outlaws ✦ din djarin ✦

✦ chapter one ✦

"You said you had a job for me."

Greef Karga smiles widely as he sees me approaching, stretching his arms out wide and a deep laugh rumbling up from his belly. "Val!"

My stoney face doesn't change as I slide into the booth across from him, adjusting my two blaster holsters to avoid sitting on them. I lean back in the booth, folding my arms over my chest as I stare Karga down. "You called me here. What do you want?"

"As sunshiney as always I see," Karga laughs again, folding gloved hands over each other on the table and leaning forward. His voice drops to a hushed whisper. "I have a special assignment for you and you only."

I pin him down with my icy eyes, my gaze serious. "I'm listening."

"You know you're one of my best. You're the only person I can trust for this job," Karga tells me and I recognize his words for what they are: trying to make me feel like I'm special to him so that I'm more inclined to take the job. It doesn't matter. As long as I know what he's up to, I won't fall victim to it. Slowly, I nod, acting like he's caught my attention. "The client wants to keep a low profile, so there isn't much about him I can tell you, but he's good for the reward money."

"Fine, how much?" I ask, my voice low and impatient. Since when have I ever cared about who a client is or what they want with the target? As long as I get paid, I don't care.

When Karga tells me the bounty price, I have to fight to keep my jaw from dropping. My neutral expressions are one of my greatest assets—keeps people out of my head—but this price almost warrants a reaction. Dank farrik.

"Alright, give me the puck." I put my hand out, open and waiting.

Karga shakes his head. "No puck for this one. Best I can do is a tracking fob."

I scowl at him, but leave my hand out, waiting for the tracking fob instead. Karga flashes me another one of his diplomatic smiles and fishes around in his pocket for the tracking fob. "I knew I could count on you, Val. You're the only bounty hunter I—."

I cut him off as my brown-leather fingerless gloved hand closes around the fob and some access card, tired of his guileful words. "I'll contact you when I'm finished."

-----

The streets of Nevarro are just as skeezy and barren as I remember them being. The bustle of the city is home to a host of shady characters, and the alleyways are all too quiet.

Though it isn't the most amazing of places, it's one of the few planets where the arsenal I'm wearing attracts little to no attention. My all-black outfit of a tunic-vest, leather trousers, and combat boots are inconspicuous enough. My cloak—short, charcoal-colored with billowing sleeves and a wide hood—can sometimes earn me unwanted glances.

But really, I think it's the two blasters holstered, one on each thigh, the row of knives in my belt, and the rifle slung across my back that make me a little bit difficult to miss.

As long as all the unwanted eyes are focused on my guns and not the lightsaber strapped to my hip, I couldn't care less if they stare.

I approach the door where I was instructed I could meet the client, the alleyway eerily silent. The hair on the back of my neck seems to stand. Something about this feels...wrong. I take a deep breath and knock on the door.

A metal flap opens abruptly, causing me to startle and reach for my blaster, when I realize that it's just some kind of droid scanner. It almost looks like an eyeball, but robotic and unsteady. It says something in a low, broken tone that I don't understand, though I know what it wants nevertheless.