It's Just Business
"Fuck," he said and turned away from Darga.
If it wasn't for the biochip they had carved out of Darga he would have assumed it was some sort of animal meat - a bantha caught in the crossfire. In his years of working for the Cartel he had never had to deal with this kind of problem - not the death of a Hutt. Death was almost a daily occurrence. As the Head of Security for the Jiramma Kajidic his work was often marred in blood of some kind - but never from one of the Kajidic leaders. He remembered when he had first started with them, a few decades back, that there was a bit of an internal squabble between Darga and another lesser Hutt from a smaller Kajidic. Through one force or another, the other Hutt ended up dead. Darga was hauled in front of the Hutt Grand Council within a few days and was forced to pay hefty fines for his overt offensive. That was not the ways of the Hutts. You could say what you wanted about the slugs but they were nothing if not civilized when it came to their business. This would be different though. Darga was a lesser boss then, responsible for a small portion of the Kajidic's operation. Now he was the Clan Leader - this would be colossal.
In a way, Koryyn almost felt bad for whomever the nerfs were that did this. They would most certainly be made an example of. The Hutts couldn't have it known that you could turn a Clan Leader into Malastarian Meat Pie and get away with it. There would be a vendetta. Within a few hours of his report there would be sizeable bounties posted for information on the targets and then he could see the Bounty Hunters and Mandalorians lining up for their chance to earn a place in the Hutts' good books. Nope, he would not want to be within 5 parsecs of whoever did this.
Unfortunately, Koryyn knew that he would, in fact, be tasked with leading the charge. Bounties are fine for expedience but if the Hutts could eliminate the problem on their own, without having to pay to some freelance hunter, they would choose that option any day. He didn't care, it was all part of the job and it wouldn't be the first time he hunted someone down for the Cartel. He didn't really care for the endless wandering through hyperspace and tracking down stale leads but he was paid well enough for his trouble and he knew no other life at this point in time.
He turned back to the corpse and frowned. He was trying to feel some sort of remorse or pity for the slab of meat on the ground but, despite his every effort, he couldn't muster the emotion. He had worked for Darga for thirty years - the Hutt was a piece of filth and not worth the air he sucked in through his disgusting mouth. Koryyn instead took pride in his work and ignored what his effort allowed to live. It was all business at the end of the day. He didn't even take offense to this death. Darga had grown ignorant in his opulence and insisted on getting closer and closer to his operations. Most Hutts liked to keep a healthy distance between them and their operations, for posterity's sake if anything, but Darga had a fascination with the more gritty aspects of the job. This most recent exploit was some lavish exploit to acquire information from the Rebellion and the Empire. Koryyn had strongly urged against it and then protested again when the Hutt elected to take an unescorted Sail Barge down to a planet outside of Jiramma control. The Cassandran worlds were quite far away from Hutt influence so his ability to muster up any sort of defence would be limited. Instead of heeding his warning, Darga had thrown him out for his "insolence" and had taken Vitiion Horne, an arrogant Mandalorian who Koryyn disliked quite fervently, instead as his second. He chuckled a little at that memory. That Mandalorian was seven shades of crispy on the other side of the dune and from the crater it looked like a starfighter had gotten the best of her. The woman had always been a reckless nerf herder
"Ori'buyce, kih'kovid," he muttered in Mando'a which translated to 'All Helmet, No Head'.
Koryyn turned away from the body and surveyed the rest of the battlefield. The Imperials had gotten mixed up into this somehow. Their bodies were all gone, likely from that shuttle they picked up blazing off planet on their entry, but their tactics were clear all over the land - the footprints in the sand, the targeted firing patterns, and so on.. Also the wreck of the Sentinel-Class Landing Craft and two TIE fighters certainly helped. They had tried to scuttle the wreckage but there was only so much 'hiding' you could do on short notice. From what it looked like Darga got hit by the Imperials. Could have been a check stop gone wrong? He wouldn't have put it past Vitiion to get trigger happy with an over eager Imperial Officer not realizing who he had cordoned off. That was a possbility - but it just didn't sit right with Koryyn. Thirty years he had been doing this and this wasn't in the Imperial style. The damage on the Sail Barge for one thing happened before this fire fight. Why would they cordon the Barge to then destroy and siege it...no it just didn't make sense. He turned back to the mass of flesh, considering but his thoughts were interrupted by one of his men, a Twi'lek male named Na'seca, who came up behind him and cleared his throat.
"We've scoured the wreck and found the bodies. It looks like a few of the slaves escaped from the cargo hold but most were killed. No survivors in the Barge," he said. Koryyn nodded in agreement. He had already came to those conclusions upon arrival but the second survey was helpful.
"What next?" Na'seca said, taking in the scene. Koryyn sighed and placed his hands on his hips.
"Well, this doesn't add up. Imperials don't operate like this. It's too unorganized. There's order in some areas but complete chaos in others," he said gruffly. Na'seca narrowed his eyes, clearly confused, causing Koryyn to sigh again. He pointed to the stern of the Barge.
"Take that - that was concentrated laser cannons hits to the engines. Now this barge was travelling fast down the dunes, that was strafed by a starfighter - based off the impact up the ass end I'd say a Headhunter. A skilled jockey too. That was no easy hit and on his first pass too," Koryyn whistled. He motioned to Darga behind them.
"And then this, this is stanging reckless. Like why in the worlds is he out here. It looks like he was used as cover but why? There's good rocks right there," he said and motioned to the rocks with a gloved hand. Na'seca nodded, realization washing over his face.
"Now you're gettin' it," Koryyn smiled. He pointed back to the wreck. "Somewhere in there is a shred of electronics with data on it. We need data to understand what happened here. I am going to talk to our contact in the Imperials, see if I can't get some armor-cam footage. You have that Sullustan slicer we paid so stanging much for on Nar Shadda here as soon as possible and have him draw every byte of data from this wreck," Koryyn said and Nar'seca nodded and ran off, barking orders to the others as he went. Koryyn stared again at the wreck and sighed - he wasn't going to get a good night's sleep for a long while.
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