Saga - Legends The Thrill of the Hunt - Bossk, Jabba the Hutt

TITLE: The Thrill of the Hunt
CHARACTERS: Bossk
TIMELINE: Legends, circa 2 BBY
SUMMARY: Bossk is hired by the Hutt gangster, Jabba, to find and deal with a crooked employee.

***

The Imperial agent was repulsed as she stepped foot inside of the large freighter, Bossk's heightened senses allowed him to practically smell the vomit rising in her throat as she walked towards him. The Trandoshan bounty hunter was standing in the converted aft cargo bay of the YV-666 freighter, what was only a year ago an ample space that could carry hundreds of tons of cargo had been converted into the bounty hunter's prison.

Four large transparisteel cells surrounded a workshop filled with the tools of Bossk's other hobby. Wookiee pelts in various shades and stages of drying hung from stretchers suspended from the ceiling while the latest source sat on a three meter long skinning table made from wroshyr wood. The irony of a Wookiee's blood seeping deep into the wood that they considered sacred was always an entertainment to the humanoid lizard.

"You've come for your prey?" Bossk addressed the agent casually, pretending not to even look her way as he carved a large slab of meat from the Wookiee's corpse.

The intelligence offer cleared her throat. "You certainly didn't waste your time." Bossk watched as she viewed his treatment of the corpse with revulsion, the pheromones of anger quickly rising off of her body. Despite their slavery of the species, it appeared that even some Imperials had some "humane" standards when it came the furred creatures.

"You put a good price on his head," Bossk hissed at her. He walked away from his work and towards the only occupied cell. A male Rodian cowered in the corner as the Trandoshan approached. "I made him my top priority." The large middle digit of Bossk's hand punched in the security code on a number pad specially altered to fit his species' three-fingered hand.

The Rodian blubbered as Bossk approached him, curling as deep into the corner as he could. The fear from the green-scaled being mixed with their natural scent in the air. The bounty hunter picked the stuncuffed Rebel up by an already torn jacket and tossed him out of the cell.

The Imperial's prisoner stumbled forward from the momentum, his stomach impacting the workbench hard. Another cry of fear issued from the Rodian's suckered mouth. "I don't know if you'll get much out of him, captain," Bossk said as he crossed the distance in a few steps. He dragged the Rodian off of the table and guided him towards the Imperial.

"I'll get what I can out of him," she said. She looked at him with a cross look, brown eyes doing what they could to try and unnerve him. "If you haven't scared him mad."

Bossk opened his mouth, revealing a row of sharp teeth and a pointed tongue. He emitted several long barks as laughter. "You knew what you were getting when you hired me." He turned to her, noting the frown upon her face. "Now, about my payment..."

"I contacted the Guild, not you personally... As for payment, I already transferred it to your account."

Bossk opened his maw in an imitation of a smile. "Good."

An hour passed after the Imperial agent had left before the klaxon in his hold sounded. Bossk raced to the cockpit of his vessel, climbing the large durasteel staircase up from the hold and into the twelve meter long cabin. A large droid stood in the cabin, three meters tall and built like a landspeeder. The droid took the place of numerous other crew members that would be needed to fly a ship the size of the Hound's Tooth, an expensive but necessary addition to the craft for a being that already preferred to work alone.

Bossk sat at his seat, claws adjusting the controls and flicking the blinking communications array on. The large and bulbous form of Jabba the Hutt appeared in miniature in front of the Trandoshan. The slug-like alien was reclining in his favored hoversled, the designs written upon its side informing Bossk that the Hutt was calling from his palace on Nal Hutta.

[Glorious Jabba,] Bossk said in his own language, a series of guttural hisses and growls. [You honor me with your message, what do you wish me to hunt for you?]

Jabba unleashed a mighty laugh before responding in Huttese. [Always to the point, Bossk.]

Bossk pulled up a computer screen and logged on to the HoloNet. [Why waste time on petty words when there's a hunt to do? The Scorekeeper keeps her log daily.] The Trandoshan pulled up a common search site that many of the fellow members of the Bounty Hunter's Guild used. [Who is the poor barve?]

[An associate of mine, Harrin-Salis, has absconded with a rather large sum of money from my nightclub on Coruscant. I fear that he's retreated with it to the undercity.]

Within a few seconds, the target's meager public information was already on the dark screen in front of Bossk. The prey was a Givin, a being with thick white skin that was as hard as bone and appeared as such, giving the entire species the look of morose skeletons. He was listed as the manager of the Bachani Club on Coruscant, one of Jabba's many legitimate holdings that both supplemented his income and cleaned the stain of crime from his many other holdings.

[How do you want him brought to you?]

Jabba's fiery eyes narrowed in the gangster's large head. [I want his skull mounted on a force pike.]

The two discussed payment for a brief moment, a formality that both sides briefly played at bickering about. The hunt was all the mattered for Bossk, and the credits nothing more but a means to continue it. Sealing the large ship's hull against the pressures of space, Bossk lifted off from the temperate world. It was a short jump from Corulag to Coruscant, a few hours trip down the Perlemian Trade Route to the capital world of the galaxy-spanning Empire.

The bounty hunter had already changed out of the dark leather worksuit that he wore while prepping hides by the time that the droid X10-D alerted him that the final reversion to hyperspace was upcoming within minutes. Now clad in a light orange flight suit that coincidentally complimented his yellow scales, Bossk headed back to his cockpit.

The sun was shining brightly along the southwestern hemisphere of the planet-city as Bossk guided his freighter along the large skylanes. The viewports ahead of him were polarized far beyond normal for a space-faring craft but the Trandoshan's sensitive eyes still squinted.

The Bachani Club was Bossk's first stop after docking in a common port. The club was in the middle of theLakePortHeightsshopping district, an area of the planet that boasted that it had held a beautiful lake overlooked by a plateau before the city had overtaken it thousands of millennia ago. The hypothetical landscape was plastered everywhere in the district, including on the sign for the club. The lake was surrounded by the large green plants that gave the club its name on the sign, a circular table with two drinks sitting on it.

An Echani bouncer stood just inside the door of the mostly empty bar, the chalk-skinned human's silver eyes glossed over in boredom. "We don't allow blasters here, sir," he said in a monotone voice.

"You'll allow mine." Bossk hissed at the bouncer as he flashed his Bounty Hunter's Guild card. "I'm looking for your boss."

The Echani nodded with his head towards the back of the club. "Orn'telsa is in the back room." He pulled out a comlink from his waistband and raised it to his lips.

"Not your new boss." Bossk produced his datapad and showed the bouncer the image of Harrin-Salas. "Your old boss."

The bouncer's eyes went wide and his mouth fell open slightly. "Look, I don't know anything about him, all right? You tell Jabba that!"

The hunter leaned closer to the employee, baring his razor sharp teeth slightly in a basic intimidation tactic. No matter how tolerant of other species that near-humans claimed to be, the primal fear of an "other" was still instilled within them. "I'll tell him that, if you tell me all you know..."

The Echani motioned towards a booth and sat down in the cushioned chair. Bossk sat across from him, slit-red eyes staring at him as if he were food. "Look," the bouncer said, nervously glancing around the bar. "Salas was here last Zhellday night. He comes in, says 'hello' to us all as usual and then disappears back into his office. I didn't think anything about it at the time."

Bossk narrowed the nictitating membranes of his eyes. "When does the boss take in the week's physical credits to the bank?"

The realization upon the bouncer's face combined with the release of fear pheromones that he secreted. "Benduday morning..."

The next day, Bossk thought. An entire week's worth of credits from a popular nightspot would be a large amount, but it was nothing compared to the amount that Jabba had claimed that the former manager had ran off with. Spiceloaf shaving would account for the missing credits, however. A miniscule amount of credits taken every week over a matter of years would net a being a small fortune.

The bounty hunter stood up and walked to the manager's office. The insistent questions and pleading from the bouncer a minor nuisance that wasn't worth the time to deal with. Orn'telsa was sitting at his new desk, deeply studying the work roster in front of him. His cobalt skin paling as he saw the Trandoshan studying him.

"Y-you must be the being that Jabba sent."

Bossk remained standing and silent, watching his temporary prey simmer in his seat.

"Look, I just got promoted from one of his used freighter lots to here, so I don't know anything beyond what Jabba already told you! Probably even less."

"I'm not here for you," Bossk said. He looked over the office, noticing several datapads left on the desk. He twisted his head and looked at the new manager. "Are those yours?"

"They're the books for this place, as crooked as they apparently are."

The Trandoshan turned around and slithered away from the room. "Send copies to my ship and my droid will analyze them." The new owner blithered an affirmative as Bossk walked away.

The crowds in the busying shopping district gave the spacer a wide berth as he walked along the artificial surface. Whether it was because of the Empire's "Human High Culture" or the general aversion that humans had to reptiles, sentient or not. Either way, Bossk didn't care more than a mild amusement as they stared at his bare clawed feet. [ExTen, have you finished looking over the records that I gave you this morning?]

Through his comlink the droid's thick voice replied in his native Dosh language. [Not the ones that are just being uploaded now, master. The personal records on the other hand... Coruscant property records indicate that Harirn-Salas owns two properties within a ten kilometer radius of the nightclub.]

[And other Givin owned properties in the area?]

He could hear the droid's neck servomotors whirl as he shook his head unseen to the Trandoshan. [There are no other registered Givin property owners in this district of Coruscant or in the neighboring districts.]

Bossk considered the information as he climbed inside of the cockpit of his Z-95 Headhunter. A starfighter whose design was just as old as the middle-aged Bossk, the ship was a four-engine dagger with two wings parallel to the fuselage. Designed without a hyperdrive or room for many consumables, the fighter made an excellent scout ship for when the much larger Hound's Tooth would have proven to be too much for the task.

The Trandoshan pushed the coordinates from his droid assistant into the navigation computer aboard the craft and followed the guide on the Heads Up Display. [While I'm headed to the first place, look up information on buildings in the area owned by the races of the other employees.] He paused as he eased the fighter into a turn. [Exclude humans.] The amount of humans in the galaxy would create a logistical nightmare that he didn't need at the moment. The species bred like lagomorphs and... Bossk scratched the thought from his head. He knew several lagomorph species that bred slower than humans.

The first property listed as owned by the Givin was a small apartment in a large tenement building two levels below the main surface. Bossk stomped through the halls of the room, passing closed door after closed door in the circular hallway. He removed the bulky blaster pistol from his belt as he reachedApartment47, gripping the modified weapon with his first and last fingers while the middle digit rested near the trigger guard-less center.

Bossk unlocked the door with a security spike and stalked in. The room was dark, but the Trandoshan's eyes shifted into their night mode, amplifying what light there was and the pits near his eyes picking up the subtle variations in heat. The main room was empty, cold chairs and cold floors, the only source of heat in the room coming from a thermal vent in the far wall.

The carpet was cold against his bare feet as walked across the room, blaster held high even though the Trandoshan didn't expect for his prey to stay so near his nest. He spent the better part of an hour inside of the abandoned flat, clearing each room before settling down to search it more in depth.

The bedroom of the apartment was a mess, covers strewn across the floor and a collapsed bookshelf spilled of its contents. Bossk walked over the room once again, spying a small piece of flimsiplast hidden partially underneath a holobook on the floor. He kneeled before the scene, examining the area like he would a footprint on wet ground.

The flimsiplast had been hidden in between two holobooks before the room had been ransacked and had escaped notice of the person doing the searching. A clawed hand pulled the sheet of pulped wood out. A single address was written down upon the flimsiplast: an apartment number in a block that was down further than even the infamous 1313 district. Some of the worst scum that Coruscant had to offer populated that district. It was an aberrant place for the manager of an upscale nightclub to be, but a lead was a lead.

A scent caught his nostrils as he leaned over the shattered bookshelf, the maddening scent of blood that enflamed his cold heart. Bossk raced to the scent and examined the deep blue flakes on the side of a metal support. Twi'lek blood...

The Trandoshan stood and headed out of the building. The new boss of the nightclub was there and within the past two days from the lingering scent. The upjumped owner wasn't there for any nefarious purpose, Bossk thought. No, the Twi'lek likely thought to solve the entire case himself and earn both the hefty bounty that Jabba had placed on the Givin's head as well as another promotion.

[The address is yet another flophouse in the lower section, master.] ExTen's voice broke up the monotony of the flight, despite the redundant information that it carried to him.

[Who owns it?]

[The apartment has apparently been vacant since the Clone Wars.]

Bossk's mind piqued. [As bad as the area is, I find that hard to believe.]

There was a long pause as ExTen's processor considered the information. [It was last rented to a human with ties to the Droid Hand, a Separatist terrorist group that was broken up by a Republic Commando and Coruscant Security raid in 15 RS, seventeen years ago.]

Bossk piloted his modified Headhunter down a vertical skylane and descended down into the very bowels of the city. [Did the owner of the apartment survive the raid?]

[Not according to the records available to me, master.]

A feral grin appeared on Bossk's maw as he throttled the starfighter forwards at the appropriate level. He could sense the fight coming in his very bones.

The apartment complex was dilapidated, several open panels in the floor exposing live wires that occasionally sparked in time with the shorting glowrods on the walls. Carbon scores from recent lightfights scarred the dull metal bulwark. Bossk stalled at the door the slip of flimisplast had indicated, large blaster rifle in hand. His nose sniffed at the durasteel door, faint traces of numerous beings still upon it. So much for being abandoned.

The security spike's readout blinked green as the microcomputer within found the code. The door slid open, revealing a fairly nice room. The three occupants inside, a Bothan, green-skinned Twi'lek and a human, cursed in surprise as they rose from their seats and saw the well armed Trandoshan standing in front of the door.

The Twi'lek made a move for the blaster on her hip and that was all it took. Bossk aimed her way and crushed at the trigger. The elongated yellow bolt slammed into her chest, sending her corpse tumbling backwards and flipping her chair over. The Trandoshan took cover before the other beings could even fully draw their blasters.

He could hear their curses in their native tongues and the sound of the furniture being overturned. The bounty hunter pulled one of the small grenades from his leg and tossed it into the room. The small thump of the explosion followed, prompting Bossk to lean out of his cover and pick off the human as he raced away from the explosion.

The Bothan's blaster pistol fired a red bolt at the raging bounty hunter and Bossk felt the pain burn through his arm as the shot made its way through his tough skin. A loud growl escaped the Trandoshan's lipless maw as he broke cover and unleashed a torrent of automatic fire at the Bothan's position. The couch burned, the scent of scorched flesh mingling with acrid smoke.

Bossk walked slowly towards the overturned couch, blaster rifle sweeping over the seemingly empty room. The Bothan lay on the ground, the many blaster wounds in his body glowing bright red in Bossk's thermal vision. A whimpering sound came from the other room, causing Bossk's head to immediately swivel to that direction. He moved slowly through the trashed common room before punching the console that opened the door to the next room.

Harrin-Salas was huddled in the corner, murmuring mathematical equations in a futile attempt to keep calm. Deep, recessed eyes turned to Bossk, hoping to find some measure of mercy in the bounty hunter. The Trandoshan crossed the room in a three steps and lifted the gibbering fugitive in his claws.

[Who were the people at the front?]

Harrin-Salas only stared in terror at Bossk's growls, so the bounty hunter repeated the question in Galactic Basic.

"The Droid Hands..."

Bossk gnarred impatiently. "They're dead, who were they really?"

"W-what was left of them. They said they were going to have something that would really surprise the Empire at the next Empire Day. They just needed the credits. I thought..."

Bossk threw the Givin roughly to the ground and raised his blaster rifle. "You thought wrong..." The blaster shot echoed down the hallway, carrying off of the durasteel walls before dissipating completely fifteen meters away from the open door.

A half-eaten amphibian hung from Jabba's mouth as Bossk commed him from the bridge of the Hound's Tooth. The legs on the creature twitched reflexively before being slurped up into the gaping mouth. [My Majordomo says that you have news for me, Bossk.]

[I'm headed for Nal Hutta now to present you with the body of your lost manager.]

Jabba grinned at the thought. [Did he have anything to say before you killed him?]

[He said that his group needed credits to plan a surprise for the Empire. The Droid Hand is what he called it.]

The news prompted Jabba to spit out a fleshy tendril as he barked at someone off holoscreen. [Get me mercenaries for this!] The Hutt paused as some inaudible voice spoke to him. [Everyone!] He turned his attention back to Bossk. [Stealing from the Desilijic is the last mistake those barves will ever make!] The comlink on Bossk's ship beeped loudly as a new text message appeared, beckoning him to meet with Jabba at the crime family's palace on Nal Hutta.


Bossk smiled hungrily as he stared at the message and at the holographic Jabba in front of him. The hunt would continue anew and soon...

 

Great story, really well written. I'd echo the comment above that we get to see why Bossk is such a good bounty hunter, he defo has smarts as well as muscle. I really liked the incorporation of Bossk's heightened sense of smell into the story, the ability to sense fear off his prey must be so exhilarating! His attitude towards other beings and his amusement at how they react to him was spot on. Brilliant as a stand alone story but if there are any further Bossk adventures please tag me.

 

A Bossk story? *pages whostheBossk in case he'd enjoy it*

Other than that - yay, an alien story that's not written by Finds or me! I know that they exist, but that they're quite rare.

Bossk's hobby is...sinister to say the least. One can see that Trandoshians are a completely different world and, ironically, no matter how humane he thinks that Imperial officer is, he does not realise that she sees him as a savage on top of it, thus not being really humane. I also love the little details - how he can sense her pheromones and how he modified the number pad. Cool!

That Rodian must have been traumatised for life. Wherever he's going next, it's got to be less err...graphic.

A lot of what happens next is bizarre in quite a cool way: Bossk's googling (Google for bounty hunters...niiice), the former lake being a symbol of everything in that Coruscant district and the fact that the bouncer knows Jabba sent Bossk.

The whole idea of Bossk doing this because he actually LOVES it is more disturbing than his hobby, actually. It's interesting how this droid can get along with a creature like him, with such different, semi-primitive ways and a completely opposite approach to logic from expected.

The only thing thissss ssstory was misssing is obvioussss, but other than that - no complaintssss of any kind. A great, different POV.

 

During the waning bits of Nano, when I was struggling to come up shorts, the idea of a bounty hunter story came to me. I didn't want to do Fett, because he's already had a lot of stories, so I set my sites on Bossk. As for not being a violent lug, I wanted to move beyond that a bit while still keeping the undertones of that part of his personality there. Everything he does carries the hint of violence waiting to explode within it, from threatening to tell Jabba about minor things that the bouncer and new manager has done if he doesn't get his way.

Bossk may be a member of a hunting obsessed species, but you have to smart as a Trandoshan warrior to make it to his age. Brutality will only get a being so far. The idea for checking on the property came to me from a memory about having to give an employer my tax information. I'd be pretty easy for the owner of a club to go underground using stolen IDs from his employees, after all...

I really like including sequel hooks to works, just to give me ideas in case I ever find myself stuck. I think there's a good chance of seeing the fate of those poor Droid Hand survivors...

One thing I like to do with alien characters is to change the way that we as humans perceive the world. Obviously, Bossk's heat vision is one way, but the sense of smell is another. From practically tasting the bile rising up the Imperial agent's throat to smelling the pheromones of fear, it's a different way to perceive the world.

His attitude towards others is also something that I wanted to portray, especially when he was on Coruscant.

One thing I was setting out to do after deciding on using Bossk as the protagonist, was to see how far I could get away with not using humans as prominent characters. Other than the Imperial agent, which was kind of a given (yeah, bad pun on that, I know) I'm glad that I was actually able to pull it off.

Bossk's little hobby came to my attention by the in-character description on the Hound's Tooth New Essential Guide entry and it just went from there. Also, looking at his fingers, it became quite evident that he'd have to have some modifications done to his equipment to fit his biology.

I don't really see her seeing Bossk's hobby as savage is really being inhumane, personally. I mean, he is butchering and probably eating a sentient species. I guess it all depends on seeing it from her point of view, where we can get in her head instead of Bossk's.

That poor Rodian had probably been there for days, watching Bossk do his little hobby. Traumatized indeed.

Searching through public records was something I wanted to do. It seems so boring on the outset, but when there's little time to do so... The lake came from the subdivision where I live. It's named after a farm that existed where it's nothing but houses now.

It's an interesting thing about Trandoshans. Their religion is tied into the hunt, so why would bounty hunting be anything but a means of worship?

I actually decided against the writing out the hisses because I figured it'd be too distracting to readers.

Thank you all for reading and reviewing! It is appreciated!