’d been able to get it so cheap, but that shuddering was getting old. He wanted to know that his next hyperspace jump wouldn’t end in him being thrown into the side of a moon.
He pulled it apart easily, spotting the problem area. Some of the wires were wearing dangerously. If that kept up, that trip to a moon wasn’t entirely exaggeration.
He rose to dig through the meagre cargo hold for anything to replace them, propping the hatch in the floor open with a crate. A search of the hold revealed nothing but the few food and water rations he’d been able to afford and some junk left by the previous owner. Nothing among that was of any value, anything that was had already been sold. The rest was dead weight he was better off ejecting into the void of space than continuing to lug around.
He folded his arms against the hold hatch and rested his head on them with a frustrated sigh. His eyes were drawn to the hyperdrive sitting on the floor beside him, then to that still dark light on the ship’s dash. He ran some calculations in his head and eased the cargo hold closed. He snatched up the hyperdrive and toolbox, and walked back outside.