Not wanting to seem too desperate or creepy, after my initial pitch to them I mostly left the Bad Batch alone, especially since I'm pretty sure Hunter thought I was at least a little sus. It wasn't for the potential reasons he likely thought, but the clone did tend to have good instincts most of the time and I didn't want to do anything that might alienate me from the team. If I wanted to help improve their overall odds in future, I had to earn their trust.
For now, after doing their job for Cid, it looked like they were gonna hang out at the parlor for a little while before returning to their own ship/mobile home. Given they were technically fugitives, their options of where they could hang out were rather limited.
Meanwhile, while I had much more freedom to move around and potentially a whole planet to explore… I admit that I didn't really have the drive too. I never was a person that traveled much back home, and while Dantooine was mostly empty space and few people, Ord Mantell was a very different kind of place with much more people in general. I likely wouldn't feel very good about looking around until I knew much more about the galaxy and had more money on hand, so with that in mind I headed back to the Sleipnir to rest, relax, research, and do more basic flight lessons with Launchpad to pass the day away.
Besides, I wanted to be in the best head space possible for when Cid showed up to review my ship.
---
The next day, Cid contacted me via commlink that she was heading over to the docking bay I was parked in with her guy to check over my ship.
I met them both outside the entry ramp alongside my droid crew, Cid sitting in the passenger seat of a small hovertruck that was being driven by a diminutive ugnaught. Said tiny pig man was quick to jump out of his vehicle once it came to a stop, grab his toolkit, and then quickly marched into my ship without even acknowledging me in a seemingly grumpy mood… or that was just his species' natural looking face.
"Don't mind Dam Mit, he is very goal-oriented and rarely speaks if he doesn't have to," Cid told me as she walked over to my side and looked over my ship from the outside. "Part of the reason why he is my go-to guy for stuff like this, he doesn't waste time with small talk and I tend to pay him less per hour since he is very efficient with his time."
"And yet you don't mind doing small talk with me?" I couldn't help but ask, feeling a bit put out by the invasion of my ship without so much as a by your leave.
"What, you got anything better to do right now?" Cid raised an eye ridge at me. "I did my research about this model of ship, and it's pretty damn new compared to the earlier ones currently on the market. And I mean really new, like it's only recently the company even showed off the very first one ever made new…"
"Really?" I faux-asked, glad once more for my full helmet covering my facial expressions as I quickly tried to come up with a believable lie… or at least a lie she wouldn't dig into very much. "The guy I got it from didn't mention that. Just said it was a good ship,relatively cheap for brand new."
"The same guy who is using you as a middleman to try to work with me to sell some very proprietary military equipment?" Cid continued to stare hard at me. "The same guy who, according to my sources, was very active on Dantooine not too long ago until an Imperial bust apparently took down a whole smuggling crew and hasn't been seen since?"
Damn, I knew Cid was a good information broker since the Jedi apparently made frequent use of her, but I guess I didn't really process how good until just now. Either way, while she would likely never guess the whole truth, there was no reason to make her digging very easy. Besides, it likely would make me appear more legit in her eyes.
"You don't say? Can't be my guy though, since I can assure you that he hasn't been arrested or anything like that. If he was, how else would he still be doing business?"
"That's the question, isn't it? Almost makes one think that when the heat got too hot he framed a couple of idiots in order to escape off-world to bother someone else," Cid narrowed her eyes. "And he best not do it again with whomever he does go into business with, or else he might find that they have more than a few connections that can be used to make his life more than a little unpleasant."
"I assure you that if my contact ever framed anyone, its only cause said people involved tried to trouble him first," I fired back. "So long as everyone can work together and hold up their end of the deal, there is no reason to rock the boat."
"Good, since it's hard to swim with duracrete shoes," Cid finished in an ominous tone.
It was a nice little reminder that, while not as conventionally dangerous as those like the Bad Batch, Cid was still a criminal and had no doubt killed more than a few other people before when needed. I just had to make sure I never gave her a reason to… or at least be prepared, in case she did try anything against my overall interests.
We didn't chat much after that, and less than an hour later Dam Mit, which I had to keep myself from chuckling at the sound of, finally left the ship and reported about its condition back to Cid.
"(That ship is in excellent repair, there are no issues. The ship's so new that it only has one travel log in its navicomputer)," he told her in a series of grunts, squeals, and chattering sounds which my PUT translated. "(Whatever deal you got with the human, I'd take it.)"
"Good to know," Cid nodded, making Dam Mit walk off back to his truck before turning back to me. "Well then, it looks like we have a deal. I'll front you 50k in credits so that you can pick up the merchandise, bring it to me to look it over, and then I'll find a buyer who is willing to pay good money for them. In the meantime, your ship is mine and will stay that way if you try to cheat me. Got it?"
"Loud and clear," I nodded, only to notice Dam Mit moving past us again with a large floating device which he was now attaching to one of my ship's landing gear. "Uhhh, what is he doing?"
"What, you didn't think I wouldn't take some steps to insure my investment, did you?" Cid smirked as I watched as the device looked itself to my ship and thudded against the metal floor of the docking bay. "Just to make sure you don't get any ideas about flying off with my property, Dam is attaching a magnetic clamp to it so that won't be going anywhere any time soon."
"You're booting my ship?" I couldn't help but ask incredulously.
"I can do whatever I want to my ship," Cid pointed out. "Besides, you did say your guy was going to be on Ord Mantell some time soon, right? It shouldn't prevent you from getting merchandise, and I'll make sure any prospective customers have to come here to pick them up."
"Fine…" I couldn't help but grumble a little bit at the situation, but finding it did make sense from Cid's perspective.
"Uh, I don't mean to interrupt," Launchpad spoke up in a nervous tone of voice, "but if you don't own the ship anymore, Nick, does that mean we have to go somewhere else?"
…Shit, I didn't think of that!
"Not to worry, I'll still let you all squat in my ship for the time being. I won't even charge rent! Aren't I such a nice landlord?" Cid smirked at me. "Of course, that's only for the next couple of days. Best make sure you pay me back before I do start charging you."
"Has anyone ever told you that you are a very scary woman?" I couldn't help but ask.
"Constantly, just the way I like it," Cid said while passing Dam Mit a handful of credits as he walked back to his vehicle after booting my ship. She waved a hand at me after that. "Come on, let's head back to my place so that I can give you your guy's advanced cut. You best hope he can deliver too, or else you will be just the next in a long line of suckers who lost their ship over similar 'business ventures.'"
"Trust me, he'll deliver," I said with confidence.
---
After that Cid handed me a case full of 50k credits, as we discussed.
I idly noticed it was full of old Republic credits rather than the new Imperial ones, which I wasn't sure was an attempt to screw me over or a subtle test or something. Either way, thanks to the currency converter on SFO, it went into my account regardless.
The next few days I just kinda hung out, playing up the illusion of waiting for my supplier and trying not to worry about the worst case scenario of truly losing my ship and having to start off from scratch all over again. Thankfully I could at least distract myself from the latter with flight lessons, without any actual flying of course due to my ship being locked down, and lots of HoloNet use.
I even started to spend a few hours a day or so at Cid's, mainly just to play games with Bolo and Ketch, but also to attempt to bond more with the Bad Batch, who also seemed to spend a decent amount of time at Cid's for lack of much else to do… or at least to not keep Omega cooped up on their ship and practicing with her Zygerrian energy bow there.
They hadn't taken me up on my offer to supply them equipment yet, but given what I knew what their next mission likely was, I had prepared accordingly and was waiting for my chance.
After enough time had reasonably passed I found a nice out of the way place and bought the carbines and some extra refined gas, appearing in an appropriately sized crate to house them in, and contacted Cid to let her know my 'guy' had come through. It was good timing on my part, since the next day she told me to stop by her place, saying she had a buyer lined up, and just needed to check out the weapons and tell me where to meet them. Apparently, given a deal of this nature, it couldn't be done at the parlor, which was already making me nervous.
Still, if I wanted to really start getting anywhere and doing anything useful, this deal had to go through.
So, while I waited for Cid, I sat back and watched as Omega was trying her darndest to hit the makeshift target on a broken gambling machine next to the entrance to the parlor Echo had set up for her with her new weapon. Meanwhile, Bolo and Ketch took bets between each other for each shot, shouting encouragement or heckling her respectively. Honestly, I was surprised the clones were letting her use that instead of something smaller and easier to handle, like a pistol. And I was even more surprised that Cid was okay with the setup at all, since even at low power the energy bow wasn't exactly the safest thing to fire around in one's place of business, especially in the hands of a young child.
A point that was visibly made when a poor shaved headed woman walked into the parlor, only to yell in shock as Omega missed the target and instead hit the wall next to her, leaving a smoking scorch mark and causing her to rush out in fear for her life.
It was moments like this that made me question if Cid even cared about how well her parlor functioned, since rare was the customer that even showed up beyond her two regulars or those that worked for her.
"Sorry!" An embarrassed and guilty looking Omega said after the fleeing woman before trying to aim her bow again, visibly struggling to pull back on the weapon and keep it level at the target.
"Steady. Arms level. Keep your eye on the target," Echo guided her from behind, likely to avoid accidentally getting shot.
"You can do it, kid!" Bolo encouraged her, drink in hand.
"Not a chance! Come on, miss!" Ketch put her down in turn, equally hydrated.
Omega released the charged shot and actually hit the target, albeit the outer circle of the painted-on target. It was one of the few shots made that actually hit said target, with the broken machine covered in carbon scoring from much less accurate shots.
"Ah! Got it!" Omega raised her arms and cheered, looking back towards Echo for praise.
"Hahaha, bullseye!" Bolo cheered while Ketch growled in annoyance, especially when his friend held out his hand to him. "Pay up!"
Ketch, despite his annoyance, was a good sport and handed over a couple of credits.
"Good," Echo said. "Again."
"But I already hit the target three times," Omega pointed out.
"Out of twelve," Echo pointed out as he kneeled down and put his good hand on her shoulder. "That's luck, Omega, not skill. Soldiers need to be consistent."
Omega sighed at the point and once more struggled to pull back and take aim at her target.
"Okay, double or nothing she chokes!" Ketch challenged his friend, which likely didn't help ease Omega's nerves as not long afterwards she hit way off target, hitting the corner of the room. To add further insult to injury, the blaster bolt deflected off of the duracrete wall and into a holotable, damaging it to the point of it sparking and shutting down.
Omega could only groan in disappointment while Ketch laughed like a hyena and snatched the credits out of Bolo's hand, making me wonder how many times the same credits had been passed between them since Omega started shooting.
"I was doing better before those two showed up," Omega complained, making Echo kneel and put his hand on her shoulder again.
"You have to learn to tune out distractions, which comes with practice," Echo said before standing back up and pointing at the target. "Again."
Credit where it was due, Omega did try again, even if she just hit the wall again, much to her audible disappointment.
"Not exactly a natural, is she?" Wrecker whispered to Hunter, who could merely shrug his shoulders slightly.
"You better hope that you can fix that holotable before Cid notices it's broken, else she'll most certainly charge you for it," I whispered as well, this time to Tech, who was playing a timing based game on a working machine and according to the scoreboard doing quite well.
"Wouldn't be the first time I had to fix up what members of my squad broke," Tech responded. "And I'm sure you can imagine who did most of the breaking."
"And proud of it!" Wrecker declared, only to get smacked on the shoulder by Cid. "Hey!"
"Okay, play time's over, we need to talk," she said before turning around and smacking Ketch on the leg. "You two, scram."
"Okay! Okay! We're going/We're going!" Ketch and Bolo both told her in an annoyed tone as they left the parlor, drinks still in hand.
"I assume you boys know what a tactical droid is?" Cid asked the Bad Batch. "They were the operational-"
"The operational brains of the Seperartist military!" Tech was quick to interrupt, always the first one to answer any questions, even rhetorical ones.
"Bububub, this is my briefing, Goggles," Cid told him before pushing Wrecker off the nearby holotable he was sitting on and pushing a few buttons.
"Hey!"
"Tactical droid intel has tremendous value," Cid explained while showing off the hologram of a T-seriestactical droid before changing it to one showing off a large facility. "Which is why you're gonna break into this decommissioning facility on Corellia and retrieve one before they are all destroyed."
"We haven't decided if we're gonna work for you or not," Hunter pointed out with an uncertain look.
"Allow me to decide for you, you're in!" Cid said in a heated tone, which surprised Hunter. "I'm talking a mutually beneficial arrangement. You make money, I make money. And I watch your back. With the heat on you it's the best option you've got."
I couldn't help but admire the balls on Cid to bully a couple of hardened commandos into working for her, especially given what they were capable of.
Hunter could only sigh, "I guess we are in."
"I know you're in, I just told youyou're in," Cid pointed out before turning to Omega. "And you, you're releasing too soon because of those weak noodle arms. Build up your strength."
She then took the energy bow out of Omega's hands and proceeded to fire off three quick shots at the target, all hitting the actual bullseye, before handing it back to her.
A not so subtle reminder about either Cid's upbringing as a trandoshan, who had a strong hunting culture, her criminal lifestyle, or both.
"Lesson over," she told Omega before walking over to Hunter. "And one more thing, I need you all to check over some merchandise and give me your expert opinion on its state."
"What kind of merchandise?" Hunter asked her, and she merely snapped her claws at me in response.
Oh, so this was how she was planning to test out the carbines.
I quickly picked up and put down the crate on the nearby card table, taking off the lid and letting the Bad Batch look inside.
"Ooooooh, look at all the guns!" Wrecker couldn't help but note in appreciation as he brought out a carbine and looked it over. "Looks a bit funny though."
"That is because they are specialty weapons that are rarely seen among regular forces, specifically DC-19 "Stealth" carbines, and were almost exclusively used by the Shadow Troopers," Tech pointed out as he started disassembling one of said weapons and looking each part over.
"Shadow Troopers?" Omega asked curiously. "I think I heard about them, but I never really saw them that much."
"Another part of the Special Operations Brigade," Echo explained to her. "We worked with them a few times, since our missions sometimes overlapped, but not often. Their specialization, while broad, was still narrow compared to us."
"Which means we were better than them," Wrecker chuckled.
"How did you get your hands on these?" Hunter asked me with narrowed eyes, but was saved from answering by an unexpected source.
"Most likely a contact in the military logistical network, made easier by the fact that with the Empire slowly decommissioning clone forces their equipment is likely meeting the same fate," Tech offered his own hypothesis as he reassembled the carbine perfectly.
"Why let perfectly good weapons go to waste?" I couldn't help but ask. "If you think this is bad, you won't believe what they are doing to warships that are only a couple years old at most."
"These look like they've never even been fired before…" Echo couldn't help but note.
"Guns being thrown away before they can even shoot something…" Wrecker commented in a tone of voice that was becoming more and more emotional. "That's… that's not right…"
"Yeah yeah yeah, all very interesting, but I want to know if they work as advertised," Cid pointed out impatiently. "I got a buyer lined up for these, but I wanna make sure they are what Buckethead says they are or else it's more than just his skin on the line."
Hunter picked up a carbine and proceeded to demonstrate it on Omega's target, its sound suppression design making it so that it barely make any noise as the blaster bolt left the barrel, and then used the stealth mode which made it not only nearly silent, but totally invisible to the naked eye compared to your regular blaster bolt. Any clue left behind that anything even left the gun was the muted sound of blaster bolts hitting the target and the small scorch marks left behind.
I idly noticed that, like Cid, Hunter's shots all hit the bullseye… but unlike her shots, each one was perfectly on top of one another.
"Well, judging by Hunter's demonstration and my own analysis of the weapons, they appear to be in perfectly functional order and ready for use," Tech explained.
"Hmmm, normally I like guns, but these ones don't have that boom that I like, ya know?" Wrecker couldn't help but comment as the Bad Batch put the guns back in their crate.
"And who exactly are you selling these to?" Echo couldn't help but ask Cid, who merely raised a brow at him.
"None of ya business," Cid answered before waving them off. "Now get out of here! You got your own mission to do, don't ya? Buckethead, in my office in five."
And with that, Cid walked off while I closed back up the crate.
"If it means anything, I'm not exactly thrilled about where these guns are most likely going either," I noted, noticing the looks the Bad Batch were giving me. "But the sad truth is that with the war ending there is gonna be a lot of military weapons on the black market no matter what, and I'm in a kinda desperate need of money at the moment. I plan to balance out the scales whenever I can though."
"Easy to say, harder to follow up on," Hunter pointed out in a judging tone.
"Well let's start now then!" I said as I put the crate down and pulled off my backpack. "You're infiltrating a battle droid decommissioning plant, right? I've seen that holo before. You go in, something happens to reactivate the battle droids, and suddenly you are being swarmed by a small army all seeking to blast you to bits while you have to fight your way out as the whole facility starts exploding all around you before going off in a huge fireball the second after you escape."
"The odds of that happening are-" Tech started, only for Wrecker to interrupt him.
"Really?! That sounds awesome!" The big man-child shouted in excitement.
"Awesome, yes, but still dangerous, so in an effort to balance the scales, I'm offering these as free samples and proof of the quality of the equipment I'd be happy to sell to you all," I said as I brought out several small boxes full of EMP grenades, each about 500 credits and generously provided by what little funds I had left beyond Cid's loan. "These should help should you encounter any battle droid related issues on your mission."
I watched as the Bad Batch opened the boxes and inspected the grenades one by one.
"And you just happen to carry around a backpack full of droid poppers?" Echo couldn't help but ask with a raised brow.
"Hey, not too long ago the galaxy was at war between two mass produced armies, one of which was made up nearly entirely of droids," I bullshitted. "Forgive me if I still feel like carrying a couple around."
"Not my favorites, but hey, if any battle droids do show up, these are sure to give them a bad time," Wrecker noted with a smile.
"And these are free of charge?" Tech asked skeptically after looking the grenades over. "While I can attest to their functionality, it seems rather odd to miss out on the chance to make credits off of us given your previously stated need to make them."
"Call it an investment in what are hopefully long-term customers," I answered back truthfully. "Cause trust me, my guy can get you much better toys than just these, and something tells me you guys will end up needing them."
"Can I try one?!" Omega asked in an excited tone.
"You can carry a few, but only use them if we say to," Echo told her. "And make sure you throw them away from us. They are not exactly pleasant on my cybernetics."
"This is… thanks," Hunter eventually said as he and his squad picked up the boxes. "Hopefully we won't need them."
"Hope for the best, prepare for the worst, as the saying goes," I nodded at him before waving them off. "Good luck on the mission, and come back safe."
I watched as the Bad Batch filed out of the parlor after that before heading to Cid's office, figuring I had kept the woman waiting long enough.
"There you are! What took you?" Cid asked in a predictably annoyed tone in front of the holotable in her office.
"Just saying goodbye to your other employees," I said as I stood before her. "So, you're gonna give me my own briefing?"
"Hmph," Cid huffed before pushing a few buttons on her holotable and displaying what looked like a broken down facility on top of a plateau. "This is the Ten Mile Plateau, and the buyer, whom you don't need to know either but I know is solid, will meet you there at the old stellar-energy station. Given the rather illegal nature of the product, they naturally want to do the deal away from most of civilization if they can. It's located deep in the Scraplands, a very unpleasant place for most beings, away from prying eyes that the buyer would very much not have snooping around."
"Isn't that what Worlport is for?" I asked, with even my basic research making it clear the city was kinda an open shadowport.
"With the establishment of the Empire, people are taking extra steps to stay hidden, so deal with it," Cid told me.
"Fine fine, I should be able to get there relatively quickly with my ship, so-"
"My ship, and you aren't gonna use it until you pay me back, remember?" Cid pointed out, and before I could argue she raised a hand. "Besides, the client specifically asked that there be no ships but their own involved in this deal to limit any chance of anyone making any connections. Less suspicious if only one ship temporarily lands in the middle of the Scraplands instead of two right next to each other."
"So how do you suggest I get there then?" I asked in an annoyed tone.
"Like everyone else, by train," Cid simply said.
Wonderful.