Clone Wars Campaign Recap Extra: Still in the Holster

This was the first piece of fiction I ever wrote to help fill in some gaps in the long-running Star Wars role-playing game. A long jump of gametime (around two years) took place around Session 33, and I wanted some things to be very different for the characters on the other side of that jump. One of those things was that the Sun Runner Twitch was dead--which naturally led to the players asking how that happened, and so here's what I came up with . . .


STILL IN THE HOLSTER

Twitch sighed and spun the empty glass on the bar. He was sitting in one of the disgustingly bright and colourful Alderaanian lounges that were the closest thing an off-worlder could find to a cantina. Bouncy music like something from a turbolift played in the background. The bartender had cut Twitch off of synthale three rounds ago, citing some sort of pro-sobriety policy. Now it was either keema juice or caf, neither of which would help Twitch forget about the humiliation of the past few days: not only had Arresta and her friends somehow managed to escape a perfectly good deathtrap, she had completely ignored his back-up plan and left the planet. An ignominious beginning for a life as a bounty hunter, and Kronos probably wouldn’t help him now that Twitch had parted ways with the Sun Runners. Maybe Jocasta would take him back . . . it was hard to find a good pilot, even if she kept blathering on about that Duros and her destiny.

A middle-aged, fit man with just a hint of gray at his temples sat down next to Twitch and slid one of his two synthales over to the Rodian. Twitch looked the man in the face and slowly shook his head before sliding the drink back.

“I might’ve had a mishap,” Twitch said in heavily accented Basic. “But I’m not a moron. Everyone in my line of work knows Stefan Cassadine. You really think I’m going to drink from a glass prepared by the galaxy’s foremost practitioner of Malkite poison techniques.”

“I’m just here for some conversation,” Cassadine responded calmly.

“You’re here for revenge,” Twitch said. “Well, I’m glad I got a chance to look you in the eye. Your wife might’ve escaped on that Hutt freighter, but you and me can step outside.”

“I’ve heard of you too,” Cassadine said. “Quick draw duelist with a disintegrator. Well, thanks for telling me what I needed to know.” Cassadine finished his drink, stood up, and started to walk away.
“What, you’re backing down?” Twitch chortled, finally feeling himself again. Imagine, the notorious crimelord Stefan Cassadine backing down from him. He’d be able to tell this story at every dive on Nal Hutta, and no one would ask how he bungled the Mongui princess bounty.

Cassadine paused, halfway out the door. He turned around and looked Twitch in the eyes. “The poison’s not in the drink. It’s on the glass. If you haven’t taken the antidote like I have, you’re already dead. Nobody touches my wife. Nobody.”

Twitch jumped up and drew his disintegrator. The other patrons screamed and began scrambling for the door. By the time Twitch made it outside, Cassadine was gone. And then the first convulsion came . . .

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