If there was anything normal about the rough-cut shack that passed for a bar on this backwater mudball, it was that quite a few of the patrons were inevitably drunk, the card games were always rigged, and the barkeep had an 'emergency fight stopper' hidden on a shelf under the counter.

Like other bars, it also fell extremely silent when a shadow fell across the doorway.

The patrons of the Black Hole Bar looked up at the new arrival and immediately decided that their best course of action would be 'Do not mess.'

A giant of a robot, even by most normal Transformer standards, stood imposingly in the door's frame. He might have been mostly white once, but now most of his armor was streaked with carbon burns, and one of his shoulder flarings was battered and twisted. A crack ran lengthwise through the windshield on his torso. Despite the damage, his icy optics still contained all the cold fury of an avalanche, undiminished in their intensity.

Getaway strode purposefully into the bar, past many tables' worth of drunken robots, past the worried barkeep, and right up to a small, lanky Autobot that cowered in a corner table. The bigger Autobot's optics narrowed dangerously.

"Hello, Widebeam," Getaway said evenly.

"Getaway," Widebeam said, flinching as he pronounced the other's name. "So good to see you again. How was it?"

What could be seen of Getaway's face behind his battle-mask contorted in anger.

"Like you have no idea. The information you gave me was faked."

"What?!" Widebeam blurted. "It was accurate! I swear!"

"Oh, yes," Getaway said, "accurate for your other confederates, perhaps. I tracked that scragger through six variations of the same hellhole, following your tip, and what do I find at the end? A nice little ambush, perfectly set up. During my short stint as their target I heard three of them saying it was nice how all the pieces fell into place. Well, after I scraped their circuits off the wall I went and traced the pieces they mentioned. The only unaccounted-for variable is how they knew I was going to be there. And that, Widebeam, is where you come in."

Lightning fast, Getaway lunged down and grabbed the smaller Widebeam by the neck. Widebeam squirmed like a hooked worm and tried not to look into the hunter's furious gaze.

"You set me up, Widebeam, and I don't like being double-crossed." Getaway drew his double-barreled plasma shotgun from subspace and tapped it to the terrified informant's forehead. "Any last words?"

"Wait!" Widebeam yelled. "Isn't there anything I can do for you? To make up for this?"

Getaway pondered this for a second, then set the somewhat relieved Widebeam down. The plasma shotgun still hovered before his face but Getaway wasn't scowling anymore.

"There is something you can do," Getaway rumbled.

"Really? What?" Widebeam said eagerly, trying desperately to get back into Getaway's good graces.

Getaway's other hand, which Widebeam had not been paying attention to, suddenly flashed out. A deadly heavy-bladed knife lashed out into Widebeam's chest, its point emerging on out his back. Getaway hoisted his victim into the air, still impaled on the deadly blade.

"Die," Getaway whispered quietly.

Widebeam's failings were short-lived. As rivulets of energon and oil leaked from the near-dead Autobot's mouth, Getaway twisted the knife just a bit, forcing one last choked gasp from Widebeam before lowering his arm and letting the corpse slide off his knife to clatter on the ground. Getaway briefly glanced at the growing pool of energon and oil leaking from Widebeam's huddled form before heading for the door. On the way, he stopped and laid a handful of energon chips on the countertop in front of the barkeep.

"I apologize for the mess. I'll take it outside next time," Getaway offered with a nod. The barkeep looked at Getaway's energon like it was a poisonous Tavarian electro-viper. The Autobot paid no mind and took no offense.

It was, after all, one of the many side effects of being a bounty hunter.

Getaway stepped outside and looked into the cold night sky. There would always be another bounty, another hunt. It was just the way of things. He had no problem with that.

Getaway walked off into the darkness in search of a decent repair bay and wondered when his next assignment would come.

He would not be far from the truth if he assumed that it would be very, very soon. . . .

Getaway stepped out of the little repair bay nestled in a corner of the city.

"Thank you, Waver. Your services are much appreciated," Getaway said.

"No problem, Getaway. You're a much appreciated customer yourself," Waver said, waving off the repaired Autobot with a grin.

"If I were any more careful I might not need your services, but then you'd be out some profit, wouldn't you?"

"Yeah. Lucky me you always get the tough jobs. See you later, Getaway."

Getaway nodded in acknowledgement and stepped into the street, transforming as he did. Arms and legs folded in and the hood on his back flipped up as Getaway transformed into his sleek racer mode. He revved his engines a moment before taking off for the spaceport hangar.

Pulling up to the crowded bay where his ship was parked, Getaway was pleased to note that it was still there and had not been tampered with. More than once he'd had to track down people who tried to steal his ship. Of course, when the ship actively fired back in protest and then sprayed the hapless thieves with a foul-smelling adhesive that would be a long time coming off, it was rather simple to track down the culprits, who were usually very sorry by the time he caught up to them. Not that it mattered. After the last incident, word had gotten around that it was a bad idea to try and steal his spacecraft.

Getaway transformed and walked up the ramp of the ship, rightfully named the Narrow Escape, and sealed the doors. He glanced around, wary of uninvited visitors, when he was suddenly aware of another presence on the ship, one that was about as tall as his shin and currently nudging his right leg.

He actually smiled as he looked down.

"Hey Daikyu," Getaway said, kneeling down to gently scratch his furry companion between the ears. The creature, which was best described as an odd mix of feline, canine, and draconic traits, rumbled happily and nuzzled Getaway's hand. It was a quadruped creature, standing on digitrade legs like a cat or dog, and its facial features and general build were a solid mix of feline and canine traits. The odd thing was that its skin was almost reptilian underneath the fur, and the pair of leathery wings marked it as certifiably alien. It was about four feet tall at the shoulder, making it the rough Cybertronian equivalent of a housecat in size.

It had followed Getaway onto his ship a few assignments ago, and for some odd reason it had taken a liking to the big robot, despite Getaway's best efforts to get it off his ship. After a day or two with the thing hanging around while not being a nuisance, Getaway found that he was rather amused by this odd creature, and it wouldn't hurt to let the 'little' scrounger tag along. He named the creature 'Daikyu,' but any reasoning behind the name escaped him. It only struck him after so long to try and research its species, and he found that it was actually a medium-sized predator called a Caratarian sky panther, and more likely than not he had a female of the species in his care. Getaway wondered if it wouldn't be a problem to care for her in the future, but his research lead to information on the sky panther's behavior and the optimal way to care for the creature. With little effort he had a living space for Daikyu set up and the sky panther soon considered the Narrow Escape her home.

Daikyu miaow-whined up at Getaway, who sighed and gave a resigned grin.

"Okay, okay, I know, late again." Getaway reached into a storage closet and got out some food for Daikyu, who eagerly wolfed down the tiny (by Getaway's standards) bit of meat before Getaway even had a chance to put it down.

"For such a little thing you really eat fast," he mused. Daikyu only smiled happily in response and fluttered up to rest on one of his shoulder flarings. Getaway ignored the added weight and walked over to his command console, which was blinking urgently. Sitting at the console he tapped the button, which played back the messages stored in his ship computer's memory banks.

A lot of it was the usual junk messages sent on broadband communication channels. He quickly deleted them and was about to close down the system when he realized that there was one message left that he hadn't read. Tapping the console quickly, Getaway pulled up the message. It contained only this.
 

Getaway:

      Assignment. Bounty. Deactivated or Functional. Pay negotiable. Details in attached file. Meet me at the Last Star's End for more information.

An old friend.
 

Getaway opened the attached file and looked it over. Whichever of his 'old friends' this was, they had chosen quite a target for him, with a bounty to match the danger in hunting this individual.

"Hmm…if this hunt is half as interesting as I believe it will be, I will likely be visiting Waver again in the near future," Getaway mused as he activated his ship's engines and took off for Last Star's End.

 
To Be Continued. . . .