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The cantina was filled to bursting, teetering on the precipice of revelry and lawlessness. Smoke clung to the close air in a grey shroud like cordite after a firefight, and it reeked of unwashed bodies and sour liquor. A young Twi’lek woman crooned on a corner stage, singing in a patois of Basic and Mando’a. Her voice was garbled and warped, sounding as if she was underwater. The band accompanying her played with frenzied desperation to be heard over the raucous crowd.

[i]L4’s Place[/i]. That’s what the sign outside said. Proudly droid owned and operated.

A strange lot in these parts. Foreigners mingling with beskar-clad warriors of Mandalore. Some helmeted, others not. They spoke in a dozen tongues not native to this world. Aliens with peculiar shapes ill-suited to this planet, struggling mightily to stay upright with the strong gravity and stronger alcohol. Some didn’t, resigning themselves to the floor as booted feet trod over them or ontop of. Humming neon lights overhead painted the celebrants in sickly hues of blue and pink, distorting faces into something far divested from their true forms. The 25th anniversary of the Founding brought diplomats, military officials, and other notables to Mandalore, but they would not be found here amongst these rude forms. A tall man stepped in from the busy street. Too tall to be a native. Any other day he would be instantly singled out as an outsider, but today he was just one off-worlder among many.

The man’s narrow eyes swept through the crowd. Too many helmets. Too many hats. He pulled off his own and swept a clawed hand through his hair. He’d sought refuge from the besotted revelers in the streets, so-called New Imperials now crazed with drink, but found this place little better. The Marshal, now two months on the job, had been planetside for a week chasing down dead end after dead end. He was out of leads now and exhausted to boot. The gravity was heavier than what Rask was used to, and he’d spent too much time in low-g these past weeks of travel. Soft. Slow. Thirsty. 

He slipped through the crowd, a noticeable hitch in his step. Rask nodded to patrons as he went, exchanging a brief smile with a Devaronian woman who was right and truly drunk. One of the musicians grinned at him hideously with iridescent eyes fixed on long stalks that peeked over his canted instrument, at which he sawed viciously. The Marshal did not return this smile. 

Rask ducked under a low beam and bellied up to the bar, slotting himself between a Trandoshan armed to the teeth and a helmeted Mandalorian kitted out in a similar fashion, as were many of the patrons. The scaly alien scowled at him and sidled away, leaving him with the stout Mando sitting on his left. 

[color=Lightsteelblue]“Marshal.”[/color] The voice came out tinny and mechanical, but was directed at Rask. He turned to face the armor-clad man. Rask searched the flat black visor for any sign of humanity but found none. He felt like he was staring at a droid. The hairs on his neck stood on end. An old reflex. 

[color=darkorange]“You got me at a disadvantage, sir, as many do these days. Do I know ye?”[/color] Rask spoke smoothly and slowly, his Outer Rim drawl contrasting the Mando’s quick, clipped military cadence. 

[color=Lightsteelblue]“No, you don’t. But I know that badge.”[/color]

Rask ran a long finger over the smooth piece of metal pinned to his ragged poncho. The badge of an Outer Rim Regulator. It’d been a long time since he wore it. Long enough to forget it was the first thing people saw.

[color=darkorange]“Surprised you Inners ever saw one.”[/color] A subtle joke accompanied by an easy smile. Mandalore [i]was[/i] on the Outer Rim, but with its rapid development since the fall of the Republic, many on the galaxy’s fringe considered it a Core World. Culturally, at least. The Mandalorian chuckled. 

[color=Lightsteelblue]“Hope we’ve still got enough of that Rim charm for you, Marshal. Here for the Founding anniversary?”[/color]

[color=darkorange]“Here to find someone.”[/color]

[color=Lightsteelblue]“I see. How’s city life treating you, Marshal?”[/color]

[color=darkorange]“I keep waiting for it to take, but it ain’t done it yet. What do you people drink on this rock with minimal risk of death or blindness?”[/color]

[color=lightsteelblue]”We might have something for you. L4.”[/color]

The Mandalorian rapped his gauntleted knuckles on the metal bartop. L4, a bulky protocol droid, golden outer casing dented and rusting from abuse, wheeled around. The Mandalorian held up two fingers and two drinks were poured from a glowing blue bottle into chilled glasses, which were pushed forward carefully by robotic hands like pieces on a chess board. 

[color=gold]“Here you are, gentlemen. Jajeeg. Please enjoy,”[/color] it said in a voice so pleasant it almost seemed sarcastic to Rask. He felt the protocol droid’s yellow eyes follow him. The same lifeless mechanical eyes he’d seen in most every machine throughout the galaxy.

[color=darkorange]“You’ll put a crick in your neck, you don’t stop starin’ at me, droid,”[/color] he said, his voice cool. The bartender curtly nodded and turned to attend to some other patron.

The Marshal thought he’d be drinking alone, and was surprised when the Mandalorian set his helmet down on the bar. Rask was even more surprised by the face revealed in doing so, though he shouldn’t have been. It was a face he’d seen a hundred times on the Outer Rim. Fought with, bled with against the Separatists on the Rim’s frontier. A little older now, but not as old as Rask expected. 

[color=Lightsteelblue]“Who do we drink to?”[/color] The clone of Jango Fett asked. Half his face was a twisted mess of scar tissue, plasma burns or some other grievous injury long since half-healed. One piercing brown eye looked into his, the other milky white and wandering as if seeing another world beyond their own. His hair was long, longer than Rask’s, matted from the helmet and swept back on his head.

[color=darkorange]“To your fallen brothers,”[/color] Rask said, raising his drink.

[color=Lightsteelblue]“We’ll be here all day if we drink to them,”[/color] he replied, taking in the contents of his cup in one swallow. Rask followed suit. The liquor was rank. It tasted of creosote algae. It burned all the way down his gullet, and then burned some more. Rask knew he’d drank worse hooch before, but he really couldn’t remember when. He stifled a cough as the clone smirked. Revenge, maybe, for Rask’s earlier joke. 

[color=darkorange]“I reckon your brothers saved my life when we was about done in on the Rim more times than I can remember. I’ll spare a day or two of drinking for’em if need be,”[/color] Rask said as the droid filled up their glasses again. He kept his eyes fixed on the battered robot as it hobbled away, as did the clone. Another veteran with little trust for droids, Rask assumed.  

[color=Lightsteelblue]“You said you’re here to find someone.”[/color]

[color=darkorange]“That’s right.”[/color]

[color=Lightsteelblue]“Anyone I’d know?”[/color]

Rask studied the contents of his glass. The Jajeeg was bioluminescent and he watched as glowing shapes swirled in the bottom of the glass like living tea leaves. The pulsing music wasn’t doing much for his headache, but another drink might.

[color=darkorange]“Oh, I don’t know, maybe. Fella about your height. Ain’t so small you’d be like to miss’em. Changed their name, maybe face too, so I ain’t got much to go on but memory. That fails me more oft’ than not as well,”[/color] He downed another round of the bitter liquor. 

The clone looked around the crowded bar as he drank, as if half-expecting to find someone matching just that description. [color=Lightsteelblue]“Well, I hate to say it Marshal, but that doesn’t narrow it down much on Mandalore.”[/color]

[color=darkorange]“No, it does not. Seems like I’ve got some ground yet to cover.”[/color] Rask turned back to the bar and looked into the mirror behind rows of liquor bottles that sat on their shelves like the concoctions of some demented alchemist, or a madman’s preserved specimens crudely pickled for future study. Some bottles contained just that, worms and insects from distant reaches of the galaxy perhaps meant to alter the consumer’s mind or mood. Rask saw his reflection in the glass behind, gaunt face warped as if by a funhouse mirror in the neon lights. His stare was broken by the bartending droid who shuffled into view. 

[color=gold]“Another drink, Marshal Coburn?”[/color]

Rask relaxed as he leaned against the bar sideways, one arm resting on the countertop. Perhaps the local liquor was getting to him. [color=darkorange]“That’d be fine. I’ll get this round, friend.”[/color]

The droid jerked a stiff nod and turned to grab a liquor bottle from the back bar. The clone spoke, but Rask didn’t hear him.

[color=darkorange]“I don’t remember tellin’ you my name, droid,”[/color] Rask said, his voice meandering, almost playful. Barely audible over the din of the crowd and the music, which was more feverish than ever. He studied the droid’s back. Its outer carapace was crudely stretched over the robot’s inner workings and secured with metal cables, like some metal insect grown too big for its exoskeleton and caught mid-molt. The droid paused as Rask spoke. As if it were thinking. Weighing options. The droid’s upper body spun around 180 degrees lightning fast, bottle in one hand, blaster in the other. 

It happened all at once.

A single shot seemed to ring out. An explosion of bottles. The clone dropped from his seat and hit the floor with a metallic clank. Screams. Patrons flared like frightened birds and ran for the door. Then everything was quiet. Rask and the droid stood like statues in the still and hot air, eyes locked. A heartbeat passed. Then two.

The droid staggered back, hydraulic pistons pumping, stumbling into the liquor cabinet behind them. Their arms flailed to steady themself but the droid’s immense weight brought the glass shelves down on top of it as it fell to the ground. The smell of astringent liquor filled the room, mingling with ozone and burnt plastic.

If it looked like a thing the Marshal had practiced many times, it was. Shooting from the holster without drawing was considered a dirty trick by some, but that low-down move had saved his skin more than once. It left a smoldering blaster hole in his poncho.

Rask slowly walked around the bar and kicked the half-door open, briefly flashing his badge to the remaining patrons. The bartender looked like a crab on its back, scrambling for footing. He planted his boot on the fallen droid’s wrist as a metallic hand desperately grasped for its fallen blaster. The cheap carapace snapped and bent like ancient and brittle bones, but the metal beneath was hard and battle-worn. Pieces of shrapnel littered the floor from where Rask had fired his blaster through the bar and into the droid’s logic processor. A small beam of daylight shone onto the wrecked droid where Rask’s shot punched through both the robot and the wall behind it. He frowned at this. Rask would not have fired in such a crowded area, but there was no help for it. 

[color=darkorange]“Not a bad disguise, H1. Better than your aim, anyways,”[/color] Rask said as he looked down at his former comrade, H1-VOK. [color=darkorange]“Real early on the trigger pull there. What was that about? You gettin’ rusty?”[/color]

[color=red]“R-r-rematch?”[/color] The droid stuttered, voice now rugged and human-like with an accent not unlike Rask’s. [color=red]“I t-think J-Jak messed with my s-servos. Barely operating at 75% capacity these days.”[/color]

[color=darkorange]“Yeah, that sounds like Jak alright,”[/color] Rask sighed. He knew just how paranoid old Brassteeth was; he had a ragged blaster scar on his stomach to prove it. The former gang leader likely tampered with H1’s logic center to make him slower, give himself the upper hand if the droid ever felt like it was time to make a change in leadership. 20 years ago, H1 would have punched five holes in Rask before he could even blink, and the Marshal hadn’t gotten any faster since then. He’d just been lucky.

[color=darkorange]“Tell me where he is,”[/color] Rask said coolly, now drawing his heavy blaster. He had little love for droids these days, and H1 was no exception. A CIS-built assassin model that Jak pulled off the assembly line and upgraded with a new personality matrix. A facsimile of Voss Wren, famous Outer Rim frontiersman with a love for liberty and hatred of droids. Perfect for killing Confederacy forces on the outskirts of the galaxy. Also conveniently at Jak’s beck and call. Rask remembered the powerful droid picking him up like a child and tossing him from their stolen ship after Jak shot him.

[color=red]“Why sh-should I?”[/color] H1 replied as he clawed for the dropped blaster a foot away, his attempts growing more feeble as coolant leaked from his inner workings and mingled with spilled liquor and broken glass on the floor to create a foul paste. 

[color=darkorange]“I’ll do ye a favor. You tell me, and I shoot you dead. Right here and now,”[/color] Rask said, leveling his heavy blaster at the droid’s head.

[color=red]“That’s not much of a d-deal,”[/color] the failing mechanical voice replied.

[color=darkorange]“Or I let you live. Throw a restraining bolt on ye. Drag your sorry frame back to the Confederacy. Let’em poke around inside, pull out that fancy personality of yours and drum you back into service. I’m sure they’ve missed you sorely. How’s that sound?”[/color] Rask asked, already knowing the answer.

The droid stopped pawing for the blaster and slowly swiveled its head round to stare down Rask’s gun barrel. [color=red]“Sounds like sh-shit. But it looks like I don’t h-have a choice, do I?”[/color]

[color=darkorange]“Always a choice, my friend. Like when you chose to kill all them people. Or when you left me for dead.”[/color]

[color=red]“I d-don’t know where Jak is. Haven’t seen hi-him in years since he cut me loose.”[/color]

Rask pulled a restraining bolt from his utility belt.

[color=red]“B-but I know w-where to find Zi’Aii.”[/color]

Rask paused. [color=darkorange]“Let’s hear it.”[/color]

[color=red]“She's here. On Mandalore. She’s some hotshot diplomat f-for Ryloth’s Confederacy faction. H-here for the Founding.”[/color]

Rask let out a bitter laugh. Zi’Aii, the ever-faithful Republic saboteur, now with the CIS. He wasn’t too surprised. Fortunate she was on Mandalore though. [color=darkorange]“That didn’t take much to pull from ye. After all Zi’Aii done for you?”[/color]

[color=red]“I’d rather d-die than l-live as a slave. Not like you, [i]Marshal[/i]. Even when you rode with us, you never kn-knew what it meant to really live free.”[/color]

[color=darkorange]“Ah, you’re just a droid. You ain’t livin’ at all.”[/color]

He fired a single shot into the droid’s central processing unit. H1’s head jerked once and there was a great pneumatic hiss, a killing machine’s death rattle. Its yellow eyes dimmed like dying candles until there was nothing left in them but Rask's reflection.

He could have pumped the droid for more information. Could have asked why he was shacked up on Mandalore, how he knew about Zi’Aii, why he stopped pirating ships and started pouring drinks. But frankly, Rask could intuit most of that out, and he was sick of talking to the droid anyways. Best guess? Bounty got too high on his metal head, so H1 reached out to Zi’Aii to help him lay low. She grafted the protocol droid carapace over his hull and he bought this dingy cantina as a cover. Zi’Aii always had a soft spot for droids. Organics, not so much.

Rask looked over the bar as he broke open his pistol and pulled two spent power cells from their chambers, replacing them with fresh ones from his belt. [color=darkorange]“You take a hit there, friend?”[/color]

[color=Lightsteelblue]“Ever heard of beskar? It’ll take more than some holdout blaster to get through this,”[/color] The clone coughed as he stood up, patting his armor. There was a fresh scorch mark on his breastplate under which lay his heart. 

[color=darkorange]“You Mandos got stones, I give ye that,”[/color] Rask said with a chuckle, shaking his head.

[color=Lightsteelblue]“How’d you know that was your man?”[/color]

[color=darkorange]“Oh, I deduced it. When he shot ye. But that’s them alright. Metal bastard’s been piratin’ shipping lanes the past eight years. Blowin’ unarmed ships full of holes and crawlin’ onboard to loot what’s left after everyone’s either spaced or suffocated.”[/color]

[color=Lightsteelblue]“Sounds like you knew them.”[/color]

[color=darkorange]“If one can ever know a droid, then, yeah, I known him. Used to run together in the 86th Irregulars fightin’ Seps on the Rim. Things took a turn, and now here we are.” [/color]

Rask looked down at the shattered remnants of his old comrade-in-arms. He thought of all the droids they’d scrapped together. All the Separatist ships raided. All the innocent people killed. His hands curled into fists, nails digging into the flesh of his palms.

[color=darkorange]“Empire placed a hefty bounty on’em, alive, after he killed some diplomat of theirs. Number’s probably dropped since he’s been layin’ low. You turn this scrap heap in though, might just get somethin’ for your trouble. Enough to polish that armor of yours, anyways. I don’t want nothin’ to do with it.”[/color]

The clone laughed as he returned to his place at the bar like nothing happened. [color=Lightsteelblue]“Getting shot’s no trouble for me, but I appreciate it, Marshal.”[/color]

Rask looked around the cantina. The patrons with less grit, mostly tourists, lit out with the gunfire, leaving him with a smaller crowd mostly of armored Mandalorians. Regulars, probably. All finally relaxing their grip on blasters and returning to their drinks. They looked relieved the riff-raff had cleared out. The Twi’lek singer started singing again, a more downbeat song now. The band hesitantly followed her lead.

[color=darkorange]“‘Nother round? Looks like I’m tendin’ bar now, and drinks are on the house. This swill’s growin’ on me,”[/color] Rask said with a wry grin as he picked up an unshattered and shimmering bottle from the ground. The clone chuckled and nodded, pushing his cup forward.