Eriadu, the Ranosca Cantina…
Eriadu was one of those planets people just didn’t go to for any other reason than the fact it was a convenient pit stop sitting at the crossroads between two major hyperspace routes that could in just a few jumps get you to much more worthwhile destinations like Duros, Corellia, Kuat, Alderaan, or even the mighty jewel of the galaxy, Coruscant, although for Zekha, Eriadu was the next stop on the “Westward” route from his homeworld of Malastare, so the Dug had to admit he’d had somewhat of a bias and a small inkling of affection for the crap-heap that was Eriadu. It always meant that something much better was almost within reach, and being a junction world meant that it wasn’t hard to find clients who were desperate to pay far too many credits for jobs that could be completed by idiots.
“Help me get home.”
“Rescue my daughter.”
“Kill that cheating, low-life scruffy looking-“
“Hey, what are you doing, sleeping?”
That last one wasn’t the shrill, mocking tone Zekha usually conjured up when thinking of such requests, and instead he found himself staring back at a Rodian’s bug eyes from across the Sabacc table. The Rodian, some greatly bearded human, and an Abednedo who happened to be the least unpleasant of the group to look at were the last people sitting that table playing for a pittance of credits; it wasn’t a high stakes game, but Zekha fancied the idea of having his drinks and chubas comped by the degenerates that remained. He could cash out now with the pile of credit chits, but that would take the fun out of it. He lifted his cards up from the table, seeing he had -18. Only 5 off from a perfect hand and a risk to draw another card; the goal was to hit plus or minus 23 without going over.
Fortunately for Zekha, he was playing with his own deck, and with IT7 floating ominously over his shoulder, he had each imperfection on the cards that he’d put there almost invisibly cataloged and uploaded into the droid. He knew exactly what cards the others had, and the interrogation/ protocol droid relayed the information in a series of seemingly gibberish ticks and clicks that told Zekha what he needed to know. The trick was not being obvious about it, so the droid made infrequent chatter when it didn’t seem like it was feeding the Dug information, like when a hand was dealt or when he or another player were making a decision. The next card was a +7, which would utterly put him in a bad spot, and the next highest player was at 17. He’d won, again.
“What’s the matter? In a rush to check out the dancers? I know why you picked that seat, you lecherous mynock. Personally, I can’t stand the sight of those head-tentacle things, it’s off-putting and my partner is a Twi’lek.” He knocked on the table. He called.
The human and the Albednedo tossed their cards on the table, a fold. The Rodian set his 17 down, and Zekha didn’t even try to look relieved when he set down the -18. Groans of annoyance crossed the table, and Zekha swept up his earnings, shoving them into a pouch. He tossed a 5 credit chit to the Rodian. “Here you go, champ. For the dancers.” The Dug grinned obnoxiously with a perfect set of teeth and hopped off the stool, twirling another chit between his lower hand’s fingers. As he walked, far shorter than most of the other patrons of the cantina, which included a very lost and concerned-looking Wookiee, he spoke aloud to IT7, who would relay his voice to his previously mentioned partner. “Hey, Woosie, I think I found something you might be good at. Ever think of dropping in an application and giving me the ship?” he said, staring at the Twi’lek dancers as he passed by. “I got us a few credits, in my benevolence I’ll be at the bar, first one or two are on me, depending on if you want something hard or one of those disgusting cocktails you fawn over.”
Woosie, or Woorah if you’re nasty, and Zekha had partnered up around four months prior after one of the bounty hunter Great Hunts took place pitting them against each other to take down a Corellian crime boss that had only recently returned to his homeworld and thus opened a window to take him down. After an exchange of blaster fire and something of a cat and mouse hunt, with Woosie coming after Zekha with the brute force and lack of digression as a rancor verses Zekha’s much superior finesse and strategic mind, the two of them had eventually come to the realization that they were at an impasse and that their quarry was likely to slip away if they kept this up for much longer. While that didn’t cement an alliance, the arrival of a third bounty hunter, a Force-sensitive Zabrak named Zalgren that had been a pain in both of their asses for years, tried to exploit the assigned duel between the Twi’lek and Dug and take them both down at once; the contract was irrelevant to him. Zalgren’s reign of terror ended when he was lured into a scrap yard and was ambushed by a hastily reprogrammed grappler droid that contained the Zabrak long enough for the Mandalorian and the tinkerer to unleash absolute hell with four blaster pistols that didn’t leave much in the way of remains for identification. The two then agreed that turning Zalgren into a pulled-meat slurry qualified as satisfying the conditions of the Great Hunt and that a split payment beat their quarry getting away, so after a reluctant handshake, both went on to complete their job.
Since then, Zekha and Woosie were pretty much inseparable. She had a ship, a Plug 6 Heavy Freighter christened the Shriek Hawk, and Zekha was a wiz at starship engineering. It had never run better, if he was being modest. She was physically dominating and capable of negotiating contracts better than he was, given his abysmal temper and attitude, and she tolerated his droid tinkering since his engineering expertise often gave both of them an invaluable technological edge and a source of credits in a pinch. He was also, for obvious reasons, far more adept at taking down droids and fighting them, whereas she was the one who usually dealt with bigger organics that no amount of scrappy moxxy could overpower. Zekha would never admit it, but he honestly respected her and her capabilities. They worked well together, she took his banter in stride, and both of them relied on each other more than they often realized.
If only she wasn’t a flat-faced, miasma-coloured, Sarlaac-tentacle-headed monstrosity, he could have found her attractive. Oh well. He wasn’t shallow; he could appreciate her past that, if anything, someone could make a vid special on how selfless he was for looking past her obvious physical deformities based entirely on her species. What kind of dumb evolutionary pattern gave Twi’leks those stupid head tentacles that were so sensitive and packed full of nerves it caused crippling pain to even hit? It would be like having an arm made entirely out of testicles, something that clearly meant that you weren’t meant to exist but somehow you resisted the pull of destiny. It’s probably where Woosie got her tenacity from. She was tough despite her incredibly obvious weakness.
Zekha pulled himself up onto a stool meant for someone twice his height, but being a Dug meant getting used to a galaxy where nothing was his size, as such, he was surprisingly graceful of a climber in just about every situation. As slickly as possible he put himself up on the stool and slapped down a few credits on the granite counter. “Hey pal,” he called to the bartender. “Fix me up some chubas and one of those cocktails with the umbrellas, I’m celebrating something here.”
