The Case of the Missing Glitterstim (Denny)

[Kal Olorin]

Well, I'd had to face the music with Sasseeri, and it hadn't been pretty. For Weston, that was. I wasn't about to set myself up for punishment, and it had been fairly easy to spin the story into being completely the runner's fault.

It was completely Weston's fault, anyway. I never would have had to waste Black Sun resources to try to recover his lost load of spice if he hadn't been hot-rodding it to close to the Hoth asteroid belt. Micro asteroids had done a number on the hull in the engine room (so he said - we didn't really have any proof since the ship was gone) and he'd had to abandon ship due to lack of atmo and propulsion.

Anyway. The spice was gone, Sassy was furious, and Weston was hanging upside down somewhere from a balcony. I didn't feel guilty about it. I just had to find the scavenger who'd picked up the derelict freighter and made off with it.

I didn't really want to join Weston underneath the balcony.

[Denny O'Thange]

Denny straightened his best fancy jacket, adjusted his shiney hat and licked his teeth.

"I believe I'm expected." he grinned to the guards.

<i>Oh Smitty, Smitty, Smitty... you've no idea how happy you've made me.</i>

[Sasseeri Reeouurra]

The wine had lost its flavor, and Sasseeri barely managed to set down the thin goblet on a table without breaking the fluted glass. Her hands trembled, and she stood still for a moment... then backhanded the wine off the side table with a furious motion. Glass shattered and red liquid splashed onto the white marbled floor.

"ARRRRR!" The half-breed clenched her hands and spun about in place, as small cleaning droids deployed from the walls to sop up the spilled blood wine before it soaked into the spotless white shag rug that centered the room. "Such jincompetence! A whole shjipment!"

She'd already gone over the numbers in her head when Olorin had come to her with the news. Prime spice from Hutt space, smuggled through Imperial dragnets and interdiction points at great cost to the organization. Disguised as textiles marked for Dantooine delivery in another week... the freighter had been carrying almost five hundred kilograms of glitterstim that had actually been destined for the Core.

On the black market in Kuat the entire load would have been sold for at least a million credits. It wasn't like Weston had been entrusted with a ship full of Muon Gold or Booster Blue. Glitterstim was the most profitable spice there was, the trickiest to procure and the hardest to ship. It was photosensitive, for frells sake!

Sasseeri slammed her fist into her open palm, striding across the newly refreshed floor and out onto her private balcony. From this vantage point, high up in her Cloud City casino Cumulus, she could see a small figure dangling from an opposite spire. Weston had been pulled from the lifepod semi-comatose, and had only fully woken once he'd been suspended above the long drop to the core of Bespin. He'd confirmed everything that Olorin had told her before passing out from fear, or hunger, or too much blood in his head.

She hadn't fully decided whether she was going to have him pulled back up or not.

The comm system chirped, and the Vigo turned her head towards the inside of her suite, annoyed.

"A Mr. O'Thange is waiting out in the antechamber for you, Mistress," Tragoni, the AI in charge of Sasseeri's living quarters reported calmly, her disembodied voice coming from a speaker hidden out on the balcony. "Olorin has intercepted him."

She narrowed her eyes, trying to place the name and coming up blank. "Have them both shown in." Sasseeri flounced back out of the wind, throwing herself on a couch that formed itself around her slim body for maximum comfort. Flicking her manicured nails at the air, Sasseeri wriggled a bit more and adjusted her clothes. "Well? Show them in!"

[Kal Olorin]

"Denny?" I squinted at the tentacled alien, and waved off the guards. "You gotta lot of nerve coming up here."

Denny O'Thange merely preened a bit more and licked his teeth. He was as pleased as punch and I thought I might know why. I narrowed my eyes at him as Tragoni's smooth voice punctured the air.

"Ms. Reeouurra would like you both to join her inside," said the AI, and my shoulders slumped a little. I'd almost gotten away.

[Denny O'Thange]

"Kal... Kal," Denny moved him self around the human. "What ever differences we've had in the past are pointless my boy."

He adjusted himself and began following Kal into see Reeouurra. "Trust me..." he chuckled, "I'm here to help."

[Kal Olorin]

"Yeah," I muttered, "right." Adjusting my nerfhide jacket I opened the door to Sasseeri's inner rooms, blinking at the sudden bright light in her all-white sitting area.

She was lounging on a sofa, tail curled around one arm, with her cleavage proudly on display. As always. Her pale blue eyes narrowed at the sight of Denny, and she sat up a little, the couch conforming around her as she moved.

"What exactly jis so urrrgent, Mr. O'Thange?" Her eyes flicked to me, and I gave her an barely perceptible shrug. "jI don't have tjime to waste on pojintless talk."

[Denny O'Thange]

"Oh... oh... oh... you're greatness." Denny slipped his hat off and flattened himself on the floor before her, his yellow limbs stretching out in a star burst pattern. "You do me such honor!"

He half raised himself and peered at her, "I assure you I would not darken your doorway if it was not a matter I think you will be most keenly interested in." He licked his teeth and winked at Kal.

"Tell me, has anything of value gone missing lately?"

[Sasseeri Reeouurra]

When she laid eyes on her visitor, Sasseeri vaguely remembered a meeting being set up with a spice den owner from Port Town named Denny. When he splayed himself on the floor in front of her, tentacles all over the place, she thought she might even recognize him.

Not that it mattered, anyway, as his flattery was accepted as her due and the next words out of his mouth caught her full attention. Sasseeri resisted sitting up straighter, but shot Olorin a look. "Thjings go mjissjing all the tjime, Mrrr. O'Thange. Crrredjits jinto the sofa, pens, datacarrrds." She smiled, "Small, yellowish bejings jin top hats..."

[Kal Olorin]

First Denny was winking at me, and then Sassy was giving me the hard stare. I wasn't sure which one to look at, so I adjusted my position and tried to look bored.

Denny was small time - he had owned a bar in Port Town at one point but had lost it in a game of chance quite some time ago. That's why he was small time. Some people (I use the term loosely) could dream big and had the vision, but couldn't keep from sampling their own wares... or hitting the sabacc tables. How such a slimy (literally) individual had gotten wind of our missing spice was mystifying.

Well, like Sassy said, things go missing all the time. It was possible he was talking about something else.

Ha.

I reached down and pulled Denny up to his 'feet', resisting the urge to wipe my hands off immediately. "Perhaps you can get to the point, Denny?"

[Denny O'Thange]

Denny grinned wider at Reeouurra bearing his teeth a bit more, until he felt himself being pulled upwards.

"I... I think this," he quickly reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the black tube Smitty had brought him earlier, "is more than just a pen and worth a bit of your time?"

He held out the tube in one tentacle, flourished his hat with another and let the rest dangle near the floor while he twisted his head about between Kal and Reeouurra, "Eh?"

[Sasseeri Reeouurra]

She nodded to Olorin, and he took the black coated tube from the Gree and handed it over to her. Sitting up a bit more, she unsnapped the seal from both ends and unrolled the tube, exposing the small quantity of spice that had been protected by the lightproof paper wrapping.

The glitterstim sparkled as it soaked in the light, activating the spice. Sasseeri raised an eyebrow and took a small pinch between finger and thumb. Placing it on her tongue, the Cizerack half-breed let the spice crunch between her teeth. Its effects were felt almost immediately, a warm glow spreading down her throat, tickling her nose, and a slight sense of the minds of the two beings in front of her.

She had not ingested much, and she handed the opened package back to Olorin, who seemed disgusted. Sasseeri frowned, but realized his feelings were centered on O'Thange, not her. She smiled at the Gree, sitting forward abruptly. "Yes, indeed this is worth my time. Tell me what you know of my lost shipment."

[Denny O'Thange]

"Oh oh oh..." Denny's tentacles flipped about himself and straightened his red jacket a bit. "I know who has it, I know who took it, I know it's in this system..." he grinned and chuckled.

"But most of all," he stretched his head towards Reeouurra, "I know this information is very... valuable."