The Bounty Hunters: Aurra Sing

The Bounty Hunters: Aurra Sing was the first issue in the Bounty Hunters series of comics, and was released on August 11, 1999.

Publisher's summary[]

She moves in silence, chooses her moment, and strikes without mercy. She is Aurra Sing, the most feared bounty hunter that the Republic has ever seen. Aurra has a talent for being in the right place at the right time, and an appetite for those places in the galaxy where chaos reigns and bounties are plentiful… and challenging! Dark Horse begins an all-new series of one-shots featuring the vilest mercenaries from every era of the Star Wars universe!

Plot summary[]

In the year 27 BBY, Aurra Sing traveled to the Forest Moon of Endor to meet with a mysterious priestess from an Endor sect of the Order of the Ffib. To ensure this bounty hunting mission was not a trap set up by the guild, Sing intimidated her employer with a dagger to the throat, even drawing a splash of red blood to be sure the priestess would not fight back. She then agreed to hear the details of her mission - find and kill Reess Kairn, a fallen Twi'lek Jedi who had killed his wife, turned to piracy and most recently raided the Great Temple on the Ffib homeworld of Lorahns, killing four members of the priesthood. Besides the significant threat of Kairn's Jedi training, the priestess explained, the main complication was his hiring of twin Shi'ido brothers as decoys. These shapeshifters made such convincing impostors that Sing would have to kill them all to be sure Kairn was truly dead. The bounty hunter received a datapad of three planets to search. The priestess described the locations as representing three types of matter.

The first planet was Hoth, representing liquid (water.) The target had hidden himself in a cave, attended by at least four trained wampas. Sing burst in, crushed several wampas in a cave-in, fatally wounded the pirate with her blaster pistol, and then escaped with her bounty, fleeing the remaining wampa with the help of a jetpack. Soon, a Dragon Slug joined the chase, having been awakened by the cave-in. Sing narrowly escaped, using a thermal detonator to kill the slug and collapse the mouth of the cave at the same time. Soon after, the target died and reverted to his Shi'ido form.

Sing travelled to Tatooine next, which represented fire (heat.) She found a suitable sniper perch overlooking the streets of Mos Espa. In the middle of remarking to herself that she loathes the place, she spotted a landspeeder with a potential Reess in the driver's seat and a young Wuher in the passenger's seat. Aiming her rifle, she shot her target in the forehead, just above his right eye, causing the speeder to crash into a fruit stand. The bounty hunter arrived at the scene just as the man died, revealing another Shi'ido. Making brief, nonchalant conversation with Wuher who was cowering nearby, she told him that the world is tough and that he should get used to it.

Bespin was the final planet on the datapad, representing sky (gasses and clouds.) Sing used an Airhook Speeder to attack her final target as he coached a team of Thranta rider acrobats. This turned out to be an ambush. More thranta riders emerged from the clouds, but these were armed warriors. After a brief skirmish, she took a direct blow to the head from a club but maneuvered the situation so that she fell onto another Thranta and kicked the rider off. The speeder, she sent careening toward her final target, who died when the fuel cells exploded. Sing expected this man to finally be Kairn, but was shocked to discover he was also a Shi'ido. The twins were in fact triplets.

The solution to this puzzle, Sing discovered, was to return to Endor, which represented an additional type of matter: land. There she found Kairn in his hut, packing his belongings. He had been disguised as the priestess the whole time. Sing silently stood in the doorway as Kairn mused to himself about using the disguise to not only hide but also as a bizarre form of repentance. To honor his wife, he'd used reconstructive surgery to make his body look like hers. To honor the four priests Ffib, he'd sworn himself to their teachings. His plans were to return to Lorahns and blend in with the rest of the Order. But before he could finish packing his belongings or notice Sing, she dramatically shot him.