"Hey buddy! Can't you see we've got an important delivery to make here? Move it!"
Zala Xan's thoughts jolted back to the present, yet her eyes remained cold, staring at an unkown point in the distance:
"I'm not your buddy you son of a barve!"
The Etti messenger, taken aback to hear such a light woman's voice coming from inside the scarred heavy battle armour, stammered an apology:
"oh, uhm, I'm ... excuse me ma'am ..."
Zala quickly walked past him, making sure to bump the precious cargo out of his hands, she didn't turn around to hear the insults the man was muttering.
Her gaze focused on the future, always trying to forget the ghosts of the past, nightmares that had been haunting her even in the daytime lately.
It must be this place, a vile place filled with the meek and the scared. Most of them hiding, hiding from their fate, but no one could hide from her.
"Weaklings!" she hissed.
Perhaps it was just that they reminded her too much of her own past, the person she no longer was.
Her mind drifted once again. Visions of fat hut and other disgusting creatures (invariably men) drooling and whispering obscenities into the ears of young girls ... her own face among them. A face with eyes that were slowly losing what little light remained in them, always staring, at a future, a dream of a strong woman that bowed to no man and took what she desired. But it wasn't a dream, she ís that strong woman and the past is the dream now.
"Focus Zala!" She reprimanded herself.
There is a job to be done, and there are thieves and thugs lurking in every corner of this cesspool.
Failure was not an option, she had been stranded on Hutta for far too long, its smell permeating her every pore.
If she 'terminated this target' (that was how her contractor said it because: "killing is such a crude term for creatures that really shouldn't be alive in the first place") the reward would be enough to buy passage on a smuggler freighter. She would finally be free of her past she imagined, free to forget the nightmares of places like this.
"This is the building." she said to herself.
Her contractor had suggested a nice clean shot from the building opposite, which was empty at the moment due to an itch mite infestation. But that really wasn't her style.
Zala Xan had developed certain traits that most might find cruel. She enjoyed ... no enjoyed isn't the right word ... she nééded to see her victims eyes when they knew their last breath had arrived. That last look was so full of life, full of despair and passion. Sometimes she found herself wishing for that moment, that her eyes may once again be filled with life as well, as it was leaving her.
But not today, today it was another man's destiny to end.
Of course she didn't believe in destiny herself. No, destiny is what the weak blame their misfortune on, the strong make their own fate.
She excited the elevator without hesitation, there was a rodian bodyguard posted at the door that immediately yelled:
"Hey! What the gfersh do you think you're do..."
Her first blaster shot hit him before he could even finish his sentence, right between his 2 black bulbuous eyes.
A second bodyguard appeared from a side room, still buttoning up his pants he was obviously caught off guard. As he was frantically groping at his waist trying to find his blaster (which unfortunately he left about 5 meters away next to a bed) Zala walked up to him and with one fell swoop of her power assisted arm, the rodian crumpled to the floor.
Without halting she pushed open the door to the office of an Imperial customs officer who had only moments to live.
The bloodied visor scanned the room halting on a blubbering heap in the corner.
The customs officer stammered:
"We can make a deal! yes ... I am a wealthy man .. I ... I ...".
Zala slowly raised her left arm:
"Save your begging for the afterlife mudcrutch."
In a final desperate attempt to stave of the inevitable the customs officer jumped up, pulled a vibrodagger from his belt and lunged for the bounty hunter.
Without hesitation Zala pressed a button on her left wrist enveloping the doomed rodian in flames. Shrieking he jumped through the window of his office, tumbling to the crowded street where the flames were immediately extinguished so that his body could be searched and scavenged for anything of value.
As Zala passed his almost naked remains down on the street she looked at his eyes: empty, cold and dead ... just like hers.
"Time to leave this womp rat infested cesspit." She whispered to herself, almost joyful.
//---
This is an attempt at a first story for my Bounty Hunter, if the gamegods at Bioware allow it, I would probably make her a Twi'lek.
The story starts out when she is still a starting Bounty hunter, not too long after she's freed herself from slavery on Hutta (the details of her violent escape I'm planning to work out in a later story, through flashbacks).
I wanted to build up the character more or less chronologically ('cause otherwise my tiny mind can't keep track of it all
), so I started with the story leading up to her escape from that filthy mudpit Hutta.
It's her first 'high-profile' bounty: an Empire customs officer. I'm hoping to tie this in with an idea about her contractor (at the moment I see him as an overly ambitious Neimoidian, who will most likely try to stiff her on the reward).
I'm also planning some back story on her name, I'm not entirely sure about 'Zala Xan' actually because I'm thinking the name she uses is not her actual name. It's a name she gave herself, for safety reasons, but also to empower herself sort of. So it should probably somehow reference an important Bounty Hunter or Twi'lek of the past. If anyone has any suggestions as an inspiration, that would be great
.
Tue May 24, 2011 5:56 am by 
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