Recalling the Guild

[Darven]

"What we need is the Guild back!"

It was an odd thought to have at 4 o'clock in the morning. Especially whilst in the middle of a space chase in which his ship, unfortunately, was not equipped to catch up with his quarry. Resignedly, Darven watched the sleek shape of his bounty's starfighter gain distance, then finally disappear alltogether into hyperspace. No point continuining this - there were better ways to catch this one. Let Ptürz think he'd won; the Baragwin was too shallow to worry about all the other ways he could be caught. The alien had no idea his hunter had penetrated his ship's computer logs and knew where he was going to be the next few days. Eventually, Darven would catch up with him in some seedy cantina, and bring him in: the SNFT Consortium fortunately was a patient client, and wouldn't mind a day or two longer.

The bounty on Ptürz wasn't big enough to bother getting frustrated over it. Which was the crux of the matter on his mind.

Things were too disorganised. Anyone these days could post a bounty on whoever they liked, for whatever reason they wanted, and find some di'kutla piece of trash calling himself a bountyhunter to do his work. It was becoming more and more difficult to survive on taking bounties that were set too low just because the market was flush with these idiots. The days of Fett, Bossk and their likes were long since gone, and there hadn't been any proper work ever since.

And all the big bounties might as well not be posted, because they usually were Force user types and off limits to anyone but the Inquisitoriate; to cross paths with them by going after a high-profile bounty meant adding one's name to the list of their enemies, and no one on that list seemed to have a long life.

He well remembered the days of the old guild under Cradossk's leadership - too bad he'd ended up as a snack for his own son, Bossk. He'd actually almost liked the old lizard-face. At least Cradossk had managed to keep things organised. In his days all that rabble wouldn't have dared dream of trying their luck in this profession.

The Mando bountyhunter leaned back in his seat and sighed. The guild ... old days... with her by his side they'd had some good results, but all that was over now. Had been over for a long time. She'dnever even met Cradossk. He'd always half expected her to show up for one of the Guild meetings and claim membership of her own, but that had never happened, and later he'd found out that she'd hired on with some merc army during that time. It had been for the better, but... he still missed her.

Checking the file he'd swiped off the Baragwin's system, he found his next destination would be Bespin, and set the navicomp to work on plotting a course there. Cloud City didn't have enough cantinas for Ptürz to stay hidden for long. A few minutes later he jumped into hyperspace.

************

A week later he was returning from his meeting with the Consortium on Mokio. He was well fed up and angry, feeling swindled and his work unappreciated, his bank account a mere 9,000 creds richer after all the additional expenses which had he had not been reimbursed for. They'd tried to debate paying him at all since he'd not brought back that shabla ship Ptürz had run off with. So much about the Consortium being an easy client.

Well, to haran with them all!

It was then he remembered what he'd thought of the week before. And, in the silence of his ship, and space, and with the experiences of the last few days freshly on his mind, the thought sparked something like a wild hope in his mind, and he wondered if it could be done.

**************

Several weeks later, the thought had taken on shape. He'd successfully caught two bounties in the meantime; while they'd not been as disastrous as the SNFT bounty, they'd not done anything to make him stop wishing for things to get a bit more organised, so he'd started to carefully put out his feelers.

He didn't really want to be in the spotlight, for obvious reasons; so on Bespin he'd left a message for Ecks - the only bountyhunter of note that he'd come across over the years, apart from her - with a request for a meeting; so far it had been unanswered, but these were early days.

In the meantime, he'd do his job.