Part of being a Bounty Hunter is the ability of having your mettle tested every time you go out to seek your target. Sometimes your target is deep below in the seas of Manaan, but that's a story for another time. About ten or twelve years ago I was contracted with a mark. That mark being a young girl, no more than twenty-five years old. She had fled the clutches of Clan Itera with valuable information, and she had plans to defect to a rival clan. Her first mistake was hiding in the vast mountainous regions far north of Keldabe on Mandalore. This surely wouldn't be her last.
My contractor, working for Itera explicitly said do not take a ship into the region as it was way too hazardous, and she was right to state that. A week by speeder bike into the mountains. The landscape was dotted with various wrecks sizing from skiffs, to small single person planet hoppers, all the way to corvette sized ships. On the eighth day my speeder's power core malfunctioned from the excessive cold weather. I had to travel on foot to her location, thankfully it was an old Itera safehouse, more like a cabin actually.
It was another days hike to her cabin through the frigid cold snow. At this point I was cursing sunder my shivering breath, at the cold environment I was in. I was seriously contemplating whether or not I should show her why they call me Teshin the Merciful, and just blast her into oblivion. I could lie and say that the rival clan extracted the information from her then wasted her. But what good would that do me? I wouldn't recieve any payment, instead I would just spark an open conflict between clans. That could be very profitable though, if I weren't already a Mandalorian. Any notion of lying my way out of me killing her was quickly shaken out of my head as I crested the hill overlooking the cabin.
The cabin was definitely smaller than I had expected. Looked like no more than two or three rooms, it was almost primitive in nature. The only clues that it was still linked with the outside was the HonoNet antenna set up outside the cabin, and the large generator that powered it and the other amenities inside the cabin. There were no trees to hide me if she were to come outside. I start rushing down the hill to get to cover fast, but the girl comes out of the cabin and I come to a dead stop and fall flat on my face in the snow. At the time I was wondering if she saw me or if I was still in the clear. I must have been because when I looked up a couple minutes earlier she was back inside. A few minutes later when I made it down the hill and into the flat area where the cabin was I decided I was going to be merciful and hand her back to Itera in binders rather than in a body bag. And I hope she was making food. I was damn hungry.
I knocked on the door. She wouldn't know it was the person hunting her down instead of her contact. The door opens and standing before me is a young Human girl with strawberry blonde hair. She says hello to me and asks me if I'm the contact. I nod and say yes. She lets me inside and I take off my helmet. My eyes meet hers, but she's drawn to the scars that run over my left eye from the Nexu I received years ago. Later as were sitting down eating some sort of soup she made using vegetables she found near here, I finally tell here my name and why I'm here, that Itera wants her back in the fold. She looks sad, but ultimately agrees with me, and I thank her for her hospitality. As we're leaving a man in black and orange in Mando armor opens the door and is immediately drawn to me.
"I know you" He says. "You're Teshin the Merciful."
"I am. But who are you?" I ask him.
"Vadim Itera" He says coldly behind his visor.
"Ahhh...The one who would rather kill his enemies from a distance instead of fighting like a true Mandalorian?" I ask him.
"Unlike you, old man, I don't use violence as a last resort. I'd prefer to kill my foes before letting them use diplomacy." He snaps back at me. "So its time for you to die." He says before charging me, vibroblade in hand.
I shove the girl back against the wall and grab mine in the blink of an eye. As he tries to thrust his blade into my ribs and pin me against the wall, I grab his arm and try to block it. In my success I stab him in the stomach with mine. He lets out a cry of pain but it isnt enough to do him in. With my vibroknife still in this guts, I twist it and slice through organs and pull it out. Vadim drops to the ground with this hand over the bleeding wound. He looks up at me, I couldn't see his face, but I'd like to imagine him smiling at the fact that he died doing what he loved. I don't take pride in killing my own kind, this was difficult for me to do.
As I'm putting the binders on girl she asks me one question.
"Will you bury him?"
"Well of course I will. As much as I want to leave his body to rot, I know its not the right thing to do." I say to her.
I put her back inside and drag the now dead Itera to the middle of the clearing and began burying him. I actually buried him in a mound of rocks and put his gear on top of it. Said my goodbyes and all. On our way back to the speederbike I decided to check one of the wrecks for a power core. I finally found one in a frozen skiff. Just enough juice left to get me and the girl back to the Itera village. With a case full of credits, and a need for some heat, I left for my ship. Once on board I set the temperature to a nice warm setting and blasted off into space. Time to find some more work.
