#fixer 43

The distinctive whine of a Balmorran Arms Factory Jenth-series anti-armor shell filled his ears.  He watched the puffy contrail as it followed the shell into the aging shuttle's engine.  An orange fireball engulfed the craft.  Passengers waiting to board fell to the deck like blast vector markers in a sim.  Blood and shrapnel and dismembered parts sprayed outward in a rainbow of colors. The boom and the shockwave hit him a fraction of a second later and

 he started awake.

He sighed and pressed the stim to his thigh and mashed the activator.  The medicine flowed into his system.   It was supposed to make him feel better, like he'd had a full night's sleep and a good meal.  Felt more like a quick nap and a snack from the cafeteria's 'wheel of death' vending machine.  He still didn't know why everyone called it that.  Everything in there sealed and irradiated.  He couldn't possibly get sick from it.

His terminal beeped and he nearly jumped out of his seat.  He rubbed his eyes again.  The last time he took this many stims was during engineering finals.  Actually, he didn’t take quite this many back then.  Didn’t get quite so jittery then, either.   Fixer 43 stared at the blinking notification alert on the dark screen.  It wasn’t a holo.  Wrong alert.  The tightness in the middle of his chest eased a bit.  It wasn’t another embarrassing scene with Cleaner.  

He’d dealt with his share of advances from superiors.  Female superiors.  Easiest to just give them what they wanted.  They got bored eventually and left him alone.  Cleaner wasn’t female, wasn’t even human, kept trying to take him out with another person, and Fixer 43 just didn't know how to handle that situation.  He sure couldn’t talk to the bureau chief about it.  The quartermaster’s staff already snickered when he went past.

He reached out and activated his terminal.  The results of the call-trace he’d put in earlier.  Unlike most of Cleaner’s comm activity from the safe house, this one bounced all over.  The originator was a prepaid disposable number; the receiver...he’s only just now determined the receiver.  

Rinzaltakesh Bessk, registered bounty hunter.  

Who called a bounty hunter?  Why?  Someone after Cleaner?  Or his associate?  Likely the latter; Kaliyo Djannis, the colleague Cleaner kept trying to set him up with, had a handful of minor bounties on her.  Out-system.  Just as well, he couldn’t cash in quickly.  43 perused her file after Cleaner asked him to track her down and what remained after skipping over the ‘redacted’ sections didn't paint her as someone he wanted to meet.  Even if she did know her weapons backwards and forwards.  

Why did the trace take so long?  He squelched the noise complaints from neighbors as a matter of course on the assumption it was more of the usual.  If it wasn’t, he’d made a grave error.  Fixer 43 scritched his finger on the screen.  He hadn’t found anything on Kaliyo outside of a vague shadow in one of the few functioning monitor cams on an Exchange-controlled level.  He ought to message Cleaner and alert him to the bounty hunter.  He didn’t really want to make that call.  

What about text only?

Operational procedure dictated a holocall under the circumstances, tagged urgent.

43 took a deep breath.  Couldn’t be worse than the last one, could it?  He made sure there were plenty of things to look at near the feed--he didn't want to be scrambling like before--and entered the apartment’s frequency.

It buzzed once.  Twice.  Five times then went to message.

Fixer 43 sat down.  No answer.  Worse than getting an answer.  Was this Rinzaltakesh in the safe house already?  Wouldn’t Cleaner have called for assistance if he was?  Maybe he couldn’t.  Maybe he was dead already.  Maybe Rinzaltakesh was dead already.  

If the call came from inside the apartment, didn't that mean that someone else was already there?

Fixer 43 scrubbed his eyes.  He screwed this up.  Badly.  He hated field work.  He always did everything wrong.  

He rested his finger on the override button.  Nothing else for it.  Had to force a connection and make sure.  He could send in a janitor squad afterward.

He re-entered Cleaner’s frequency and activated the override.  The normal image capture camera went to a wide-field view, giving him a monochrome picture of the apartment’s interior.  He was too late.  Someone had turned the place over.  There was debris everywhere.  No scorch marks, though.  On the floor, bodies.  Two bodies.  Two bodies moving.  He wasn’t too late after all!  Fixer 43 peered at the grainy image, ready to send a medical team.  Two bodies...

Fixer 43 slammed a hand down on the close channel button and pushed away from the terminal, sending his chair rolling across the floor.  As it came to rest he kneaded the bridge of his nose and mentally crossed ‘trace Kaliyo Djannis’ off his list.  Cleaner found her already.  Or she came back.  Whatever.  

He scooted back to the holoterminal and doublechecked the transport schedule.  There was a ship heading for Dromund Kaas leaving in twelve standard hours.  He exchanged the passage he’d arranged for Cleaner on a later shuttle for the earlier one.  Then he composed a brief text message, explaining the arrangements and detailing the information he had on Rinzaltakesh Bessk.  It probably wasn’t important at this point.  But he’d send it anyway.

43 stared at something besides the incoming feed, "Um, well, not as such, sir.  Nothing sent from this bureau office, I verified.  We don’t monitor messages originating at your location.  Not anymore.  Assumed consensual, if you understand me, sir.  In the past standard day there was only one incoming transmission and it was encrypted with a high-level Imperial code.  In fact, sir,” the fixer scratched the back of his head, “my clearance isn't even high enough to send it through the decrypt subroutine.  Or put the code hounds on it.”  

Keeper’s holo.  Fixer 43 just dropped a lot of information he probably shouldn’t have.  Cleaner had every intention of exploiting it.  He put on a concerned face, “Hmm,” he said, as though thinking, “I don’t suppose you have at least a record of outgoing traffic, do you?  Receiving frequencies?”

“Ah, yes, yes sir, I do have that,” 43 reached for a flimsiplast sheet outside video range.  It made a crinkling sound in the audio.  He still avoided eye contact with the holodisplay, “All of the outgoing went to previously-investigated frequencies.  Delivery restaurants, purveyors of, um, erotica and intoxicants,” his coughed once, “excuse me.  Ah, the Imperial military outpost, nearspace bounty boards, personal account checks,” he looked up for a moment at that before burying himself back in the flimsi, “that’s ah, mail and such, sir.  Nothing out of the ordinary, all of it for the beings registered to your location.”  He scuffed his feet, “We don’t access your accounts, sir.  It’s, it’s just a list, sir.  A list of sites for potential investigation, sir, if they haven’t already been cleared--”

“I understand, Fixer,” Cleaner said, “nothing else?”

“Well, sir, there was one message, to an anonymous dropbox,” 43 said, peeking over the top of the flimsi, “we have the box array on file and they check out, but they always do.  The box holders are the shady ones.  I could impound the box traffic, sir, but it's a hassle through normal channels, time consuming with any method, and most often turns up nothing important."

"Most often?" Cleaner pressed.

43 shrunk behind the flimsi, "Usually things someone finds embarrassing.  Communication with a lover, for example."  Fixer 43 coughed again, "One time we uncovered a Jedi making regular purchases of, ah, delicate intimate apparel."

Cleaner laughed.  Either side of that op was hilarious.  A Jedi hiding something so ordinary as lingerie.  An agent investigating suspicious Jedi activities and discovering a box full of underwear.  Hard to imagine a scenario where a haul like that was worth the expense or time of a full-blown Intelligence op.  

Fixer 43 shuffled his feet, "Ah, yes. While amusing, the discovery was of limited strategic value.  Of course we passed the information on to the propaganda department."

Cleaner snickered, now picturing Keeper reading a proposal for exposing a Jedi with a taste for silky fabrics.  It did have blackmail potential.  He imagined that little disapproving grimace Keeper got when confronting something useful but distasteful.  Exposing...Cleaner snickered again at the turn of phrase.  He turned his attention back to 43, who hadn't noticed his slip.

"...ah, anyway, sir, that's all I could find for you at the moment.  I'm sorry it's not more helpful."  He was nose deep in a datapad now.

“No, no, 43, you did fine,” Cleaner said, “More helpful than you know.  I’m definitely treating you to a nice dinner with my colleague before I leave Nar Shaddaa.  Keep your calendar open, yeah?”

“I, ah,” 43 searched for the disconnect button, “yes, sir,” he conceded as he closed the link.

Cleaner sighed.  He didn't have a chance with 43, whether for species or preference, but he couldn't help trying.  The man’s obvious discomfort was almost as rewarding as an actual date.  Cleaner headed back to the ‘fresher to squeegee off the rest of the shower gel.  

He pondered 43’s information.  For one, he suspected all along the local office monitored his traffic, but it was nice to get confirmation.  The thought that he might have sent agents off investigating noodle houses, liquor stores, spice dens and porn shops put a smile on his face.  As far as the rest of the calls...one was Keeper’s, one was Blue reporting in.  Kaliyo always checked the bounty boards, probably to see if she was on them, the rest were routine.

An anonymous box, though.  Interesting.  Could have been either Kaliyo or Blue.  Kaliyo seemed most likely to him, especially matched with her sudden disappearance.  Question was, did she retrieve from the box or contact someone through it?  And why?  

He glanced over his shoulder for one last, lusting, look at the sleek yacht then cursed as his neck tweaked.  Kark it.  Should have grabbed some chems from her medbay.  Arm ached, starting to itch, neck hurt, all he needed now was a limp and he’d be downright decrepit.

He lit his cigarette while his eye followed the line of Shimmering Path of Ghosts' nose, pointing toward the hangar exit.  It was dusk outside.  The setting sun turned Nar Shaddaa's smog a dirty pink.  Nal Hutta hung yellow in the sky above him like an enormous, pus-filled boil.  He snorted.  Appropriate.  Nal Hutta’s filth drained to Nar Shaddaa on the hourly public shuttle.  The Smuggler's moon so eclipsed Hutta in terms of both population and wealth it was easy to forget it wasn’t the primary body of the pair.

He froze, his gaze fixated on Nal Hutta’s bloated disk.  Snapped the electric lighter closed before the cigarette caught.  Public shuttle.  Watcher X knew Intelligence would be on his trail.  Would expect him to run for parts unknown like a bantha with its fur on fire.  Knew he was bottlenecked at the spaceport.  He wouldn’t hop a long haul freighter.  Wouldn’t slice himself a nice passenger ticket somewhere very far from here.  He’s take the quickie return trip to Hutta and find better passage at his leisure.  In the last place the Empire would look for him.  Right under their noses.

He whipped out his communicator and punched up the local Intelligence branch, “Get a fixer on the line,” he ordered as soon as the call went through.

“And you are?” the operator asked.

By the book, Cipher Nine.  SOP decreed all hangar monitors and tracking systems in non-Imperial spaceports be disabled on landing.  On Nar Shaddaa, no one would notice for weeks.  Longer before they repaired it.  The standard call-trace was having a hard time locking on to his signal.  “Cleaner One.  Gimme a fixer!”

“Ah, there’s,” the operator stammered, “there’s a crisis right now, Cleaner.  I’m sorry.  No one’s available.”

“I know there’s a karking crisis,” he barked, “I know why you’re all running around like gizkas with their heads bitten off.  That’s what I do, you karking sow.  Take care of crises.  Get me a fixer. Now.”  Honestly.  They let anyone graduate from the academy these days.

“There’s Fixer 43...”

Great.  “Put.  Someone.  On.  The.  Line.  Now.  Preferably someone with a brain and unlimited requisitions access.”  

She didn’t bother replying.  His communicator clicked with the call suspended tone.  In a moment it reconnected and a male voice answered, “This is Fixer 43.  Cleaner One?”

Shit.  Kid sounded about twelve, straight out of a Dromund Kaas boarding school, “I want the biggest, personnel-scale incendiary bomb you can get me.  What grade are Watcher X’s cybernetics?”

“I...incendiary?”

“Just do it.  What the kark grade are Watcher X’s cybernetics?  You have his prison records, look it up.”

“I don’t know that I can get a,” Cleaner heard the clicking sound of frantic typing in the background, “I don’t understand what incendiaries have to do with--”

“You don’t have to understand,” Cleaner snapped, “Get me a bomb and I need to know if his cybernetics are military-grade or not.”

“We don’t have--yes.  Class five hardened,” Fixer 43 said.

“Bring the flamer, a 100-meter radio bomb and two neutralizer grenades to Mezenti Spaceport shuttle bay A-27 and for love of the Emperor, don’t wear a uniform.” Cleaner ordered.

“But--”

“Just do it.  Get my stuff.  Bring it to me.  Don’t kark up,” Cleaner said, “you get to be my sidekick today, 43.”