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criticalrolo · 7 years

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Origins: Chapter Two - Scanlan Shorthalt, Slicer Extraordinaire

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, a band of bounty hunters with hearts of gold formed to fight against the growing spread of evil in the Republic. But before they could do that, they each had to come from somewhere.

Based on this Star Wars AU

[ao3]

Scanlan slung his backpack onto the ground and settled back into his chair at the cantina comfortably. He was enjoying life under his new pseudonym in this part of town: no one recognized him, no one bothered him, and most importantly, no one asked questions. It had been five galactic standard months, and still, everyone he had come into contact with bought his story that he’d been displaced by the war without a second thought. It had barely taken more than a few forlorn glances and well timed tears for a few of his new neighbors to start offering to have him over for dinner while he “settled in”.

Scanlan almost snorted out loud at the thought, but reigned in the burst of humor to a private smile, just in case anyone was looking his way. He wondered what the neighbors would think if they knew his tiny new home was little more than a base camp for selling highly classified information to the highest bidder on both sides of their planetary civil war.

A quick glance around the cantina revealed that no one was focused in his direction. Satisfied that he wasn’t drawing any undue attention to himself, Scanlan pulled out his datapad and flicked the screen into life.

Scrolling through his marked pages on the holonet didn’t reveal much, except that the cantina had kriffing terrible reception. The usual updates were there: the war continues on, the Loyalists are all spineless suck ups to the King, the Insurgents are a band of malcontented warmongers. Nothing involving any of his previous identities or, gods forbid, his real name.

Satisfied for the moment that he was still a completely anonymous figure for both sides of the war, Scanlan switched away from the main news networks and pulled up the triple encrypted messaging system he had developed himself to stay in contact with his buyers.

[theMeatMan]: Information on Loyalist troop movements through the North West region going live in 20. Bidding starts at 2 million credits.

The page almost instantly lit up with messages from anonymous insurgent and loyalist buyers, as well as a few interested third parties. Scanlan smirked, and dropped the datapad back into his backpack. Now that he had their attention, all he had to do was get his hands on the information. Nothing the Meat Man couldn’t handle.

Scanlan stood up and stretched his arms out as wide as he could with a huge, attention-grabbing yawn. His hand smacked into the large glass of spiced beer perched on the armrest, sending liquid flying through the air. The glass shattered on the ground loudly, making everyone’s heads turn in his direction, including the barkeeper.

“Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry!” Scanlan said, adopting a convincingly horrified expression. “I didn’t mean to – oh my goodness, does anyone have anything to clean up glass with?”

The barkeeper sighed, and walked out from behind the counter with a broom and a rag as everyone else turned their attention back to their own drinks.

“I’m so sorry, sir, I really am just so clumsy sometimes, I didn’t mean to make such a mess,” Scanlan babbled as the barkeeper knelt down on the ground.

“It’s fine, just don’t expect a free replacement,” the barkeeper grumbled.

Scanlan hopped from foot to foot behind him, playing up the anxiety he was giving off. “I understand completely, that’s fair of course. Oh, as long as you’re over here, I think I should mention that I stepped into your ‘fresher a little while ago, and it’s clogged like you wouldn’t believe. I think someone must have been eating a mountain of Spicy Djo earlier, just looking at the mess they’ve made in there. You wouldn’t happen to have time to take care of that as well, would you?”

The barkeeper raised an eyebrow, before sighing heavily again. “Perfect. Just what I needed after the day I’ve had.”

“Thank you so much sir, you really are a gem, you know that?” Scanlan gave the man a winning smile as he lurched off with a dustpan full of glass towards the ‘fresher that Scanlan had purposefully stuffed three pairs of socks into earlier that day. With the barkeeper distracted and a pointed look around the cantina revealing the few other customers were completely focused on their own business, Scanlan ducked behind the bar counter.

For the most part, everything looked normal… except for the extremely well disguised safe that Scanlan would have mistaken for another cask of beer without the intel he’d received last night about the generous commission the cantina was receiving to retransmit Loyalist messages from the North to the South.

Scanlan twisted the “cask” around to reveal the ten digit number lock on the back. Ten billion possible combinations. He quickly slung his backpack off one shoulder and pulled out the scramble key he’d developed with an algorithmic security bypassing system. The key clicked into place and began whirring through possible combinations.

The process took nearly thirty seconds, and the first stirring of anxiety twisted in Scanlan’s stomach. If the barkeeper happened to poke his head around and saw him, he was quite literally a dead man.

After what seemed like an eternity, the scramble key flashed the number 2967329548 and the secret compartment swung open to reveal a transmitter blinking almost innocently at him.

Scanlan didn’t waste any time yanking a tangle of cords and his own bugging device out of his pockets and grafting them into the Loyalist device. He had to be coming up on two full minutes back here. A quick glance at his datapad revealed a steady stream of information coming in from the bug, as well as messages from buyers bidding steadily higher and… a flagged message pinned to the top labelled “[Doctor D]: YOU’VE BEEN MADE, SHORTHALT”.

A thrill of fear shot through Scanlan, and only years of work as a slicer prevented him from freezing entirely. He automatically pocketed the scramble key, twisted the safe back into position, and darted out from behind the bar. Somewhere in the back of his mind he thanked the gods that the cantina was nearly empty and no one happened to be watching the bar as the snuck out the side exit. He was practically running away from the bar, which was bad form if he was trying to stay inconspicuous, but he couldn’t think straight around the urgent panic at the forefront of his consciousness. A landspeeder nearly ran him over as he ducked into an alleyway far away from the cantina and hurriedly turned on the datapad.

[theMeatMan]: You know how I feel about using real names, Dranzel.

[Doctor D]: had to get your attention – have you seen the holonet in the past few minutes??

A link popped up on the screen. INFAMOUS ‘MEAT MAN’ SLICER SELLING MILITARY INFORMATION REVEALED, OTHER ALIASES EXPOSED

Scanlan felt this heart drop into his stomach. His hands trembled in a way they hadn’t for years as he typed up a reply.

[theMeatMan]: How did this happen.

[Doctor D]: someone calling themselves K Lee, apparently been tracking you for nearly year, whoever they are they’re good. must have contacted everybody at the same time and ratted you out. karking son of a vetch must be filthy rich by now

[theMeatMan]: I have to leave

[Doctor D]: figured you would. there’s a few transports off world left if you can manage to get yourself to the capitol in the next couple of days. good luck out there

Scanlan gave himself three seconds to panic, then closed his eyes and drew in a deep calming breath. In for four, out for four. In for four, out for eight.

When he opened his eyes, he closed down the messaging system and pulled up his set of fake ID’s, nearly all of which were completely useless now. Except for one.

“Francois Bertrand Jean-Luc Australia, wealthy traveling merchant, first-class clearances.”

Time for one last performance.

#critical role #star wars #scanlan #scanlan shorthalt #critical role star wars au #my writing #origins

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