Even though we had made it to Ten Mile Plateau mostly in one piece, it still took some work to actually climb the damn thing considering just how tall it was.
Thankfully, Tik knew a path.
The downside? Like all he did, he insisted it had to be done very quickly. And let me tell you, if the very violent chase hadn't early made me shit myself, I was now truly considering investing in brown pants after this was all over after all of the high speed climbs, jumps, wall runs, at least a few loops, and, at the last leg of the trip upwards, being damn near parallel with the plateau wall until finally reaching the summit.
It was no surprise that once we finally stopped I kinda fell out of my speeder, threw my helmet off, and proceeded to empty my guts all over it before finding a clean patch to kneel and kiss like it was a lover.
"(Jawa Tik bring not jawa to tall, flat rock! New record made!)" Tik said happily from my speeder, jumping up and down as he looked it over like a new toy.
I currently have never wanted to strangle another being more in my life… well, except for one, but I would have to save that for when I get back to Ord Mantell City later… assuming I did at this point since I was truly starting to understand the risk involved in this business. As it was, underneath all the anger, fear, and other emotions, I couldn't deny that Tik had done exactly what I asked him to do, get me to the dropoff location fast and alive. It's not his fault that I didn't really process what it would take to achieve that until I was in the thick of things, surviving who knows how many near-death encounters in a very short period of time only thanks to the mad jawa's insanely skilled driving abilities.
It did, however, make me very scared about the idea of just what he'd do if he ever got behind the wheel of a starship at some point… best not to think about it and add to my current trauma.
Right now though, I still had a job to do, as much as I really wished that I had, at many points in the past, pushed more to not be put into this situation in the first place. But I had just gone along with it like a total idiot cause I didn't want to speak up and rock the boat, potentially derailing what basic plan I had going in my mind.
Things would have to change… but first, I needed to get paid.
"We… we need to go over to the old energy collection facility," I said a little weakly as I finally pulled myself up to my shaking legs and pointed to the other end of the plateau, because of course Tik's path only led to the opposite end of it.
"(Can do! Tik drive-)"
"Slowly and subtly," I interrupted the jawa with a growl as I put my helmet back on, glad that the plateau was tall enough that most of the toxic air of the Scaplands didn't reach this high up.
"(Slow death! Jawa Tik-)" Tik started, only to quickly shut up as I took out and put my blaster to his face.
"I'm in no mood right now to argue about this," I said very calmly. "I have already nearly died so many times today, and the last thing I want is to be shot in the back by my buyer right at the finish line. I respect you a great deal for getting me here like I asked, but now you are gonna follow my orders as your paying customer, got it?"
There was silence for a few moments as the jawa just stared at me and the gun at his face, before finally shrugging his shoulders.
"(Okay, as not jawa says,)" Tik simply said in a very uncharacteristically calm voice since the first time I met him.
I think something in my brain broke there for a second. "Just like that?"
"(Not jawa paying jawa Tik, so jawa Tik do good listen)," was his reply. "(Not jawa not argue before, so jawa Tik think all good)."
I had to physically pull my gun away from him as I did my very best to process my current emotions, since it really felt like I could throw Sith lighting around right now if I really wanted to.
"Okay… okay, let's do this then," I finally said.
It was finally time to end this, one way or another.
---
With my guidance, Tik slowly and carefully drove us near the abandoned energy facility, but still a bit off from the coordinates that Cid gave me earlier and hidden by some broken down outer building. From there, I snuck my head out a bit and pulled down my newly purchased rangefinder, which I 'pulled out' from my backpack while Tik was too busy looking over my speeder, and used it to zoom in on the deal location.
The rangefinder, which was very easy to plug into the side of my helmet, let me get a clear image of the ship that was currently parked in front of the abandoned facility. It was a very odd design, with a large rectangle front end and wings sticking upwards out of the back of it on a thin section of it that made it look like it had a bite taken out the whole corner of the thing. Honestly, it was ringing a bell in my head, but I just couldn't place it at the moment.
I know Cid said the buyer she set up was solid, but it was only now that I really realized I should have questioned her more since I was the one putting my neck on the line to meet them and I was already aware of Cid's inherent nature to leave out important information on missions. I was not about to let that scally bitch screw me over by sending me to my death… heck, now that I thought about it, maybe that was her plan in the first place? Was she already setting me up?
No, not the time to be overly paranoid, just be appropriately paranoid and work with what I had. And what I had right now was no one near the ship.
"I don't see anyone, but that doesn't really mean anything," I told Tik from where he was crouched in front of me as I pulled my rangefinder up. "It can either mean they are waiting inside the ship, or hiding somewhere close by."
"(Other not jawa could be eaten by poisonous giants, so free ship!)" Tik positively pointed out in a disturbingly upbeat tone, but then again, as a jawa, I guess it was only natural to see an unattended anything and think it was ripe for the taking.
"Lets not assume things and give anyone more of a reason to possibly shoot us," I said as we walked back over to the speeder and climbed aboard. "Since I don't see a large armed party present, let's just go up slowly and in plain sight… but if any trouble happens you have my permission to go fast to get away."
"(Jawa Tik hopes trouble!)" was his not at all encouraging response.
I made sure to have my pistol out and ready as we slowly made our way over to the ship, every inch making it grow larger and larger but not reveal anything new nor anyone showing up to greet us. It was spooky.
Why the heck would whoever owned this ship leave it alone in the middle of nowhere? Where the heck were they now with a major weapons' deal in place? And why-
Any further thought on the matter was quite violently interrupted as, less than a hundred feet away from the ship, one of the walls of the structure we were slowly speeding past exploded outwards in a spray of rusted metal that roughly threw us both off my speeder and onto the ground with a painful grunt. And what was worse, the thing that caused it was now staring down at us both and roaring in our faces.
It was another savrip and, very unfortunately for us, we were no longer on a speeder to outrun it nor had any nearby raiders to distract it with.
"WWWAAAARRRRHHHH!" the savrip roared at us in anger as it lifted up its huge club.
"Oh shit!" I screamed as I quickly rolled and crawled out of the way, the club coming down where I was not a moment before and shaking the ground from the force of the blow. "Fuck, fuck, fuck!"
I scrambled to my feet and rushed backwards while desperately firing my pistol, quickly set to kill since I doubted stun blasts would work on this thing, and opened fire. Thankfully, due to being such a big target, most of my poorly aimed shots hit, but unfortunately, most of said shots barely seemed to affect the thick-skinned creature as it quickly lifted its club again and looked about to swing it my way.
I desperately thought about how the hell was I gonna deal with this, since I was pretty sure I had nothing on me that could actually kill this thing, when all of a sudden a loud blaster shot cut through the air and smacked the savrip right in the left eye. It stood there for a second, as if processing the new burning hole in its head, before its club fell from its grip and it fell forward with a loud thump that once again shook the ground.
It didn't get back up.
"Thanks for distracting it," a new voice hissed out before I could even process what the heck happened, making me turn my head in the direction of the broken wall it and the savrip had come from. "Whoever said that things don't run from a fight clearly never killed several of them in full view of the others."
Standing where the wall once did was a trandoshan, but not just any trandoshan, but motherfucking Bossk himself, one of the deadliest bounty hunters in the whole galaxy. It was hard not to recognize him based on his iconic outfit and the blaster he held.
He didn't even focus on me as he walked over to the savrip and looked it over with a hum before finally shaking his head.
"This thing is a runt compared to the others, barely worth the points chasing it down," he said to himself before turning to me. "And you would be?"
"That depends… you wouldn't happen to be here hunting for someone, would you?" I asked a little nervously, my pistol gripped tightly in my hand.
I didn't think I had done anything to earn a price on my head so far, but after everything else I experienced today I was taking no further risks, even if my odds of survival against the lizard man before me if it came down to a fight was very slim.
"Should I be?" Bossk asked a bit menacingly.
I honestly didn't know how to answer that, but before I could even think of a response it was taken out of my hands.
"(Jawa Tik alive! Poisonous giant dead! Not jawa lizard kill?)" Tik asked as he walked over, looking no worse for wear after his short flight. Given his tendencies, I assumed he was very experienced at landing safely after being flung off vehicles. "(Not jawa lizard one not jawa to meet and trade with?)"
I wanted to strangle the little blabbermouth, again, for speaking so openly, but at this words Bossk seemed to relax.
"Oh, so you're the contact Cid sent to meet with me? Not what I expected, I'll be honest," Boss said as he shouldered his blaster.
"You're the client?" I couldn't help but ask in surprise.
"Techincally speaking the Guild is, I'm just acting as their agent for this job," Bossk explained. "My father, who leads it, and Cid go back a ways, and the Guild is always looking for specialty equipment to sell to its members, even those of questionable legality."
"And that is why you wanted to do the deal out here?"
"I didn't care either way, but the Guild is a recognized group that at least has to pretend to follow the laws of the galaxy," Bossk explained. "The Empire wouldn't like knowing we were getting our hands on some weapons they would likely prefer didn't exist outside of their military. Speaking of which, you got the goods?"
"The goods, right… you have the credits?" I asked back.
"In my ship," Bossk nodded towards what I now realized was the Hound's Tooth, his personally modified YV-666 light freighter. "When I landed I saw a tribe of savrips snooping around, so I figured I'd secure the area, earn some points, and kill time while waiting for you. Wouldn't do for you to get eaten before the deal was complete."
"How professional of you… and I mean that non-sarcastically by the way! I very much respect your skills as a hunter," I quickly explained. "It's just… just been a long day for me."
"Hmm, I can tell," Bossk noted while sniffing and looking me over, noticing how dirty, dinged up, scratched all over, and in general not looking my best I was. "You smell like you just had your first kill, first couple even. Congratulations."
I… I really didn't want to think about that too deeply right now, even if the circumstances were entirely not my fault and clearly a case of self-defense, so I focused back on the original point of me being here.
"T-thanks," I stuttered a bit before finally holstering my pistol, at least mostly confident that if Bossk of all people wanted me dead right now I likely already would be. "Just give me a second to get the product. I'll meet you over at your ship."
"See ya there," Bossk nodded before walking over to his ship while I went to collect my speeder.
It was laying on its side after being tossed aside, but didn't look too worse for wear and was relatively easy to right it thanks to its still active repulsor systems. Better, the crate strapped to the side of it that held the guns was intact, if dented and had a few scorch marks in places, and a quick check showed the contents seemed to be okay as well.
With that in mind, me and Tik walked over to Bossk's ship, with the man himself waiting by its entry ramp with a large case in hand.
"Here, you can count it out while I check the product," Bossk said as we exchanged containers. "Make sure we aren't trying to cheat each other."
"Something tells me if I was dumb enough to try and cheat you that I'd be worse off than that tribe of savrips," I commented, which earned a hissing laugh from Bossk.
"And they say humans lack common sense," he chuckled as he opened up the crate and pulled out a carbine. "Hmmm, a true hunter's weapon, this."
"More like an assassin's, I think the point was," I said as I opened up the case and- holy shit that was a lot of credits!
"There is little difference between a hunter and an assassin, merely the type of prey they hunt and the reasons why they do so," Bossk explained as he took aim and blasted a nearby piece of scrap a good distance away without any sound or sight of a blaster bolt. "And personally, I don't see the difference."
"...I see," I said a little nervously as the bounty hunter checked all the rifles as I counted up the credits.
Cid had told me that she had found a buyer willing to pay three and a half times the base price for the rifles, along with three extra canisters of refined gas for twice the normal amount, so added that up all together meant a final profit of… 167,250 credits.
I think my brain stopped processing there for a moment.
This was more money than I ever made in a single deal, more money than I have ever held in my hands in general, by a huge amount.
The things I could buy with this amount of money…
"Hey!" Bossk spoke up, knocking me out of my thoughts. "Rifles and ammo all check out, all in good condition too. I honestly didn't expect Cid to deliver as well as she did, but I guess she can still surprise people. All good on your end?"
"Y-yeah, money is all here," I said as I closed the case and stood up. "Thank you for your business… and in the future, if the Bounty Hunters' Guild, its members, or even yourself are looking for any more specialty items that would normally be hard to find, let them know that Nick Claus would be happy to service them."
"Hmmm, I'll keep that in mind," Bossk said as he lifted the crate up and started walking up into his ship.
"W-wait! One last thing!" I called up after him.
"What?" he asked in a slightly annoyed tone.
"I-I realize this is likely very unprofessional sounding, but I would very much appreciate a ride back to Ord Mantell City if you are willing to give it," I explained. "I have no desire to go back through the Scraplands if I can avoid it, and I'd be happy to pay for-"
"No, that's fine, I'll take you," Bossk simply said, stopping me short.
"R-really? Just like that?" I asked in surprise.
"You claimed your first kills today, which is a big deal for trandoshans," Bossk explained with a shrug. "Even for a human, I think that earns you a free ride to a place I'll be stopping by to refuel at anyway. Besides… from the smell of you something tells me you have plans to still possibly kill someone, and who am I to get in the way of that?"
"Thank you! Oh man, you have no idea how nice it is to hear that," I laughed a bit in relief. "I promise you, if I ever need someone hunted down you will be the first one I call on."
"Assuming you can afford me," Bossk chuckled as he started to climb into his ship. "Let's get going."
I was about to follow before I remembered something. "I'll be right there, just gotta complete another deal I made."
"You got five minutes," Bossk called back.
I wouldn't waste them.
I turned back to my speeder and Tik who stood nearby… and the jawa was already going at it with his hydrospanner, of course.
"Tik! I'm taking another way back so you don't have to! Thanks for guiding me!" I called out to him, grabbing the jawa's attention. "The speeder's yours, as promised! And, don't take this the wrong way, but I hope we never meet again!"
"(Jawa Tik thanks not jawa! Returns words!)" Tik yelled back, the speed demon looking quite happy with his new speeder as he jumped on it and proceeded to zoom away without looking back. "(Gotta go fast!)"
And with that, the craziest jawa I had ever met sped off and was quickly a dot on the horizon.
Meeting Tik was certainly… the scariest experience of my life, and I hoped never to repeat it again… Then again, if I ever needed a wheelman… I shook off the thought and focused on the present moment.
With that done, I quickly got onto Bossk's ship and joined him on the bridge at its top deck, doing my best not to linger in the bounty hunter's ship too much. Not a moment after I sat down in a free seat that it rose up into the air and was already making its way away from the plateau and to Ord Mantell City.
"So, curious, who is it you plan to add to your scoreboard?" Bossk asked me as he idly flew his ship.
I debated not saying anything considering just who I was planning to have a very pointed chat with, but at this point I didn't care.
"Let's just say I need to have a very important discussion with my associate," I growled out.
Cause no matter how you looked at it, this whole stinking mess shouldn't have happened and Cid no doubt knew that. So one way or another, and even though a good portion I admit was my own fault for being so stupid, Cid was gonna answer for all the bullshit I went through today.