The Dealmaker

Ch.1 A Cruel Upbringing

You know how they say there's always someone who's got it worse than you, that someone was young David as he grew up. He was born to two slaves owned by a low ranking Hutt named Jimba. Upon discovering Dave's mother being pregnant, Jimba hatched a plan to help increase his power amongst the Hutts. He took Dave from birth to be raised as his personal assistant, naming him Dava.

The boy was raised by his slave parents, but his relation to them was kept a secret. He was told all his life that Jimba was the only one he was to answer to, and he soon ignored when his parents to him to behave, a trait Jimba quite enjoyed. Jimba taught him Huttese and a lot about Hutt culture. The impressionable child confused the fear the slaves had for his mentor for respect, dreaming to someday to have the money that gained this honor.

Although he was trained to be an assassin, Jimba noticed early on that Dava had quite a silver tongue, able to handle the jobs he was sent on by talking his way through it rather than killing. He soon became Jimba's ambassador to other Hutts, often getting beter deals from them than he had been ordered to.

When he was 20, Dava was told to follow a mysterious bounty hunter who'd worked for Jimba in the past. The hunter had some interesting equipment that Jimba thought would be useful to control the source of. He stowed away on the bounty hunters ship, which would take him on an adventure of self discovery and riches beyond his wildest dreams.

Five years later, he returned to Huttaa and his masters home.

"Dava my boy!" Jimba greeted him. "I was starting to worry you wouldn't return, what news do you have about that hunter?"

"You are to refer to me as David now." He replied in Huttese. "Dava was the servant of a Hutt who wasn't worth the dirt his slaves slept in."

No one had ever spoken that way to a Hutt and lived to tell about it, and Jimba wouldn't allow it to change. He ordered his guards to seize and kill Dave, but to his surprise only two of them obeyed him. The other shot down the guards before they could touch Dave. "What treachery is this?" Jimba shouted, a hint of panic in his voice.

"You shouldn't be surprised, Jimba." Dave said as he approached the now unprotected Hutt. "I had thought of betraying you long before you sent me away. Now that I'm back, I'm going to need your resources to further my plans." He now stood only feet away from Jimba, who saw a level of hate and darkness in his eyes like he had never seen.

"Where did that bounty hunter take you?" Jimba asked.

"I suppose I owe you an explanation." Dave responded. "You were the one who taught me the true power behind wealth." The guards began moving through Jimba's base, killing anyone who still worked for him. "It all started when his ship landed..."

Ch.2 Found in the Darkness

Chaos spread through Jimba the Hutt's base of operations, as his once loyal servant Dava had returned under the name of David and orchestrated a coup d'état. The guards who now worked for David spread through the building, telling slaves they now belonged to Dave and killing anyone still loyal to Jimba.

In Jimba's throne room, the Hutt now sat alone in front of his traitorous right hand man. Not used to being unprotected, his voice had an uncharacteristic hint of fear for a Hutt. "Where did that bounty hunter take you?" He asked.

"I never did figure out exactly where it was." Dave began. "But the planet was not important, it was the inhabitants. The ship had traveled deep into the Sith Empire, farther than I'd ever heard of someone going. He made several hyperspace jumps, and since I was hiding I couldn't use any means of tracking where to. We landed at what I thought was a military base, so I swiped an Imperial Soldiers uniform and did my best to keep up with the hunter. I tracked him to a chamber where, from what I could gather, he was meeting his employer."

"But he worked for me?!" Jimba interrupted him. "He's been collecting my bounties for years."

"Yes he was, but the money was collected to help with a project for his true employer, the Sith Emperor himself." David responded, the very mentioning of the emperor filling the room with a sense of doom. "The hunter would give a portion of his profits working for you to the empire in exchange for equipment. Such a discovery had so many implications, I couldn't list them all. As the hunter left and I tried to follow, I felt an invisible hand gripping my throat. A Sith Lord had sensed my presence and knew right away that I was a spy, so he brought me before the Emperor for punishment. At first he tried to convince him to have me executed, but the conversation quickly changed when the Emperor questioned how I not only found his base, but infiltrated as far as I did. I was imprisoned for later questioning, and I later heard that that Sith Lord was killed for his incompetence. I was held for almost a year, but to be honest it wasn't as bad as you would think. I managed to convince a few of the guards to get me more food than I was served and I even managed to get my cell mate to attack a guard and get killed so I could have some privacy. The Emperor eventually noticed that a prisoner was getting special treatment and became quite interested in me."

An explosion outside cut off Dave's train of thought. "It seems they've already started demolishing your guard towers, it wont be long before we level this entire place." He said with a hint of fiendish pleasure.

"Why did he let you live?" Jimba asked, now more interested in the story than afraid of the betrayal. "If I found a prisoner doing that I would have him shot on the spot."

Dave grinned a bit at the question. "Because the Emperor saw in me the same thing you did, an asset far more valuable than a soldier or bounty hunter."


And now for chapter three

Ch.3 A New Purpose

Jimba snarled at Dave's words. "So you betrayed me to become a pawn for the Empire." He proclaimed.

"Now Jimba, you know me better than that." Dave responded. "Though you are right that the Emperor did offer me a job working for him, but that wasn't for a few years. When he first approached me he offered me training to be an Imperial Agent to help with a pressing matter he was facing. The training didn't teach me much that I hadn't learned from you, but I didn't really have a choice about going through it, as I was still a prisoner. I told them over and over that I did not serve the emperor, but I was one of the best agents they had ever seen. One day one of the Emperor's Dark Council approached me with a much different offer. Rather than become an official member of the imperial forces, he would pay me directly to handle an issue with a group of bounty hunters that had started working for Republic employers. The only problem was my imprisonment, so he had me brought before the Emperor again to persuade him to give me my freedom. He agreed if I swore that I would work for them for the next few years as an agent for hire. We made the deal and I started a quite lucrative career of back stabbing a persuasion. When the time frame of the deal was up, the Emperor made one final offer for me to join him, this time as his personal assistant with promise of payment beyond comparison and power very few had."

"Why would you not take that offer?" Jimba asked. "The Dava I raised would have accepted that in a heartbeat."

Dave gave Jimba a stare and shouted a swear in Huttese that was the equivalent of shut the hell up. "The Dava you raised died that very moment. When he offered me that, I almost did take it but I realized something. I was your assistant and my obedience got me sent to an imperial prison, if I worked for him then a similar fate most likely awaited me. You taught me that money was power, but when you depend on an employer to pay you you give him control over your very being. The only way to truly become powerful would to be to work for myself, not serve any master."

He took the blaster riffle off his back and started walking away from Jimba. "I will do what I must to get the power I deserve. Before I left the Emperor pointed out that the only way to live like that would be if the Republic was destroyed, sort of a point to keep me from becoming his enemy, but he was right. Since I know that won't happen for a while, I've decided to enter a new rising enterprise. People will pay good money for someone who will help destroy the Republic, and a man like me was born to take that job." He stopped, turned around, and pointed the riffle at Jimba "The only problem is I'm going to need a bit of start up money, which is why I came back here." He said as he trained his sights onto the Hutts head. "Like I said, the Dava you raised has died, and from his ashes David has arisen." He pulled the trigger of the riffle and Jimba cringed in fear, only to discover the riffle had no ammunition. Dave laughed at the Hutt's reaction as he walked out of the palace. Jimba breathed a sigh of relief and tried to reach a communicator to call for assistance, but a satellite laser decimated his entire base, him included.

Dave watched as his former master's home was turned into a smoldering pile. The guards who worked fro him had loaded his ship with slaves and treasure, more than he would need to get started. He only needed one more thing, a place to find work bringing the Republic to its knees.