There I was, staring down the business end of a blaster, with my hands and feet bound tight; I had to admit there were fancier ways to travel. And yet, even as the stun cuffs made a meal of my wrists, even as the diligent silence of Officers Chinpubes and Babyface eroded my patience with the dogged determination of sarlacc bile, I had to concede this wasn't the worst thing to happen to me in the back of a van. Across from me, Officer Babyface cradled his blaster - some CDEF piece of shit - with ferocious intent. I started to wonder if he knew something I didn't, as if we were about to be ambushed by the White Worms or attacked by a team of Emberscale Assassins at any moment. Meanwhile, his neighbour had no time for thoughts of would-be assassins, for he had eyes only for me. A big fella, went by the name Obadex Cramm, whose bulbous bald dome shimmered on the horizon of my vision like a waning moon. Had a look about him like he'd just eaten a bad crawlfish. Now, his silence I savoured like a crisp Lake Country chardonnay.

Obadex Cramm was a Coreworlder, no-one knew exactly where from, but he had that raised-on-the-rough-side-of-the-Imperial-tracks organ grinder kind of music to his voice that turned every vowel in his mouth into a trumpet blast. Liked to growl out the words like they were stuck at the back of his throat. Aged 30-something, I guess; young enough to take risks, old enough to know better. He made a name for himself in the Corulag slaughter pits, back in the day, and became Berugga the Hutt's prize fighter for a while. Nowadays, he's small-time, a slave to drugs and paranoia, which is exactly what a decade of chronic head injury will get you for your trouble. Word on the street was he'd killed a man for booze credits, but that wasn't what landed him in the back of a CorSec wagon with yours truly. Not exactly.

The wagon stopped and I felt the thrum of the repulsor die beneath my feet. Twenty seconds later, I was being ushered out with a blaster barrel prodding my back like the finger of some grubby kid at a birthday party. Instead of wanting to know where the bathroom was, however, Officer Chinpubes was keen to direct me towards towards a broad flight of stairs that led to a very familiar building. In the stark durasteel light of day, I squinted like a newborn and trudged onward in defiance of the pain that was waking in every muscle of my body. Behind us, Babyface had Cramm in tow; the going was slow, his every movement laboured; the groans and hisses of discomfort tinkled about my ears like heaven-sent raindrops on a hot summer's day.

The CorSec station on Tyrena Main was built during the proud twilight years of the Republic, and stood as a monument to a kind of opulent prosperity that was all but forgotten. Unlike the prefabricated shacks that sprung up like quivering sentries around the Skids, this place stood shoulder to shoulder with the duracrete giants that dominated the city skyline. It was all straight lines and hard angles, an uncompromising visage of Corellian justice, and a precursor to the Imperial aesthetic. Officers trickled down the stairs in pairs, dressed in smart cream jackets, grey pants, and shiny boots that reached their knees; they were everywhere, the boys and girls of CorSec; good folks, most of them, provided you didn't remind them whose pocket they were in.

I was led through two sets of plexiglass doors, and found myself inside an expansive white reception area; the walls reached all the way up through the heart of the building to a domed glass roof that blazed with sunlight high above us. There was a large desk in the middle of the room, flanked by two smaller stations, each manned by immaculately-dressed guards. Behind the desk, a woman with cropped copper hair and a leather eye-patch was dispensing curt instruction to the other officers at their terminals. When she saw us approaching, she left her post immediately and marched a resounding beat over the smooth polished floor in our direction. There were four silver pips on her blue collar.

"What is going on here, Corporal?" she said, with effortless authority.

"A disturbance of the peace, ma'am," Officer Chinpubes began. That was one way of putting it, I figured, but I wasn't in the mood for the Corporal's hot take.

"Captain, I am here to collect the bounty on Obadex Cramm, AKA the Bulfus Bomber. Your men, here, have been kind enough to escort us back to the station."

"Captain, this man instigated an altercation on private property without any provocation!" Officer Babyface fired up at once.

"Because I'm a bounty hunter," I said, weary from the tedium of repeating myself.

"We were alerted to a 10-15 at the Chapter House in Broadside. When we arrived at the scene, we discovered a violent exchange unfolding in the Cloister of Solitude. Eye-witnesses stated he disguised himself as the Prime Orator and ambushed Mr. Cramm during the Ceremony of Rekindling."

"Bounty hunter..."

"Captain, this man may claim..." Babyface was turning pink, "He defiled the Celestial Sanctum! An entire wardrobe of priceless chasubles has to be destroyed to remove the corruption!"

"Hey!" I started to get the impression Officer Babyface was a man of faith, but that was no reason to get personal. Luckily, for him, the Captain intervened. She speared me with her ice blue eye, and fired a similar warning shot at her subordinates. In the new silence, she consulted her reader, a non-regulation wrist-mounted computer. Within a few taps, she was cycling through a catalogue of holographic mugshots until, inevitably, a familiar face appeared. She didn't even afford Obadex Cramm a second glance.

"Corporal, put this man away."

It was worth the wait just to see the looks on their faces. Cramm didn't go easy, of course. It took both Babyface and Chinpubes, along with the help of two others to wrestle him into the back; his protests could be heard long after he was gone from sight. Something about a breach of his spiritual rights. Looked like the Captain could smell the bantha shit, too. She turned on her heel, and made a beeline for one of the rooms adjacent to the main hall. I liked how the others parted, making a hole before they're left trampled in her wake. That was a woman to follow, I figured. So I followed her.

"I do not appreciate you making a scene in my station, bounty hunter." She didn't look back, "Let's get you out of those binders, and I'll see to your reward. Then I want you gone. Understand?"

"Yes, ma'am."

The door opened with a whisper. I approached with caution, careful not to scrape my armour on the frame - shit gets more banged up indoors than in a damn shootout. The office was painfully spartan, there wasn't a scrap of clutter anywhere, and every piece of furniture was arranged in regimented formation. If a room could have a personality, it would be a conservative Sikarran math teacher, who was also a vegetarian. From behind her desk, the Captain produced a small fob that I recognised at once. The fob was given a casual wave over the blinders, which clicked, and fell to the floor with a clatter. My wrists rejoiced.

"My hero."

I rubbed at the tender skin once, and stepped forward. What little space left between me and the Captain was closed when I placed my hand on the small of her back, and drew her in with an awkward clatter of brass buttons on breastplate. She froze when our lips met, just for a second, the same as always - to reflect on all the bad decisions that landed us here - before the rigid tension bled from her muscles and she returned the kiss. Not one to push my luck in the workplace, I pulled away, but not so far that I couldn't feel the warmth of breath on my neck. I managed a smile, it felt like exercise.

"Thanks for having my back out there, Huntmaster."

It was 11:21.