- behind you.”

I let them get ahead of me while I took a secondary route back to the hangar. My comms went off and pulled out my dat-pad, a new assignment flashing across the screen.

‘Shit…”

(@TavaliPirate)

- He rattled off her name that I didn’t pay attention to, assuring me that what she’d told him confirmed she was our missing contact.

I nodded, glancing around for signs of any visitors coming our way. The alley was currently quiet, thankfully.

“Get back to the ship. I’ll be a few minutes -

- Given the state of the dumpster and the alley, it could very well be a week or more before anyone discovered it and that was assuming no animals came through and took care of the remains themselves.

I turned around, joining @TavaliPirate and the woman. -

- jerking one last time before death took him into Her sweet embrace.

Behind me, I heard @TavaliPirate whispering to the woman. I rose to my feet, yanking the body up with me to toss it into the dumpster, adding a few well-placed trash bags on top of it to hide it for as long as possible. -

- him time enough to catch his breath before I was on top of him, one knee on his chest and the other already aiming my blaster at his forehead. There was no time and this was definitely not the place for some do-gooder speech about treating women better. I squeezed the trigger, the man’s body -

- me while I moved forward to deal with this asshole who was still spitting out curses and insults at the woman despite being unable to see her. Or me.

A well-placed palm to the center of the man’s chest had him flying backward and landing on his ass in the gutter. I didn’t give -

- coming in our direction was responsible.

“You’re meeting’s right here,” I uttered, voice gravelly with disuse. I felt her stiffen but didn’t have time to worry about that for now. I let her go with a somewhat gentle nudge towards the brick wall of the closest building, leaving her behind -

- at the bar. Beyond the fear she was putting off, I could smell blood coming from her, mixed with sweat and grime. Add to that, the odd way she kept her weight shifted to one leg… this female - human, from what I could tell - was injured and it was more than reasonable to assume the male -

- Get back here, bitch!”

She froze stiff with fear, I could practically taste it on the back of my tongue.

“Please… let me go, I’m already late for a meeting,” she pleaded to me, struggling once again.

Instinct told me she was somehow related to my contact that hadn’t shown up -

- stood there and waited for them to collide into me. Definitely female, she let out a solid grunt when she collided into my chest. One arm wrapped around her, I ignored her attempts to struggle out of my grasp to turn my focus on the other figure that was stumbling down the alley in her wake. -

- hits that kept muffling the cries.

“Bitch, you’d shut your mouth and stay silent if you knew–”

The words were cut off with the sound of a painful grunt and then footsteps running my way, splashing in the water that trickled down the center of the alley. Zeroing in the figure clad in black, I -

- and triple-checking as I slipped down the alley and rounded the corner into the next one.

I heard the sounds of a struggle ahead, hidden by an oversized dumpster that was spilling black bags of garbage into the alley. Female from the sounds of it, no telling who or what was throwing the -

-had already disappeared back into the crowd to make his own way out during my exchange. As soon as the woman’s back was to me, I was out of my seat without a sound and slipping out the side exit with nothing more than a rush of cool night air to announce my departure. Even that much had me double-

- to the man’s words. The goal wasn’t to be seen tonight or to raise any kind of alarm so a quick exit was what I needed. The waitress came towards our table and I waived off a refill of my drink, dropping the monies into her outstretched hand to cover my tab and then some. @TavaliPirate -

- head, the man leaned in as he sank down into the chair to my right, “Nothing. I don’t see any eyes directed our way but it’s possible we were set up. We’ll know for sure when we try to leave.”

I took the last swig of my drink, swallowing the fire-like liquid with nothing more than a nod -

-Beneficial to me, often lethal to anyone I didn’t consider “friendly.” The sound shifted again, the crowd parting just enough to let @TavaliPirate slip through and head towards me. I could already tell by the look on his face, in his eyes, that he’d come up empty.

With the slightest shake of his -

- across from me, on the other side of that crowd, but a secondary exit was just a few steps to my left. My shades, useless to just about anyone else given the time of night, completely obscured my eyes making it impossible for anyone trying to watch me to know what or who I might be looking at. -

- and @TavaliPirate’s out of there.

There was a shift in the sound, the slightest change in pitch and octave that had my ears tuning in, gaze cutting over towards the crowd that frothed back and forth on the dancefloor in the middle of the giant space. The main exit was directly -