Bossk quickly got us to Ord Mantell City, landing in a free docking bay to fuel up before he left the planet to drop off weapons with Guild.
We didn't speak much more the rest of the flight, but I did make sure to say goodbye as I stepped out of his ship.
"Thanks for the lift, and I wish you happy hunting," I said simply, figuring Bossk would appreciate them more than a long-winded speech, which served me well since I was saving that for someone else.
"Same to you, Claws," Bossk nodded before walking back into his ship.
"It's actually… nevermind," I sighed to myself as I just focused on getting back to Cid's with the payment in hand, doing the best I could to ignore how hurt and sore I felt all over after the day's excitement. It was likely only thanks to liberal applications of bacta patches, which I kept in my backpack, all over my body which I applied over the course of the flight back that likely kept me standing. I was shocked by the few burned holes in my armorweave jacket, having stopped most of the damage from various low energy blaster bolts but leaving nasty looking bruises all over in exchange.
I wanted nothing more than to just get back to my ship and just pass out in my bed, but I had a job to finish and a certain woman to 'chat' with.
It took a little bit longer without my speeder, but I eventually made it back to Cid's with each painful step feeding my growing outrage. Every step I took down the staircase and into the parlor proper made it grow more and more.
"Hey, Nick! Where ya been?" Bolo asked me from where he and Ketch were playing a round of dejarik. "Wanna play the next round?"
"Not now guys, I gotta go talk to Cid," I growled as I walked past them and towards her office.
"...I think we should leave for today," I heard Ketch whisper to his friend.
"Yeah, me too," Bolo said as I heard them both quickly leaving the parlor. I ignored it as I made it to Cid's office and pressed the intercom button.
"Who is it?" Cid asked in annoyance.
"It's me, Nick, I'm back," I answered evenly. "And I got the payment."
"Already? That was fast, and I thought I told you to call me when the deal was complete!" Cid growled in annoyance. "Whatever, so long as you got the credits that is all that matters. Come on in."
With that, the door to her office opened and I pulled out my pistol.
I proceeded to walk in and just as I turned the corner I pointed it at the shocked lizard woman's head from where she was sitting at her desk.
"Nick! What the hell is-?!"
"Shut the fuck up and don't you dare fucking move!" I interrupted her with real anger in my voice. "Keep your hands where I can fucking see them on your desk and I swear to whatever deity that is listening I will shoot you so many times in the face that it will there will be nothing left but charred meat!"
Cid shut up and listened, despite openly glaring at me, as I walked into her office and placed the credit case on her desk.
"Now, you are gonna sit there and fucking listen to me for once, since I'm here to file a very large complaint about how you've been treating me this whole time!" I growled at her. "And I honestly have no idea what is gonna happen by the end of it, but I swear that interrupting at any point is not gonna help you in your favor! Got it?!"
"I got it," Cid said evenly, barely even phased about the blaster in her face.
Then, I went off and held nothing back.
"First off, I want to acknowledge I have been a huge fucking and overly trusting idiot with you, a career criminal. I will be the first to admit that, but I thought that, deep down, that you were a smart woman who could see a good thing when it walks into her parlor and cared more about getting paid well than screwing someone over so long as they live off to their end of the deal," I started off, feeling a cold rage growing in my belly.
"But looking at it now, I realize that you haven't been giving me even a chance to prove myself to you by sending me off on a job I shouldn't have sent on since my only job should have been to provide you product to sell, and if you want me to do anything more than that, that requires extra pay and support! You loan me old Republic credits, which I thought was no big deal at the time since I figured there was maybe some sense about it, but now realize it was either a 'fuck you' sent my way to make things harder for me or an attempt to figure out who my contact is! Do you even understand who I am dealing with on my end? You nearly fucked this whole thing! To say nothing about running into Bossk of all people and nearly being shot by the guy cause I didn't know he was who I was supposed to meet!
"Speaking of which, I should have absolutely been read in on who I was delivering to, 'cause for a moment there I thought one of the deadliest bounty hunters in the galaxy was there to capture or kill me! And this is all after having to get off the hovertrain early to dodge an Imperial security sweep, which you could have possibly warned me was something they could do, having to hire on the craziest fucking jawa that exists as a guide to get to the deal site, dodge death so many times during the course of it I lost count, having to kill I don't know how many people just to defend myself, get blasted at several times, beat, cut, thrown around, and who knows what else! The only good thing to come out of today was that I got Bossk's contact details and he was kind enough to give me a ride!
"And yet even after all of that I still completed my part of the job and didn't just run off afterwards, since unlike you, I have standards. However, keeping those standards in mind, I think we did need to renegotiate my cut," I explained. "Fully acknowledging your part in setting up the actual deal in the first place with your connections, given I not only provided you the weapons but delivered them to the client personally, through very hostile terrain and avoiding the authorities, all while adhering to the rules of the delivery you gave me, I think that easily earns me a 90-no, a 95% cut of the overall profits. And if you can't live with that, I am fully willing to take the original cut of 50/50 and just walk away forever. It should be easy enough to find someone who will actually appreciate what I bring to the table, since you clearly don't. I could kill you or worse, but despite everything I have been through I am still not that cold-blooded of a person yet, unlike you. Besides, I know you may have 'associates', most certainly not friends, who might have an issue with me doing so. Either way, we are solving this right now and your answer will depend on whether we have an actual respectful working relationship from here on out or we never see each other again.
"So, I guess in the end, are you willing to negotiate with me as a fucking equal?!" I angrily spat at her across the desk.
After my long-winded speech I had to stop to finally breath as I just glared at Cid, who kept a straight face this whole time.
Honestly, at this point either this bitch gave into my demands or I was walking, and I would try to take the Bad Batch with me. However, at the same time I tried to keep in mind that she still had useful contacts I hoped to possibly get from associating with her so I tried to give her enough rope to grab onto… or hang herself with. I'd only stick around long enough to milk said connections until they were dry, and the second she was no longer useful I would be getting the hell out of here.
This, though, was being solved right now, one way or another.
"Are ya done?" Cid finally asked me.
"...Yes, I'm done," a little annoyed at her response and really tempted to just stun her.
Yes, I put the blaster on stun, but only just in case she tried something before I said my piece. I really wanted to hear what I had to say to her before I decided what to do with her.
"Great, so I guess the first thing I gotta say is that you most certainly aren't a plant. You were too blatant to be the law, and a rival wouldn't have hesitated to kill me," Cid explained. "At best I thought you were a naive Core Worlder or something going through an 'exciting criminal phase' that I was sure would give up the second you encountered any actual trouble, but you surprised me. It turns out you were just an idiot doormat who was so green that you were willing to do nearly anything I said to get into my good graces, which I was flattered about but also saw as a potential weakness that could be exploited by others if you ever made the wrong move. But here you are now, finally having grown a spine and enough respect for yourself to point a blaster at my head."
For the second time that day, I think my brain slowed down for a moment to process everything, since I was expecting a lot of responses from Cid, but that wasn't one of them. It took a few seconds to figure things out, but it finally hit me.
After all, she had done the same shit with the Bad Batch on their first mission with her when she sent them to rescue a 'kid' without telling them said kid was a rancor.
All of this was a test.
While I absorbed that Cid just grabbed the credit case, opened it up, and started counting it out with her datapad.
"I wanted to see if you were truly who you said you were, how far you were willing to go to get the job done, and see if you actually had what it took for this business," Cid admitted. "Went through a bit more than what I was expecting, but you also proved there was more durasteel inside of you than I thought possible. The clones are easy to read and get a handle on, but you? You are a total unknown trying to break into a business that relies on proving yourself to be reliable and knowing the right people, so congratulations, you passed. Oh, good on you for surviving in the first place, if they were your first those are-"
"Important for trandoshans, yeah, I heard," I sighed in annoyance, I could unpack who exactly were my first kills later while nursing a cold drink, even if one could argue that the guy who died during the Imperial ambush I set up was the real first... "A fucking test. But that still doesn't change-!"
"Oh, and as for your cut? I agree, you deserve more, but not that much," Cid said, cutting the wind from my sails. "I say you earned yourself 70% at most."
"80%!" I fired back instantly. "Need I remind you I nearly died several times and had to spend the day with a crazy jawa? Not to mention a middleman who didn't even make the hand off taking more than ten percent is a fucking joke…"
"75%, and that's pushing it!" Cid declared. "This job is never easy unless you are a hutt. Do you think just any old street rat can call up the Bounty Hunter's Guild on a whim?!" Cid fired back, and I realised just who had picked up the rifles.
Bossk's pedigree in the bounty hunter community was no joke, to say nothing about who his father was and how he apparently had a personal connection with Cid. Shit, if I honestly killed or even injured her, it could be possible he would put a price on my head just out of principle, since I think I recalled the dude being very into honor and such. Or at least his version of it.
"...Deal, but you take out the 50k I owe you before you divide it up," I demanded, to which she grunted at but didn't argue further about.
"Fine. Also, in the future you can decide whether or not you want to make the delivery yourself, since you would get a bigger cut if you did like you are now, but if you don't that just means more for me, so do whatever you want. Either way, given what you went through today, I recommend you get better with a blaster, invest in some decent protection, and maybe recruit some good muscle to back you up. It's a dangerous galaxy after all, and no matter where you go it won't kill you to be better prepared. So with all that in mind, put this all to good use and invest in yourself before you tell me about what else your guy wants to sell off."
For all I was incredibly mad at Cid right now, she wasn't wrong that I needed to invest more in my personal security, especially after all the shit I've been through, and now I had no excuse not to since I now had the money for it.
And with that, Cid divided up the credits, taking her cut under my watchful eye, including the original loan amount before , and pushing the rest my way, finally making me lower my gun in shock since I was not expecting that to happen. Because if I could count on Cid to be anything, it was being greedy.
But here she was, willingly, if begrudgingly, handing me 87,938 credits rounded up.
Either my negotiations at blasterpoint were that effective, or this was her plan all along. Heck, maybe a mix.
"Now get out of here, you look and smell even worse than usual," Cid waved him off. "I'll have Dam come by and remove the lock from your ship some time tomorrow. Come back to me when you have more business to offer. My door is always open for reliable suppliers, just make sure you come by at some point before you get caught up by the Imps and I forget you even existed."
…Wow, I honestly wasn't expecting things to end up like this at all.
Where was the yelling? The threats? The violence? The… anything really besides a thoroughly unfair agreement being made? Was I being played again somehow? Most likely, but I honestly had no idea at this point.
Still though, I couldn't make it look like she won so I just angrily grabbed the credit case and slowly made my way out of her office.
"Oh, and Buckethead!" Cid called out before I could reach the doorway, making me turn back to her. "I forgot to mention one last thing… Despite my very budding respect for you and your complete right to dislike me, if you ever come into my place threatening and insulting me like that again, I will make sure that you are ground into little chunks and fed to whatever beast that will be able to choke down your remains and shit you out. Got it?"
There it was, the universe was once more in balance.
"And if you ever screw me over like that again or worse, I will spend every last credit I have to make sure you regret all your life decisions until the very point where you won't be able to make any ever again," I fired back before leaving her office before she could say another word. "After all, I plan to make a lot more friends than just little-old-you."
Cid might know she can trust me to do a job now; and knows to treat me better, but at her core she was still a criminal whose promise was only as good as her desire for profit. Neither of us would trust each other past our own self-interest, and I most certainly wouldn't trust the fat old lizard further than I could throw her.
Right now, she was useful to me and maybe we could even work together for a time, but I would still never forget the bullshit she pulled and would be on the look out for anything like it again while biding my time until I didn't need her any more.
For now though… Now I just wanted to go back to my ship and rest.
Preferably on my new small hill of credits. I earned it.