ALL NOVEL Chapter 3: Gargon
Summary: The shadow port of Gargon brings some solutions...but also new questions. Izuku needs to make decisions about what to do with himself in this new galaxy.
Chapter 3: Gargon
Gargon was, in Izuku's considered opinion, a cesspool. Or, the shadow port was, at any rate. Landing had been an interesting experience, given that shadow ports didn't exactly have guide beacons or the other niceties that the local equivalent of 'Piloting for Dummies' assumed would be in place. Thankfully, even if Aayla's memory was still full of holes, her muscle memory apparently wasn't. There'd been more than a little fumbling over specific controls, but her actual flying had been on-point. The landing, as a result, had been only a tiny bit rough. Not enough to alarm the locals, particularly not when they'd paid cold hard credits to the local gangsters after landing, for the ship to be left alone. Remarkably, it actually had been left alone. Though, Izuku supposed that enforcing a measure of security for those that paid their bribes properly was needed, if the gangsters in question wanted the shadow port to actually function as a port.
For three days, the two of them had trawled the cesspool. Izuku had lifted basic from Aayla, and practiced it as much as possible, but the first day had still been more immersion than anything. They'd hit up several local shops, acquiring a few sundry supplies for Izuku while letting him practice his command of the both the language and his look with relatively low stakes. The second and third days had been more active pursuit of what they actually needed. They had to be very, very careful so that no one realized how shaky his legal connection to Aayla was. And even despite their care there had been eleven offers to buy Aayla, five fistfights, one would-be firefight that Izuku had ended by telekinetically pulling on their opponents shoes hard enough to land him on his back with a concussion, and one information broker.
That last had been what they were ultimately looking for and, thankfully, the woman had been worth it when she was easily able to tell them who they needed to find. Which, in turn is why they were currently in the only part of Gargon that wasn't a cesspool. At least on, if taken as surface appearance. This single city was kept in pristine condition, even well patrolled in a sense, though the 'security officers' here were nothing more than the better-spoken thugs from the various gangs' crews. The entire thing was a carefully crafted charade, maintained to perpetuate the fiction that Gargon was a functional Republic world. Visiting government officials were carefully kept to this city, even as every other population center on the planet swam in trash and too many guns.
Izuku was actually sort of thankful that the being it turned out that they needed to see was actually just a droid. Of course, since droids had only barely come up at this point, he'd also broken his cover slightly by boggling at the thing. But the droid itself didn't care. And, since the thing had been rigged by the locals so thoroughly you could commit murder in front of it without being reported, the actual filing of Izuku's official paperwork had proven hilariously easy. They'd even been able to take advantage of a 'special service' to have their, effectively stolen, ship re-registered to Izuku. They both doubted it would hold up if the ship were eventually reported stolen and they got scanned. But for the time being, they should be able to use it. Even if it would likely be smart to ditch it within a few weeks.
Which, of course, was their next stumbling block. They'd taken care of the immediate crisis, which was good. Great even. But all it had done was buy them a bit of breathing room. They'd gone through over half the credits taken from Aayla's former 'owner,' Aayla had no idea how to figure out who she'd been before the drugs they'd used on her, and Izuku was more than a bit adrift about what he was even going to do. He'd taken a look at the holomap of the galaxy…and realized immediately that he had absolutely zero chance of figuring out where Earth was. Assuming he was even in the same dimension or galaxy. Sure, it was a spiral galaxy like the Milky Way…but weren't there supposed to be tens of thousands of those or something? If it wasn't for his responsibility to look after Aayla, the realization he'd never be able to go home might have shattered him. As it was, he was holding it together, but confused about where to go from here. Which is how the two of them ended up behind a privacy field in a small cantina, not too far from the registration office.
"So…now what?"
Aayla, who was undoubtedly aware through their bond of just how close Izuku was to breaking down, gave him an uncertain smile.
"Well...as much fun as our little post-exposure-therapy session was, I'd certainly like to get a certain item of apparel off, at least…"
Izuku snorted at her attempt to lighten the mood. It did work, at least a little, even if only by forcing him to shift uncomfortably at the reminder of some of her accessories and what they'd used them for made his bits twitch. Sighing, he resolutely forced his mind away from those thoughts and restated his question.
"That much is obvious. And not just the belt. I promise I'll help you get the collar off, too. As well as figure out what the process is for properly freeing you once it's done. I'll even try to help you get your memories back, if we can figure out how." There was a strong pulse of mixed relief, disbelief, and gratitude down their link, making Izuku realize he'd never actually told her that was his intention. Awkwardly pausing for a moment, he decided to push past it for now. "The problem is a bit more fundamental than that. I doubt we have the credits to do everything we need to, right?"
Aayla shook her head, hesitated, then seemed to change what she was going to say. From what he could feel from the link, she was steering away from the powerful emotions still filling her from his promise to help free her. That was fine with Izuku. He wasn't exactly good with even his own emotions, let alone someone else's. He suspected falling back on his training to handle emotionally fragile disaster survivors probably wouldn't get him far in this specific situation. Particularly as his training had assumed he'd be quickly handing said victims off to trained professionals for counseling.
"No. Particularly as we don't know what sort of safety features are on my restraints. Trying to simply cut them off could be…bad. Like 'bits of Aayla everywhere,' bad. Which means we need to either find the details on the specific models out somehow, or acquire the original codes. A slicer might be able to do something with them, too. But that would have at least some of the same risks as trying to cut them off."
Izuku nodded. Somehow, he'd doubted from the start it would be as simple as cutting her free. But that only brought his point to greater prominence.
"Right. Which means we need a way to earn credits. Not to mention I need to…figure out what I'm going to do long term, I guess? I can't exactly go home. And the only thing I've ever considering doing, or trained for, was to be part of a profession that doesn't even exist here…"
Aayla cocked her head to one side, her lekku twitching in thought.
"That's…not entirely true? There's nothing quite like Pro Heroes, as you've described them to me. But Bounty Hunters actually fill a lot of the same roles. They have a bad reputation, but that's mostly because the really visible ones tend to be scum elements that make extremely ugly headlines."
Izuku frowned. Bounty hunters? Japan didn't have anything like that dubious profession. So far as Izuku knew, it was a purely American thing. He only knew about it himself because of a few discussions on differences in the hero systems between the USA and Japan with Pony, an exchange student from the states that had attended UA in his year.
"What do these bounty hunters do?"
Aayla looked at him oddly, then sighed.
"I'm not sure why I know so much about them, since the details are just as fragmented as everything else. But their profession, at least, is common knowledge. Officially, they are supposed to be a Guild that pursues criminals that make it outside a specific planet's legal jurisdiction. The Republic Judiciary Forces technically do the same thing, but—" Aayla winced and stopped that line of thought, their link pulsing with pain as she ran into confused, fragmented memories. Pushing past it, she tried again. "—they don't. I don't remember why. Republic-wide warrants are pretty rare, since they cost so much to distribute. So officially, the Bounty Hunter Guild is supposed to be a sort of work around. Legal bounties are all posted by Republic world governments, with rewards to be paid to Bounty Hunters that eliminate or bring in criminals that have escaped from a specific world's official reach."
Izuku was dubious. For one very good reason.
"You used 'officially' an awful lot in that explanation."
Aayla shrugged, sighed, and expanded her explanation.
"Yep. That's the way the Guild charter was intended to work. Millenia ago. When it was written. Problem is that everyone abused the system. Corrupt governments sent hunters after political opponents on trumped up charges. Unofficial bounty lists became as common as legal lists, and basically anyone can use those unofficial lists to put a price on anyone else's head. By this point, pretty much everyone in the profession is just a mercenary by a different name. That doesn't mean the system doesn't still do more good then harm by fulfilling it's original intention…but it's questionable at times, for sure."
Well. Izuku could certainly see why Aayla had brough it up as an option. It did, officially and superficially, bare a resemblance to how Professional Heroes worked. Pro Heroes were paid on commission, including bonuses for Villain apprehension. But they did a lot more than just that. Disaster relief, criminal investigation, and all types of crisis intervention.
"It's…an option, if we can figure out a way to sort out the real bounties from the scum element. But I don't think it's one I'd be comfortable with focusing on. Maybe…"
Izuku frowned as he pulled out a credit chit, eyeing it speculatively. This Galactic Republic place didn't have Pro Heroes, no. But it sure had a lot of crime, of the sort that would have appalled any Pro Hero. Mass drug and gun smuggling, gangs running whole planets, even rampant slavery in places. In a lot of ways, at least in the parts of the galaxy he'd seen so far…it was a lot more like the bad old days right after Quirks started popping up. All sorts of internal and external conflicts everywhere, chaos and surging crime rates. And the first Heroes hadn't been Professionals at all. They'd been…Izuku smiled.
"I think I have an idea. And we're even on the right sort of world to get a start on it. If, possibly, only in a small way. It wouldn't do to risk our ship being connected to what I have in mind, given that we just reregistered it as being out of Gargon. But…"
Aayla's eyes grew huge as Izuku explained his plan. But the bond between them also pulsed with extreme approval. So he had a feeling he was on the right track. At least for his own moral compass, and Aayla's too if her feelings of approval were any judge. The Powers that Be in the Republic and Underworld alike would likely be less enthused. But, given just how huge the Republic was, he was also unlikely to be noticed. So, he could live with that…
... ...
Izuku was, once again, thankful that Aizawa had forced their entire class to go through at least basic stealth and recon training. It had saved Izuku's life a number of times in the past, and he was rapidly discovering that most of the basic principles remained the same regardless of technology level. Finding a target had been easy. Even easier than he'd thought it would be. He'd assumed he'd need time, possibly even several days of it, to get lucky with his telepathy…right up until he'd lowered his mental barriers to begin scanning for a target. Only then did he really remember why he'd had those barriers cranked to the max, with data pouring into him from everywhere the instant he lowered his shields.
He'd rushed to seal the mental walls up again, leaving just a crack to peek out of. But even that crack had been more useful than he could have ever imagined. It had taken him an embarrassingly long half an hour to realize why his mind was being sort of pulled this direction or that. Whatever it was that he was connecting too with his Quirk was trying to guide him, based on what he needed. Once he'd realized that, he'd tentatively begun to follow the streams of information, zeroing in on several minds that were doing exactly what he'd hoped for. Specifically, thinking about their jobs. Jobs which just so happened to be working as security for various gangsters on the planet.
He'd immediately dismissed several of the options, once determining that they were too high profile for this first foray. From the others, he'd slowly nudged their thoughts along, prodding them to think about security issues they knew needed to be fixed. The first two he'd tried it with hadn't produced a usable result, purely because the places that had security holes dealt in extremely illegal goods. The third, however, had been exactly what he needed. Information on an illegal Spice merchant, whose facility was currently shut down to overhaul some security issues. Someone had been stealing from 'the boss,' and 'the boss' was installing new security to catch them, under the guise of also upgrading some of the processing equipment. While the Spice itself was illegal as hell, the merchant happened to have his own residence in the same facility. A residence that was currently empty while the upgrades were ongoing.
It was perfect. It had also led Izuku to where he currently stood, an earpiece in his ear to communicate with Aalya as he staked out the building. He was also streaming video to her from a small camera, letting her do her best to point out security systems to him. They knew most of the interior systems would be down. But Izuku still needed to get through the outer layer. Preferably without tripping any alarms. Thankfully, they had identified a weak point. A roof access that should be inaccessible from the outside, but wasn't for one highly specific reason.
Izuku could fly.
It was draining, so he didn't do it often. But he could do it and it would only take a second or two to reach the access point. He could easily manage it in the interval where one of the exterior cameras was panned away from him. In fact, from what he was sensing about the people inside. Right now was just about perfect. A moment for the camera to pan and…
Izuku jumped, reinforcing that jump with telekinetic power, then catching himself when he was level with the balcony they'd spotted various enforcers using for smoke breaks. Breaking sideways with his Quirk, he flew through the gap and landed lightly, pausing to see if he'd set of any unknown alarms. After a moment, he shrugged. If he'd set anything off, it was both silent and not causing any additional alertness to the people inside. Frowning at not feeling winded from his short flight, he shook that observations off and confidently stepped up to the keypad next to the door. The owners hadn't been completely stupid, but they hadn't anticipated someone like him, either. He quickly input the combination he'd lifted from one of the smokers as the sentient had gone back inside. He'd quickly discovered that some alien minds were too alien for him to make much sense of. But all the near-human minds he'd tried to skim the surface thoughts of had worked decently enough, just like back home. It was something that made things like keypads more a liability against him than helpful.
A fact that was proven yet again as the door slid open and Izuku darted inside. Carefully keeping a mental eye on where everyone was, he moved through the interior of the building like a ghost. He had two stops to make. One for their immediate practical needs…the other as a mix of distraction and justification. He made the latter stop first, easily making it down to the Spice storage area. Carefully covering his mouth and eyes with a thin telekinetic barrier, he approached a generator and listened as Aayla talked him through what to do. Fifteen minutes and three sabotaged generators later, Izuku was half-running through the complex, away from that first stop.
He paused, silently waiting around a blind corner for the last seconds to tick down…then smiled grimly to himself as he felt the building shudder three times in rapid sequence. Moments later, an alarm went off, loudly alerting everyone in the building that said building was on fire. He felt the frantic panic in the minds all over the building, half of them heading down towards the Spice storage area to try and stop the extremely valuable and highly illegal product from going up in the blaze. The other half, smarter in Izuku's considered opinion, quickly realized how flammable Spice was and began running out of the building. The two guards on the Spice merchant's private quarters were among the second set…and they ran right by him as he telepathically convinced the two humans that he was just part of the background. Easy enough to do when they weren't looking for anything but an exit.
Smile broadening, Izuku dashed toward the private rooms, where he immediately stopped being careful. He was wearing a dark cloth mask for a reason. And that reason had everything to do with the fact that the merchant's private quarters were on their own security loop. The door was armored…but Izuku ignored it. A brute force application of his boot, enhanced by his telekinesis and executing a perfect Lunar Ring, smashed right through the durasteel wall next to the door. He had to quickly apply his Quirk again to widen the hole he'd made, but that took only seconds. Once inside, he pulled out the large duffle bag he'd brought with him and started telekinetically snatching everything that looked valuable, even as he looked for the safe he knew had to be here.
He quickly found it, built into the merchant's desk. Quickly feeling it out with this Quirk, he found every weak point he could and simply wrenched. For a few moments, the armored thing resisted his full strength…but only for a few moments. Then the door gave with a squeal, never designed to resist force being applied from the inside like Izuku was doing. Grinning, he scooped the contents of the safe into the duffle and ran…
The first Heroes hadn't been professionals at all. They'd been Vigilantes. Many of whom had financed their exploits by doing exactly what Izuku had just done. Hit a criminal, destroy his product or eliminate his goons. Then steal everything not nailed down or illegal. The illegal Spice trade on Gargon likely wouldn't be overly affected by what he'd just done, of course. But this specific Spice merchant? He might never recover from losing both his stock and his processing facility. Meanwhile, Izuku would do his best to make sure the money he'd just 'liberated,' was used for a better cause…
... ...
It had taken a couple of hours, on a rooftop in the opposite direction from Izuku's act of Vigilantism, for Izuku and Aayla to sort through everything Izuku had managed to stuff into the duffle. The credits, over 10,000 of them in various denominations, were the most immediately useful. Though Aayla was also able to identify a significant stash of peggats, which would be useful if they ended up in or near Hutt Space. The next easiest thing to deal with had been the extremely pure samples of Spice. Two vials, which their earlier research had identified as having legitimate medical properties, they kept. The rest were quickly destroyed.
The remainder of the time had been devoted to sorting out the rest of what he'd taken. A rather nice blaster they had reluctantly tossed, unwilling to risk it having been used for something that would bite them on the ass, given where they'd found it. Several bits of electronics were also tossed, since neither of them were confident they could identify and eliminate any trackers. Anything emitting any sort of signal joined the electronics and blaster, as did a number of things that had proven gaudy but not likely to be valuable. The assortment they kept included several bits of jewelry, some gemstones that at least looked real, and a number of decorations they managed to identify as being made out of valuable materials.
Another two hours had simply been waiting, after switching locations yet again. They'd planted their remaining gains, save the currency, somewhere hidden, then hid themselves nearby to watch over it. When, after those two hours, no one had come looking for it, they decided that they likely hadn't missed anything trackable. Re-securing their loot, they'd headed back to the shadow port…and taken off less than forty minutes after arriving. No need to take chances, and they'd already separated their return to the port and takeoff by enough hours not to be easily connected with the fire and theft anyway.
All of which left them with one simple problem. They'd made just a single hop of a few lightyears, just to get away from Gargon. But now they needed to figure out where to head next. They still needed to ditch the shuttle, preferably in a way that let them sell it rather than just ditch it. Doing that without leaving a trail meant they were looking for somewhere else with a sketchy side…but preferably less sketchy than Gargon. They wanted to acquire a new ship, after all, which wasn't stolen.
Aayla's situation also complicated matters, since while owning a slave wasn't technically illegal, it would draw attention in a lot of places if that slave was obvious…which Aayla was. Izuku had finally all-but-forced her into a leather jacket and pants for their recent operation, so her state of dress wouldn't give her away. But the bulky collar around her neck certainly would. As would her ID file, in any world that scanned it. Izuku suspected the file was forged, given his observations that Aayla didn't seem like she'd always been a slave. But they currently had no way to find her real one. Not without possibly tipping people trying to find them off.
"So…thoughts? I'm still completely lost even with the data we added from Gargon."
Another small thing they'd had the foresight to pay the information broker for had been an update to their nav data. Not for adding new locations, but for giving a more realistic description of what useful things were there. A few more shadow ports, the location of a few black-market connections, and so on. The data was limited to nearby sectors of space, but that was still a lot of worlds. Aayla and Izuku had the data pulled up on a couple of datapads, looking over the information and trying to pick a destination.
"I'm not sure, Master. My memory still isn't exactly reliable…but, I think we have a couple of decent options? Taris, Esseles, and Axxila all look viable. Taris and Axxila are both ecumenopolises. Worlds like that are almost always a mix of law-abiding and criminal, particularly outside the core. They also always have at least some ships for sale, simply by dint of how much passes through them. Esseles isn't a ecumenopilis, but it has ship building and manufacturing of its own. It's technically a core world, but it has one of the only pod-racing tracks in the core. That attracts elements from the mid and outer rims. I won't look too unusual there, if we stick near the pod circuit, which also happens to be where some of the ship sellers are."
Izuku punched up the data on the three worlds and began to read, chewing his lower lip as he tried to choose. Stuck after only moments, simply not having anything to go off of, he remembered what he'd done on the planet. Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes, opened a crack in his mental shields, and reached out…