Chapter 10: THE DEAD MAN WALKING
The information broker's office smelled like mold and bad decisions.
I stood in the doorway, letting my eyes adjust to the dim interior. The Sullustan behind the desk didn't look up from his datapad—just waved one stubby finger toward a chair that had seen better decades.
"You're Rikka's referral."
Not a question. I sat anyway.
"I need current status on a bounty. Ven Calder."
The Sullustan's jowls twitched. His large black eyes finally met mine, and something flickered there—recognition, maybe, or just professional interest.
"Calder's dead. Crash in the wasteland, two weeks ago. Hunter named Kess reported it."
Relief washed through me. The plan had worked. Kess had taken the bait, reported what she'd seen, and—
"But."
The word hung in the recycled air.
"But what?"
The Sullustan set down his datapad and folded his hands.
"Rendo Vesh isn't convinced. He sent another hunter to confirm. Zabrak female, goes by Vera. She's been asking questions for three days."
My stomach dropped.
"What kind of questions?"
"The thorough kind. She found the scavengers who stripped the crash. Talked to vendors in the market. She's reconstructing Calder's movements from the moment that freighter went down."
Three days. She'd been hunting my trail for three days while I'd been playing pirate in the Requital, thinking I was free.
"What's her angle?"
"Confirmation or contradiction. If she finds proof Calder survived, the bounty reactivates. Triple value."
Forty-five thousand credits. Enough to attract serious talent.
I leaned back in the chair. The frame creaked dangerously.
"I need identity documents. Clean ones."
The Sullustan's lips curved slightly.
"That's a different service tier."
"How much?"
"Depends on the quality. Basic forgery, easy to spot under scrutiny—two hundred. Mid-grade, passes most checkpoints—five hundred. Premium work, biometric encoding, official registry insertion—eight hundred."
Eight hundred credits would wipe out most of my reserves. But a fake identity that actually held up to investigation was worth more than credits.
"Premium."
"Name?"
I paused. The question was simple but the answer wasn't.
Ven Calder was a dead man's name. A smuggler's name. A name attached to debts and enemies and a life I'd never lived.
But I had another name. One that belonged to someone who'd died in a hospital bed on a planet that might not even exist anymore.
"Cole Morgan."
The Sullustan's stylus scratched across the datapad.
"Origin?"
"Corporate Sector. Drifter background. No criminal record, no outstanding obligations, no family connections."
"Clean slate."
"Exactly."
More scratching. The Sullustan's eyes never left the screen.
"Payment?"
I pulled out my credit chip. The transaction left me with 540 credits—enough to survive for maybe two weeks if I was careful.
"Documentation will be ready in six hours. Standard dead drop—location encrypted to your comm frequency."
I stood.
"One more thing. Where's Vera now?"
The Sullustan's jowls twitched again.
"That information has a separate fee."
"How much?"
"Fifty."
I paid.
"She's staying at the Guild quarter. Checked in two hours ago after interviewing the street vendor near the main gate. The one who sells that questionable meat."
The vendor I'd traded my first vibroblade to for water and food. Day one in this galaxy.
She's getting close.
I found a position on a rooftop overlooking the Guild quarter and settled in to watch.
Vera emerged an hour later.
The Zabrak moved like a predator—economical, focused, constantly scanning her environment. Her horns were short but prominent, her skin the rusty orange-brown common to her species. She wore light armor over practical clothing and carried a blaster on her hip with the ease of someone who'd used it often.
She was professional. Better than the bounty hunters who'd first confronted me, better than Kess.
Better than me?
The question gnawed at my confidence as I followed her through the streets.
Her route was methodical. She stopped at the cantina where I'd caused the incident—the one I hadn't returned to since. She questioned the bartender, showed him something on a datapad, received a shrug in response.
Good. The cantina crowd had seen a thief, not Ven Calder.
Next, she visited the industrial sector. My stomach tightened as she approached the first warehouse I'd hidden in—the one where I'd buried the wedding ring and other evidence.
She circled the building twice, checking entry points. Found the gap I'd used. Went inside.
Twenty minutes later, she emerged empty-handed.
She didn't find the burial spot.
But she was getting warm. Too warm.
Her final stop of the afternoon was the most dangerous: the Trandoshan scavengers.
I watched from a distance as she approached their camp at the edge of the wasteland. The lizard who'd nearly killed me sat on an overturned crate, cleaning his teeth with a bone pick. His two human associates sorted salvage nearby.
Vera spoke to them for fifteen minutes. The Trandoshan's body language shifted from hostile to interested to animated. He was telling her something—gesturing toward the wasteland, toward the crash site, toward his own empty knife sheath.
He's telling her about the blade that disappeared.
Vera listened. Asked questions. The Trandoshan demonstrated something with his hands—the motion of grabbing, then finding nothing.
She was learning about my ability.
Night fell over Nevarro. I returned to the Requital, currently parked in an out-of-the-way docking bay at the edge of the settlement.
The ship was a modified light freighter, older than I was, held together by improvised repairs and stubborn engineering. I'd stolen it during the incident that almost got me killed—active selection, the first time I'd really understood what that meant.
Just like Kess's life savings. Just like the Trandoshan's blade.
I sat in the pilot's seat and pulled out my new identity chip.
COLE MORGAN. The letters glowed in Aurebesh, a script I was slowly learning to read. Beneath the name: species (Human), origin (Corporate Sector), status (Independent Contractor).
Cole Morgan.
My real name. Or was it?
The man who'd had that name on Earth was dead. Captain Cole Morgan, U.S. Army, retired due to medical discharge, father of one, former security consultant. He'd died in a hospital bed while his son watched through the glass.
That man was gone.
But the name survived. The one piece of my old life I could carry forward.
I traced the Aurebesh characters with my gloved finger. They looked foreign. Alien. But they spelled something that had once belonged to me.
Good enough.
I pocketed the chip and pulled up the ship's navigation system. The crash site coordinates were still saved from my last visit.
Vera was getting close to the truth. She'd learned about the blade theft, probably understood that someone had survived the crash. Soon she'd find more evidence.
Unless I gave her something better.
The plan came together over three hours of careful thought.
Vera needed to confirm Ven Calder's death. Not suspect it—confirm it. That meant evidence. Physical evidence she could verify.
The crash site still had debris. Ven Calder's personal effects were scattered throughout the wreckage. And with the right staging, a skilled hunter could find exactly what she was looking for: proof that Ven Calder crawled from the crash, succumbed to his injuries, and died in the wasteland.
I'd need bone fragments. Charred ones, unidentifiable but organic. A butcher could provide those—animal bones, purchased for credits, no questions asked.
I'd need personal items. Ven Calder's clothes, documents, anything with his biometric signature. I had some of those already, salvaged during my first escape.
And I'd need a convincing scene. A story told in burned metal and scattered remains.
Stage a death. Kill Ven Calder permanently.
The irony wasn't lost on me. I'd already died once. Now I was arranging my own funeral.
I laughed—short, bitter, quickly suppressed. The sound echoed in the empty ship.
Tomorrow, Vera would find her evidence. And Cole Morgan would walk away clean.
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