Chapter 3: THE PRICE OF A PAST
The vendor's stall smelled like burned meat and desperation.
I sat on a crate across from his cart, a bowl of something steaming in front of me, a cup of water already half-empty. The vibroblade lay on the counter between us—payment for the meal. The vendor hadn't asked where I'd gotten it.
Nobody on Nevarro asked questions.
The water was lukewarm and tasted like sulfur. Best drink I'd ever had.
"Offworlder?"
The vendor was human, weathered face, missing two fingers on his left hand. His eyes tracked the crowd behind me while he talked.
"Passing through."
"Bad time for passing through."
I didn't answer. My attention was on the conversations flowing past the stall—fragments of Galactic Basic, the common language I could suddenly understand thanks to Ven Calder's memories. Most of it was mundane. Supply runs. Debts. Complaints about the heat.
But some of it was useful.
"—Guild's paying double for live bounties—"
"—Imperials setting up on the east side, you believe that? After the war—"
"—heard Karga's taking meetings again—"
Karga. The name triggered something. Greef Karga—I'd read about him. Leader of the Bounty Hunter's Guild on Nevarro. A major character in the show.
Which meant I was in the right time. The right place. The wrong body.
I finished the water and pushed the empty cup toward the vendor.
"How much for information?"
He raised an eyebrow.
"Depends what you're asking."
"Current year."
"Five years after Endor."
Five years after Endor. I did the math. Four years after the Battle of Yavin was when Endor happened, so five years after that meant—
Nine ABY.
The Mandalorian's first season. The timeline was live. Things were happening right now—the child, the guild, the Imperial remnants. Everything I'd read about was occurring, or about to occur.
I had meta-knowledge.
And I'm trapped in a dead man's body with a bounty on my head.
"Anything else?"
The vendor's question pulled me back. I shook my head, pushed away from the stall, and stepped into the crowd.
Nevarro City hit me like an assault on every sense. Dust and heat and the press of bodies—humans, aliens, species I couldn't identify. Merchants shouting prices in three languages. Droids rattling past on errands. The smell of exhaust and cooking food and unwashed crowds.
I moved through it on autopilot, military training keeping my head on a swivel. Check corners. Watch hands. Identify exits.
Ven Calder's instincts helped too. The body remembered this place, even if my mind didn't. My feet found paths through the crowd without conscious thought.
Food. Water. Shelter. Intel.
I'd gotten the first two. Now I needed a place to hide and figure out my next move.
The industrial sector seemed promising. Fewer people, more cover. I changed direction, heading toward the structures I'd seen from outside the city.
That's when I noticed them following me.
Two humans. Male. They'd been behind me since the vendor's stall, keeping twenty meters back, pretending to browse merchants. But they moved when I moved. Stopped when I stopped.
Amateur hour.
I ducked into an alley between two storage units and pressed against the wall.
Footsteps approached.
They entered the alley together—bad tactics, no stagger—and I got a good look. Both armed with blasters. Both wearing mismatched armor, the kind bounty hunters assembled from whatever they could scavenge. One was tall and thin, the other short and broad.
The short one had something in his hand. A disk, glowing faintly blue.
A bounty puck.
Oh no.
"Ven Calder."
The tall one's voice was nasal, unpleasant.
"You owe Rendo Vesh. He's been looking for you."
The hologram flickered above the puck. My face—Ven Calder's face—rotating in blue light. WANTED. REWARD: 10,000 CREDITS. ALIVE OR DEAD.
Ten thousand credits for a corpse.
I raised my hands slowly. No weapon—I'd traded the vibroblade for food.
"Gentlemen."
"Don't 'gentlemen' us."
The short one stepped closer, blaster leveled at my chest.
"You took Vesh's money and disappeared. He wants it back. Or your head. Whichever's easier."
I didn't have Vesh's money. I didn't have any money. I had bruised ribs, a concussion, and a body that didn't belong to me.
"How much does he want?"
"Fifty thousand."
Ven Calder owed someone fifty thousand credits. And I was wearing the debt.
Think, Morgan. Buy time.
"I can get it."
The tall one laughed.
"Sure you can. That's what you said last time."
"Last time I didn't have a ship to sell."
Both hunters exchanged a look. Greed flickered in their eyes.
"Where?"
I gestured vaguely toward the wasteland.
"Crashed outside the city. Damaged, but salvageable. Worth more than fifty thousand to the right buyer."
The short one's blaster didn't waver.
"You'll take us there."
"Happy to. After we negotiate my cut."
"Your cut?"
I managed a smile I didn't feel.
"I help you sell the ship, you take Vesh's fifty thousand, I take the rest. Everybody wins."
Silence.
Then the tall one drew his blaster and put it against my head.
"Or we take you to Vesh and let him decide what you're worth."
The muzzle pressed cold against my temple.
My body wanted to panic. The adrenaline was there, screaming at me to run, to fight, to do something. But three tours in Afghanistan had taught me something about fear: it lied.
Fear said I was helpless. Training said I had options.
"Your choice."
I kept my voice steady. Calm. The voice of a man who had all the time in the world.
"But think about it. You bring me to Vesh, you get—what? A finder's fee? Maybe five hundred credits?"
The blaster pressed harder.
"You bring him a salvageable ship, though. That's valuable. That's the kind of thing that gets you promoted from hired muscle to actual partners."
The hunters looked at each other again.
Come on. Greed is universal.
"We could just take the ship ourselves."
"You could try. But you don't know where it is. And by the time you search the whole wasteland, someone else will have claimed it."
The short one lowered his blaster slightly.
"Say we believe you."
"I lead you to the ship. We assess the damage together. If it's worthless, you take me to Vesh. If it's valuable, we split the proceeds."
"Seventy-thirty."
"Fifty-fifty."
"Sixty-forty."
I pretended to consider it.
"Done."
The tall one holstered his weapon. The short one kept his ready, but aimed at the ground now.
"Lead the way."
We made it fifty meters before I ran.
I'd been waiting for the right moment—a crowd, a distraction, anything to break their sightline. It came in the form of a cargo speeder crossing the street, kicking up a cloud of volcanic dust.
I ducked and sprinted.
Shouts behind me. Blaster fire, but wild—they couldn't see through the dust. I veered left, then right, using the terrain like I'd used mountain paths in Afghanistan. Cover. Speed. Unpredictability.
The market crowd swallowed me.
I slowed to a walk, matching pace with the people around me. My heart hammered against my cracked ribs. Every breath was a knife. But I moved like I belonged here, like I had every right to be walking through this dusty alien bazaar.
The hunters burst from the dust cloud behind me.
They scanned the crowd, blasters half-raised. The short one grabbed a passing merchant and shouted something. The merchant pointed in three different directions at once.
I kept walking. Didn't look back. Didn't run.
Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast.
A maintenance shaft opened on my right. I ducked inside without breaking stride.
Darkness. The smell of oil and recycled air. I pressed myself against the wall and listened.
Footsteps outside. Angry voices.
"—where did he—"
"—check the cantina—"
"—Vesh is going to kill us—"
The footsteps faded.
I counted to sixty. Then another sixty. Then I started breathing again.
The industrial sector was quieter. Warehouses and processing plants, most abandoned or running skeleton crews. I found a gap between two structures and wedged myself inside, finally letting the pain catch up.
My ribs burned. My head throbbed. My hands shook against my will.
I looked at them. Ven Calder's hands.
Touch.
The Trandoshan's blade. The credit chip from the cockpit. Every time I'd touched someone, something had appeared.
I turned my palm up and stared at it like it might explain itself.
What are you?
No answer. Just the faint lines of Ven Calder's life, written in scars I didn't remember getting.
The hunters were still looking for me. They'd keep looking until they found me or gave up—and hunters didn't give up on ten thousand credits. Vesh would send more. The bounty would stay active.
I couldn't run forever. Not without credits, not without a ship, not without allies.
Build a network.
The thought came automatically. It's what I'd done in the Army. It's what I'd done in business. Find the right people, make the right connections, and survive long enough to matter.
But first, I needed to understand what I could do.
The touch-theft. If it worked the way I thought it did—contact triggering the transfer—then it was a weapon. A bizarre, unpredictable weapon, but a weapon nonetheless.
And in a world full of bounty hunters and Imperial remnants and things I'd only read about online, I needed every advantage I could get.
I pressed my hands flat against the wall behind me and let the shaking stop.
One problem at a time, Morgan.
The immediate problem was the bounty. I needed to clear it, or fake my death, or disappear so completely that Rendo Vesh stopped looking.
The second problem was survival. Credits, shelter, transportation.
The third problem was the biggest one: I knew what was coming. The Mandalorian. The child. The Guild wars and Imperial schemes. I had information that could change events, save lives, prevent disasters.
Or get me killed if anyone realized I had it.
Keep your head down. Watch. Learn. Find the right moment.
I pushed away from the wall and started walking.
Night was falling over Nevarro—the twin suns sinking toward the horizon, casting long shadows across the volcanic rock. The industrial sector grew quieter. The opportunities grew darker.
I knew where I was going before I admitted it to myself.
The underworld district. The cantinas and back rooms where people with problems found solutions. The kind of place where a man with strange abilities and stranger knowledge could disappear—
Or become something new.
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