The Bat-Mandalorian

Batcave

Far outside Coruscant's atmosphere lie a lonely asteroid, a moon of sorts, which rotated around the planet after it had been sucked into its gravitational pull mid-descent.

Within the asteroid was the Batman's deep, dark lair he called the Batcave.

Hundreds of screens were posted everywhere in the cave, filled with various data readings and crime charts. Batman sat in the middle of it all, studying a specific data reading he had pulled up.

"Master Bruce, don't you think you could close a few of those tabs?" asked a posh voice from behind him.

Batman did not avert his eyes. "I'm analyzing all of them, Alfred."

"At the same time?" the butler asked, collecting the trash left behind the last meal that the Batman had eaten.

"Yes," Batman replied, his eyes still focused on the datapad.

Alfred cocked his head and cleared his throat. Batman raised his eyes and turned around in his chair to face his butler.

"I can't help but find some of your habits here a bit . . . harmful for your psyche, perhaps," Alfred suggested. "And you already know of my opinion with dressing up as a bat and beating people to death."

"I don't kill anyone," Batman replied immediately. "I will never kill anyone."

Alfred nodded with exaggeration, "Right, right, sir. You only beat them to near death. Just making sure that it won't be easy to pay their hospital bills, no?"

Batman decided not to answer and went back to the datapad reading.

Alfred shook his head. "I'm making grilled cheese and chicken sandwiches for dinner."

"Thank you," Batman said.

He could hear the older butler behind him, staying there. It was as if he was waiting for something more. Batman decided he would give him nothing more for now. There were more important things at hand.

Those two criminals who attempted to mug Commissioner Gordon weren't just the average run-of-the-mill muggers. Well, they were, but they were more prepared than any ordinary mugger. They still lacked any formal combat training, but they had to have gained some sort of intel on Commissioner Gordon for them to know that he had the GDPD alert button. It was kept secret and almost no one knew about it.

Well, Batman knew about it. So did those two criminals. But, in order for Batman to learn about it, he had gained access to police reports and intel via hacking through their systems. 

That would mean that some criminal organization, perhaps a band of smaller criminals, had gained access to someone with similar knowhow as the Batman himself to the hacking world.

Someone or multiple people, even.

Got to pinpoint their location, he thought. However, he also recognized that if it was someone as highly skilled as himself, they could easily reverse engineer his tracker and find the source it was transmitting its data toward.

Must approach this situation with care. No crazy aggressive plays, I must let them act first and react accordingly, he considered. The strategy would likely work, but he also recognized that it could lead to more people getting hurt. Maybe a sort of preventive strategy? I show up where I think they will and pounce before anything bad happens? No, Gotham District is a big place, too big for me to be everywhere at once. I would need eyes everywhere and bodies everywhere.

That's when he remembered his interaction the other night. The one in which he had encountered the Police Commissioner for Gotham District, Jamifree Gordon. If he had a whole police force backing him up, it would be much easier to keep track of the sector. It might take some convincing, but he had saved Gordon's life and he could use that as leverage in negotiations. Maybe he couldn't get full support, but he could at least let Gordon know what he thought was going on.

But then Gordon might find out that I'm hacking into police reports, he realized quickly. Batman would need some proof before he could bring anything to Gordon. He needed to find another one of those guys and take something off them that could be reasonably believed to lead to a sort of conspiracy theory that the crime in Coruscant, notorious for being spurious and random, was suddenly becoming organized.

Steps came down the smooth stairway to the batcave. Batman spun around. Alfred stood there holding a silver platter with food on it and said calmly, "Sir, the sandwiches are ready."

"I'll eat them later," Batman said, standing abruptly out of his chair and setting his helmet back onto his head.

"Shall I set them in the microwave, then?" asked Alfred.

"I'll get take out, enjoy your meal," Batman answered, swiftly stepping out of his room and marching towards the Batmobile.

"Are you forgetting something?" asked Alfred again. Batman whirled around, his cape flowing through the air dramatically.

Alfred jingled the keys in his hand and tossed them to Batman. "Thanks," Batman muttered.

"You've got to be more responsible with those or you'll be grounded," Alfred said.

"I'll try," Batman said, his voice now distorted and electronic through a filter in his helmet.

The Batmobile was a modified B-wing painted completely black with a pair of specially added bat ears attached to the cockpit window, on either side. He had also made a few other additions to the ship such as cloaking technology, but it could only be used when the ship was turned off. Other than that, he had added special stun-like effects onto the blasters of the ship. Instead of dealing damage to other starships, they were replaced with ion cannons which were designed only to disrupt the ship's electronic functions.

It was also a lot faster.

Batman boosted out of the batcave, accelerating so fast that it would be almost impossible for even nearby ships to know where it had come from. He pulled up a GPS and found an area in Gotham District that he felt could lead to good results.

There were other ships distant from him which were also preparing to land on Coruscant or were just leaving Coruscant, but none of them decided to talk to him. It was possible that they could not even see him on account of his ship's dark paintjob.

The planet became more detailed as he got closer; at first it was a giant gray blob but then individual shapes cleared and then finally he could see each different skyscraper. The city was full of skyscrapers, the industrial and academic center of the entire galaxy was right here and it was easy to see why.

If you wanted to make easy money, you came here. Or, if you wanted to interfere with those who made easy money, you came here.

Batman prepared to land his ship on top of one of the buildings. After landing, he quickly turned off the ship and activated the cloaking device. He stepped out using the ramp and pulled up a datapad which he had attached to one of his gauntlets.

It was hunting time.