Corellia: It's A Small World

[Avar Adamas]

The Eldest Brother Casino and Resort - Kor Vella, Corellia

There were few forces in the galaxy less potent than desire. Morals and obligations could make a man do a lot of things; but desire could make him do anything. It's secret lay in it's diversity: greed, envy, hunger, lust; fame and fortune, truth and justice; family; loss; knowledge; vengeance. No matter how noble the man, you could always find something they craved if you were prepared to dig deep enough; and when it came to Avar's methods, it usually wound up being something elegantly simple, like wanting you to stop slicing off fingers or searing off chunks of flesh.

As effective as Avar's methods were however, his successes paled in comparison to Black Sun. They'd taken sentient desire and turned it into a business model. Whether it was the thrill of gambling, the buzz of narcotics, the confidentiality of black market merchandise, or a Twi'leki slave girl of exactly the right shade of green, Black Sun would find a way to cater to your every want and whim; provided your credit book was robust enough to compensate them for their time and effort, of course.

Of course, like so many successful business models, much of Black Sun's enterprise came in franchise form. While the best and brightest of the galaxy's mercenaries, smugglers, and bounty hunters did eventually find their way onto Black Sun's payroll, most were third parties. It was a smart move: such arrangements largely avoided the kind of paper trail that could incriminate members of Black Sun's organisation; and it made them far more expendable, too. Black Sun had no qualms about paying a few extra credits if it would get them a smuggler stupid enough to do a near-suicide run. They had no qualms about "buying" friends in high places either; and that was where Avar Adamas came in.

Avar was a man of very little personal importance. He'd been a simple trader back before the Clone Wars: not a lucrative career perhaps, but it had been an honest one. The war had changed things though: galactic turmoil and the Imperial stranglehold that followed made it harder and harder for honest men to make a living. Times had grown dire, and Avar had been forced to seek help. Unfortunately, he sought it from the wrong people: not from Black Sun, but from the Hutts.

His people - the Besalisks of Ojom - had a troublesome history with the Hutts. One might have thought that a homeworld in the Deep Core would have kept them safely away from the Hutt's attention, but sadly that was the case. All too often, Avar had seen Besalisk make devil-deals with the Hutts as a way to evade enslavement and bankruptcy; they were easy to see when you were among their number. Twelve years ago, a Hutt named Rath had been gracious enough to offer Avar a lone but, unable to make repayments in as timely a fashion as the Hutt would have liked, Avar ultimately found himself indentured to the Hutt's employ.

Working for a man like Rath changed you. The honest trader had been stripped away; an increasingly scarred, calloused, and bitter husk was left behind. How he'd gone from who he'd been to who he was, Avar couldn't be sure: it had been a slippery slope, plagued by increasingly darker shades of grey. Courier runs turned into smuggling; then Avar began collecting debts rather than cargo. Simple intimidation turned into broken limbs; and before he knew what was happening, Avar found blood on his hands.

The worst part of all was realising that he enjoyed it.

That knowledge has turned Avar's eyes dark and filled them with rage; it was that which fuelled the glare that he levelled at the unsuspecting maître d'. "I'm here for Garrick," he growled. "Where is he?"

Ruo's eyes widened ever so slightly, but to his credit he managed to maintain his cool. "Mister Kane is indisposed at the moment," he apologised, doing his utmost to keep the fluster out of his voice. "But perhaps I can make an appointment -"

One of four gargantuan, muscled arms hefted Ruo effortlessly from the ground, a not so gentle shove tossing him backwards a few feet. "He's in here," Avar grunted. His nose twitched as he sniffed the air, keen avian eyes sweeping the casino floor. His gaze settled on the panoramic window of the office that held vigil over the haven of greed and debauchery that Black Sun had built. If Avar was a pretentious, self-absorbed asshole, that's where he'd be watching from.

Potion in Avar's peripheral vision alerted Avar to a closer threat. Four security guards had melted out of the crowd, their easily concealable blasters - a subtle choice of firearm, no doubt to avoid alarming their well-paying guests - held in as threatening a way as they could manage.

A throaty chuckle escaped from Avar's lips. "You have any idea what happens when you shoot a Besalisk with a blaster that small?" He craned forward, shoulders dropping as he descended to eye level with the nearest guard. "It stings a little, and makes us real grumpy."

"Mister Adamas," Ruo interrupted, the edge of mild threat in his voice suggesting that the little runt had grown a couple of pairs in the last split second. Avar's head snapped around, the threat in his gaze turned on the impetuous runt. To his credit, Ruo didn't buckle. "I can assure you that Garrick Kane is not here. He's out of the city on business, and won't be back until tomorrow. If you'd like, I can arrange for a room until he gets here."

Avar maintained his glare in silence, his huge eyes twitching as he studied the details of Ruo's face. A grunt finally escaped. "You've got some quads after all," he muttered. He rolled his shoulders, loosening a little of the tension that was building up. "Twenty-four hours," he stated, though the undertone was clear. "Either Garrick is here, or I tear open your vault myself, and collect what is owed."

He didn't wait for acknowledgement or confirmation; this wasn't a negotiation, and he had no intention of allowing it to become one. A final glare thrown at the nearest guard, he turned and left, each stomping step shuddering the floor beneath his feet.

Ruo waited until the Besalisk was out of sight - and more importantly, out of earshot - before a hand delved into his jacket, plucking out his comlink. His thumb triggered the activation stud; he didn't wait for the man on the other end to respond.

"You just had a visitor," he explained. "I'm no expert, but I think he was a little unhappy with you."

[Garrick Kane]

Coronet City, Corellia


Garrick stepped out of the taxi speeder and sighed, stopping to pass a credit chit through the window to the driver before he stepped into the flow of pedestrians. "Adamas," he inferred, his voice picked up by the comlink headset hooked around his ear.

Dealing with the Hutts was problematic. The galaxy's unsavoury characters came in all shapes and sizes, and while the core worlds had their fair share of violent and thuggish criminals, the Hutts managed to cultivate an entirely more brutish breed. On Corellia, criminals might rough you up and break a few bones in order to get their point across: in such civilised parts of the galaxy, that was intimidating enough to warn others that your gang, group, or organization was not to be messed with, and if it wasn't, throats were quietly slashed. On Nar Shaddaa, you were just as likely to have your head removed and attached to a pike outside some Hutt crime lord's palace. It was those subtleties that made this line of work so interesting.

Of course, when overreaction that intense was the status quo, it might seem like dealing with the Hutts was a foolish endeavour. While Garrick did not necessarily agree with their methods however, he couldn't complain about their results. Hutts didn't have to sneak around to evade Imperial scrutiny, and the Empire was seldom stupid enough to mess with them directly. The narcotics, slaves, and other contraband that fuelled so much of the galaxy's criminal market place were usually either sourced by or from the Hutts, or had passed through their slimy hands at some point. When you were as high up in the criminal chain as Garrick, dealing with the Hutts was an inevitable part of life.

Of course, which Hutt you dealt with made all the difference. Rath Ouisii Dae - aptly known as 'Wrath' to the basic-speaking portion of those who knew him - was a fairly minor Hutt in the grand scheme of things. He liked to call himself an Ambassador for the Ouisii clan, as if that would somehow make him seem more respectable and legitimate. What made him valuable - and dangerous - to the likes of Black Sun and Garrick was the sheer scope of his own enterprises, both criminal and above board. Rath entrapped people with loans that seemed too good to be true, and often were. Those indebted to him became a cheap labour force, with Rath trading out portions of their debt in return for their services; as best as Black Sun could tell, his profit margins were even wider than his waistline.

Being such a minor figure in the Hutt Cartel however, Rath was eager for new business opportunities, and that made him more open to negotiating favourable prices. Garrick wasn't sure how long things would remain that way; best to make the most of it while he could. Rath of course was determined to establish as commanding a position as possible in his fledgeling relationship with Black Sun, hence the show of force from his favourite enforcer. Garrick was equally determined to demonstrate to the Hutt that his playground tactics wouldn't work for him here.

"Sit tight," Garrick instructed, sidestepping quickly to dodge a pedestrian who clearly wasn't watching where they were going. "Everything is under control."