[b]Level 3030 Forty-Eight Hours Earlier[/b] An armored landspeeder headed southbound. A three female team on the courier run. All were Siren Clan. Two armed guards sat in front arguing over music, a guard in the back browsed on her terminal. Their cargo: two small envelopes. The driver put on a jazzy number. The passenger rolled her eyes. Two blocks later, a thermal detonator rolled beneath the landspeeder and exploded. The explosion twisted the behemoth onto its side. It skidded across the sidewalk and slammed into an apartment building. Glass shattered. Furniture went flying. The speeder came to a stop. People ran and screamed. Four men ran from a side alley towards the speeder. All black outfits and black masks. They carried blaster carbines. One masked man fired breaching rounds into the speeder's cab. The guards screamed, fired back. Their shots missed wide. The masked man kept firing, pumped ten shots into the cab. Blood spattered the windows, blood spattered the seats, blood ran out the cab. Another masked man stood at the back of the car with another thermal detonators. A small explosion blew off the car's back door. The guard in the back came out firing. Two rounds caught a masked man flush in the chest. Two other robbers blew the guard away with a hail of laser fire. A masked man stepped over the dead guard, fired twice into the body to make sure he stayed down and went inside the flipped car. The shot man got up coughing blood. He pulled down his black shirt, revealing armor under the clothing. He stood on wobbly legs and dry heaved inside his mask. Twenty seconds later, a robber came out the back with two big manila envelopes under his arm. The four men hurried towards the alley they came down. Alarms rang. Bystanders screamed. Sirens wailed far away.The jazzy music from the speeder echoed through the sounds of chaos. --- [b]Now[/b] "So that's when the Wampa looks at the hunter and says 'You don't just come here for the hunting, do you?'" The Pau'an let out a high-pitched giggle once the Gotal beside him got to the punchline. The big, horned creature laughed along with the Pau'an, braying loudly across the diner. Even though Vig was at a booth far away from the two of them, he could clearly hear their conversation as he sipped his drink. The terminal on the table told him he still had ten minutes before his contact was to arrive. He'd been at the diner for over two hours now. Standard operating procedure had him show up well in advance of any potential clients in case of an ambushes. So far two people asking for help had turned out to be plants from the Pure Hands. Vig ran afoul of them six months ago when he protected a Toydarian family from the Pure Hands. The gang members that saw his face never lived to report back what he looked like, but they knew the man who helped people had killed their own and they wanted payback in blood. A ruckus near the front door put Vig on edge. He saw a group of motley looking youths hurrying past the diner's large window. His hand went down towards the blaster in his pocket as the group approached the diner's door. There were a couple of Rodians, a Wookie, a human, and a Neimodian. The human had a large black star tattooed on his neck. The scenarios played in his head as he sized them all up. He played the angles and of how to kill each one in the quickest and most effective way. Vig relaxed once the group was gone down the street and out of view. He let out a breath and slipped his hand out of his pocket before going back to his drink. Vig slipped a stirrer into his drink and watched the liquid spin as he mixed it up. He still felt a bit of surrealness at seeing someone else's hands whenever he did something. He never knew how much he took his appearance for granted until after he changed it. Now he sometimes caught himself by surprise when he saw his reflection. The man in the mirror was Vigor Vespellian. [i]He[/i] was Vigor Vespellian. Who he was and what he was so long ago was dead. His new line of work was part of putting the old him to rest. His old self had caused so much death and destruction that maybe Vig could atone for at least part of that before he died. The clatter of the front door opening drew Vig's sight up from his drink. A Quarren male stood near the door and surveyed the diner. His tentacles and faced were a rich brown, almost as dark as Vig's skin, and his eyes were a bright yellow. Vig slid his terminal towards the edge of the booth and tapped a command into it. It sent out a flashing yellow pulse that sent a signal to the Quarren's own device. He looked in the direction of Vig's booth and gingerly made his way towards it before sliding in to face Vig. "You are man?" He screeched something his native tongue, something Vig couldn't comprehend. "Man that fixes things?" "That's me," Vig replied as he sipped his drink. "I was not expecting human." The Quarren seemed to turn its nose, or whatever the thing that passed as a nose was, up at Vig and twitch its tentacles. Vig stared at the Quarren with just a hint of incredulity. "Does it really matter what I look like? You came to me for help. You could always call up the Pure Hands and see if they'll help you out." A few more clicks and whirrs from the Quarren. Vig assumed he was putting him in his place with some sort of alien tongue lashing he couldn't comprehend. He reached into his jacket and pulled a terminal out. On it, a hologram of a younger, female member of his species waved and laughed and said something to whoever was recording it. "Xam. She is daughter. Daughter has gone missing. Nearly one month now. No word, no communication. Not much money. Nobody will help." The Quarren's mouth tentacles twisted into curls and a low, guttural noise came from his mouth. Even though their respective species evolved on separate planets thousands of light years apart, Vig didn't need to know the Quarren's language to see and hear the pain and suffering as he broke down into something that was like crying for him. Vig finished off his drink and let the Quarren cry himself out. When he was done, Vig pressed the record button on his terminal and slid it towards the Quarren. "We'll talk about price at a later time. For now, speak in Basic as clear as you can and tell me all the details about your daughter leading up to her going missing. Don't skip any details, and don't hide anything that might help me find her. I want to know it all." "You find? You fix?" "I try," said Vig. "Now, please. Tell me what you know."