The Finest Leaf in Nar Shaddaa [Archive]

Enchanting Wizard

Mar 11th, 2013, 10:00:29 PM

Sanis Prent

Mar 11th, 2013, 11:50:22 PM

"Nar Shaddaaaa, Nar Shaddaaaa....my kind of moooon....

...sang no one, ever."

Even the free drinks and free skin show (amazing what doors open when you're Sasseeri Reeouurra's bag man) did little to scrub off the patina of rust and filth from this place. While it felt great to get a little slack in the line that tethered me to my temperamental boss, it was probably her own sadistic idea to send me back to the humble roots of my self loathing.

At least Adjerban was miserable too. I passed him the half full bottle I'd used to refresh my glass.

"At least I still remember half the people that hold weight on this shit pile. Put the right words in the right ears. The honeypot will attract flies, just have to hope they're the right ones."

Everyone pushed dope on Nar Shaddaa at some point. It was just like stealing and any other hustle, really. Kept you fed. Fortunately for me, the two-bit hoods I used to run with didn't have half my ambition, and were more or less in a holding pattern. Not smart enough to get off planet, or at least not stupid enough to risk catching a blast in their bubblegoose for the privilege to do just that.

The problem was that you didn't want to come off as too much of a macher. Hungry dogs might bite, even if they're usually friendly dogs. I left my nicer getup back on Cloud City, content to don the kind of gear I used to wear in another life.

I turned to say something else to Adj, only to find him getting a face full of fake bongos. At least these girls were plus teeth and minus c-section scars. Classy joint.

"What I want to know is, how the old lady is so sure these two idiots are gonna press their luck? Gambling's fun and all, but if I'm in their shoes and I steal from her and get away with it, I make it my life's mission not to cross her path by another ten parsecs for the rest of my days."

I grimaced as I said that. Part of me wished I'd listened to my advice. Mostly it was the part of me that was sitting on a probably-stained couch with a ripped cushion in the middle of Nar Shaddaa.

Kale

Mar 12th, 2013, 10:31:06 PM

Bota was a rare plant species native to very few planets in the galaxy such as Drongar. It was highly valued during the Clone Wars, as it had certain medicinal effects for each species and supposedly gave Jedi--

Kale's view of the datapad screen was suddenly obscured by a pair of emerald green arms as they wrapped around his chest from behind. "Mmm, Kale, if it's drrrrugs you want, I can rrrrecommend some good onesss."

"I bet you can, babe," Kale replied. "But I'm not lookin' for a thrill."

No, if he wanted that, he just had to look back and to the left to find his exotic companion draped over him with her typically lascivious abandon. Just a few short months ago he'd been living hand-to-mouth on the strength of petty theft and small-time cons, trying more than anything just to stay off the radar of anybody important. Meeting Rai'raa had widened his horizons. In more ways than one.

Kale stood up from the sleek stateroom desk - even the furniture on this ship was aerodynamic - and crossed to one of the oval portholes overlooking the grimy Nar Shadaa skyline. They were in one of the few neighborhoods on the Smuggler's Moon that could reasonably be called upscale, which meant the crime was better organized, and if you were robbed, you could ask for a receipt. It was a risk landing somewhere so visible, especially with Black Sun's Nal Tra'a Casino just a couple hundred klicks away, but a Horizon-class star yacht was visible wherever you parked it, and Kale wasn't keen on coming back to find it sitting up on proverbial cinder blocks.

"These are bota plants," Kale said, tapping the datapad. "Real fragile, has to be frozen in carbonite to have any shelf life. A batch like this is probably good for thirty thousand credits to the right buyer, but it might be even more valuable to us."

He turned around and floated the datapad above his hand. "See, it's supposed to enhance an adept's connection to the Force."

Rai'raa Anjumi

Mar 12th, 2013, 11:08:13 PM

"Mmmhmm..." Rai'raa snagged the 'pad from Kale, a slight tug in her grasp as he released his invisible hold on it, and looked at it a bit more closely. "So, wherrre is this bota, and what arrre we waiting forrr?" She sat on the edge of the desk, her tail looping casually through the crook of her elbow.

"Word is some Black Sun lackey bought it off a Hutt a few days ago. Stupid slith dealer probably doesn't even know what he's got. We're going to pay him a visit as a couple of interested customers." Kale let her keep the datapad but stole a kiss, and then he disappeared down the passage toward the cabins.

She tapped the 'pad with her fingertips and then abandoned it on the desk, following him and looking through her closet for some suitable clothes. She really was going to try to decide on what to wear without having to change outfits ten times. Everything did look good on her, after all. It was just a matter of finding the right clothes for a job.

In the end she settled on a pair of tight black nerf leather pants and a white tank top, and covered it with a well worn leather jacket. A pair of scuffed boots completed the look. Rai'raa turned toward Kale and raised an eyebrow. "You'rrre wearrring that?"

Kale

Mar 12th, 2013, 11:20:19 PM

Kale looked down at himself. In the time she'd taken to craft her ensemble, he'd just thrown on the silvery-gray Melanani suit he'd bought on Corellia over a tailored black shirt.

"I'm going for young, rich, and stupid. You always say I do it so well."

Enchanting Wizard

Mar 13th, 2013, 09:35:51 PM

Valrya docked her ship in the grimy Hutt-controlled central landing bay of Nar Shaddaa. Lurid neon advertisements for bars and dance clubs illuminated the dirty ground in flashing colors, making the shadows seem even blacker by comparison. She narrowed her dark blue eyes against the glare and walked briskly away from her beloved Cynthia, keeping to the shadows as much as possible.

Darkness never bothered the smuggler. She could always sense the presence of others nearby, much as she could usually tell when someone was lying, and persuade people to see things her way. Valrya tried not to dwell on these extra-sensory abilities too much, because even thinking that she might be Force-sensitive could attract unwanted Imperial attention. Besides, darkness concealed her from prying eyes, which was a gift of inestimable value in most of her work.

She scanned the surveillance holos for Jorba’s palace en route from Nal Hutta and saw he face of the Black Sun “thief” and his fellow thug, as well as the model of the ship they took to get here. An old acquaintance of hers managed a not-entirely –unsavory “gentlemen’s club” nearby, and she knew she could trust Dagny to have her eyes and ears open.

Adjerban the Interloper

Mar 17th, 2013, 10:54:44 AM

Fake bongos weren’t really my thing, but this was by far one of the better clubs on Nar Shadda and some simpletons just like’d em big. You played the hand you were dealt.

Both Sanis and I looked appropriately seedy. Just good enough and clean enough to not be dirty, but not classy in the least. My jacket was a size too big, and our shoes had seen better days. Everything was well worn and comfortable. It was a nice vacation from my work suit.

Sanis, though? Sanis gravitated toward the glam and kissed it with vigor. He wanted to have sex with visual success. He wore the clothes with a degree of reluctance. Now disengaged from the stripper and a credit lighter for the trouble, I refilled my glass. To be complementary: it was alcohol, it wouldn’t poison you with externalities, and it didn’t taste bad.

“Gambler’s fallacy. They think the coin is finally flippin’ their way, but it’s just an outlier, because the thing is loaded for the house.”

We continued to drink and bullshit, the rental of our seats gradually extracted by women of various colors and species, mercifully Twi-leks, humans and similar. Then, a half hour later, I noticed a subtle change in the club traffic. This was the sort of thing you pick up on when working security for years, or cheat at cards. Fortunately for me, I did both.

Someone had noticed us, and specifically us.

Sanis Prent

Mar 17th, 2013, 11:25:03 AM

"Scram, you two."

I tossed a few more chits to tip the skin show, and the girls in front of our sofa disappeared, allowing us to dispense with the illusion of this being a pure R&R gig. It was time to work, and we both knew what was expected of us.

Rather than killing the drink in front of me, I followed Adj's lead, topping it off from the bottle. If our marks intended to bullshit, we might want to song and dance for a few minutes after all.

Kale

Mar 17th, 2013, 10:52:07 PM

Kale had spent close to half his life looking at the world through the eyes of a thief. He'd learned to recognize all those little cues that sorted the good marks from the bad ones - This one's an off-worlder. That one's trouble. This lady's never been below floor one hundred. This guy's carrying heat.

Now he was on the cutthroat streets of the Vertical City in a designer suit with a rare piece of mint candy on his arm, dozens of eyes watching them hungrily from the shadows, and he made sure they saw what he wanted them to see. No slouch in his shoulders, no shuffle in his step, he moved with purpose and, what was almost as important, with an audacity that gave pickpockets and muggers pause. Anyone strutting like that on these streets was either a syndicate man or a fool, and if you were living on the margins, you couldn't afford to guess wrong.

Kale sensed a shadow of a threat over his left shoulder and glanced to see a grubby preteen boy leaning out of his hiding spot across the street, hovering on the edge of a decision. Kale made it for him with a coyote grin, and the boy shrank back a row of garbage cans.

The pair of thieves turned off the street and into an alleyway, where they stepped out of the evening gloom and into the neon glare of a nightclub, the sort that had a security cage around the bar and visibly armed bouncers. Slith dealers plied their trade in the open, but that was only because the back rooms were reserved for more sensitive deals.

Kale led Rai'raa to the cordon encircling the VIP lounge and passed a few words and a credit chit to the stone-faced Gran in a suit guarding the entrance. The trinocular behemoth stepped aside and admitted them. Kale threw a swagger into his step as he entered. It didn't take long to find their mark, but he pretended to take in the scenery first, such as it was, and snagged himself a flute of something violently purple on his way to Sanis and Adjerban's table.

"Mr. Prent?" he asked, and there was no trace of the Southern Underground in his voice now. "Alexei Chernov. This is my associate, Amara Neyani. Do you mind if we join you?"

Rai'raa Anjumi

Mar 18th, 2013, 10:01:15 AM

Rai'raa had changed again, ditching the spacers pants and scuffed boots for some sparkly leggings and heels so as to better match Kale's expensive suit. She was used to working in stilettos, enjoyed wearing them, and so there wasn't even a hint of a waver in her step as she held his arm.

Of course, with four inch heels she also got the edge in height over him by a good two inches. She looked over the two men in the booth, but didn't bother using any of her Falleen pheromones to boost their agreeableness. In a place like this the air was already thick with cheap synthetic 'mones, sprayed onto the dancers to attract better tips. They weren't nearly as potent as her own of course, but she was very familiar with how clubs such as this one worked.

Not that any club on Zeltros was nearly as seedy as this one.

She let Kale do the talking, looking around a bit and checking for anyone else paying attention to their little meeting.

Adjerban the Interloper

Mar 18th, 2013, 09:24:01 PM

Sure it was buddy. I raised only an eyebrow. This dude was bluffing from the outset. C'mon kid. This wasn't our first hand of sabacc. They were full of bantha dung, but there wasn't a need to make a fiasco out of it yet.

"Have a seat." I offered. Why not? Because, haha, what could go wrong?

I kept my hands above board, and used one to lift the glass and take a sip. Honest, I'm not going to Solo you under the table. Everyone be cool.

Enchanting Wizard

Mar 18th, 2013, 10:12:34 PM

Sanis Prent

Mar 18th, 2013, 10:52:26 PM

"Did you bring the creds?"

I didn't particularly feel much like foreplay. Not on Nar Shaddaa. If we could keep this on a more-or-less transactional basis that allowed me to get off-world without fuss, that was how I'd like to play it, thank you.

For my part, I eased a thermos-sized cyllinder onto the table's surface between us. A bit of the real deal as a good faith display. Adj and I couldn't well move product here, but we couldn't exactly talk business with just our dicks in our hands either.

Beyond the flash-dressed machers, I could see a bit of a stir going on. Like Adj, I wasn't blind, and you had to be able to feel heat around the corner in this line of work.

Kale

Mar 19th, 2013, 08:58:47 AM

The guy was moving fast, but that wasn't necessarily to Kale's advantage. Fast meant less time to work over the other side with his, and Rai'raa's, particular talents.

He never took his eyes off Prent as he fished a large-denomination credit chit from his pocket, the kind that could be keyed for up to fifty grand and couldn't be transferred or accessed without biometric confirmation. It was a great security feature, unless you were dealing with the type of business that didn't mind chopping off your hand.

Kale displayed the chit between his thumb and forefinger and then just as quickly made it disappear. "I'd like to inspect the product to verify its authenticity."

Not that he knew if he could tell bota leaves in carbonite freeze from millaflowers. But it would give him a chance to read his marks, and it would give Rai'raa a chance to work her magic on them. Under the table he lightly tapped her foot with his own. One tap - that meant let's make everybody at the table just a little happier.

Rai'raa Anjumi

Mar 19th, 2013, 11:28:29 AM

She was sitting next to Kale, looking like a disinterested girlfriend, and he tapped her foot. Rai'raa, or rather, Amarra, turned her eyes to the pointy eared one without moving the rest of her body, her Falleen physiology producing pheromones at her whim. Unlike the synthetic stuff, this was the real deal, and at such close quarters the two Black Sun males would be affected.

One tap meant a little happier, so she only exuded pheromones for a few moments, rolling her shoulders back a little and tilting her chin up a bit as she continued to look at the Black Sun lackey. When he met her eyes she gave him a slow wink, then returned her attention to Kale and the deal that was happening.

Adjerban the Interloper

Mar 19th, 2013, 07:24:38 PM

I took a drink because... because I was feelin' awright. Why was I feelin' good feelin' great?

Probably because Sanis and I were on top of this like scouts on speeder bikes. Wait, on Endor that was a bad analogy.

I looked at Sanis and shrugged. We had sliver of the product on hand just for such an occasion. It was frozen in carbonite and it wouldn't be our heads if we screwed this part up.

Sanis twisted the cylinder and it neatly split in half, revealing the carbonite frozen contents.

Enchanting Wizard

Mar 21st, 2013, 08:22:52 AM

Kale

Mar 22nd, 2013, 01:15:18 PM

Well, this had just gotten more interesting.

Kale was already busy holding off the effects of Rai'raa's happy juice, which he was swimming in just as Sanis and Adjerban were. The difference was he was expecting it, and he'd had practice filling his head with shockball statistics to keep his higher brain functions treading water. But having six muscle-headed goons breathing down his neck was like a cold shower to the soul.

"Woah, hey, hey now." He lifted his hands, palms out, and made a nervous waving-sort-of motion in the direction of Sanis and Adjerban: "None of us wants any trouble, right?"

He turned back toward the new chick and offered her the same, subtle Suggestion. "None of us wants any trouble."

Sanis Prent

Mar 22nd, 2013, 01:37:43 PM

Whatever this green chick was selling, I definitely wanted to buy. Probably best to arrange a side piece after business though. Exactly what could she have done to make Sassy so mad anyway?

"Carbon sealed and all, to keep those essential oils intact. You can scan it all the same if you'd like. It's..."

My voice trailed off at the arrival of someone I didn't expect. Cute enough face, but I didn't know about this one. She took a seat like it was all a part of the deal, and as she talked, it quickly sounded sideways. Whatever thoughts I had about Miss Green over there were on the back burner. Definitely so once she mentioned Jorba the Hutt.

"That's right, no trouble."

I could count, though. Six hangers-on, and none of them looked like the kind that were brought along for talking. This was annoying, and I set my drink aside.

"Look, tell your boss the deal's not off, it's done. It was done when money changed hands and we left. That's how a deal works, and that's business. This..."

I gestured between me & Adj, and over to Alexei and Amara.

"...is also business. Business you're interrupting, so take your friends elsewhere and maybe I'll run Jorba's complaint up the flagpole later on."

That probably wouldn't be enough for her, but if I didn't have to break into some gangster shit here, that would be nice.

Rai'raa Anjumi

Mar 22nd, 2013, 01:55:09 PM

She'd sat up straighter when the new arrivals crowded the table, and now Rai'raa was tempted to amp the pheromones to eleven and beat a quick retreat. This was getting way too complicated.

Still, arousing so many huge people was probably a really bad idea. You had to be prepared to deal with the consequences when dealing with stimulating someone's desire for sex, and 'dealing with the consequences' with so many people would be a little too much. Well, on the other hand...

Rai'raa dialed back the pheromones. With the intruders to this intimate table it wasn't likely to be having much effect anymore at the levels she'd been using (not that it was an exact science, but she'd had a lot of practice). Her foot nudged Kale's under the table. Two taps. We should leave.

Adjerban the Interloper

Mar 23rd, 2013, 03:49:08 PM

Aw fuck. I hate everyone not named Sanis Prent right now, and maybe the two bluffers in front of us. At least one of them was easy on the eyes, and the other one wanted to play the game a little.. My hand had slipped under the table and was now chillaxin’ with it’s Dunderheaded Lighter-upper Seventeen, because Sixteen isn’t enough.

I took another drink. I was not remotely intoxicated enough for this shit. My ears drooped because I was goddamn irate that some Hutt messenger thought they could try this. Hutts are the worst. I hoped they backed off but I doubted it. It was time to see if they'd see reason.

“The are a lot of fundamental problems with this approach you’re playing at. Unless you’re interested in us specifically or starting a gang war, this isn’t going to get you much. Yes, we’re of value to the Black Sun organization, but you know how that is. Right now we’re fencing some expensive goods because we’re reliable schlubs who can talk to people. And sure, theoretically you could kick the shit out of us or shoot us, but that would just net you this sample. We don’t have the main plate of goods on us. No one carries product except some fuckin’ junkies, and we wouldn’t be sitting at this table if we were junkies.” I took another drink.

“So that leaves us a few options. You can give us chance to drop some notes on the holonet and see if we can be accommodating or you can have a ruckus over two fences and a sample.”

Enchanting Wizard

Mar 25th, 2013, 09:44:04 PM

Kale

Mar 31st, 2013, 08:03:27 PM

Kale felt Rai'raa's urgent tapping under the table, and he deftly lifted his foot to hook hers and plant it to the floor. Not one of their prearranged signals, but the meaning was clear: Just wait a minute. He was positive there was an angle here he could work on - he just needed to find it.

"I thought you had the product free and clear, Prent," he said. "Should I be buying from her instead?"

Sanis Prent

Mar 31st, 2013, 11:40:15 PM

All I had to do was light my stim...

The bar suddenly came to life with ten patrons abandoning the drinks they were nursing and drawing blasters, lining the potential buyers and the would-be ewok giver in their sights. They weren't company men, but once again, you mention the right names and you show enough credits, and they might as well be. Either way, I wasn't dumb enough to be here without insurance.

Exhaling purple smoke, I kept my cool. This was already getting hairier than Adj preferred, and I was with him on keeping things copacetic.

"Like I said before, there's no problem. And there's not gonna be a problem."

My eyes were on Valrya at that moment, and my hands above board. I didn't need to be the triggerman if she really wanted to go out like that.

Rai'raa Anjumi

Apr 1st, 2013, 12:21:50 AM

Rai'raa tugged her foot free from underneath Kale's, her face impossibly smooth even as everything around them went from bad to worse. "No problem here," she said, looking at the Black Sun human while stomping down on Kale's foot to teach him a lesson about knowing when to fold 'em.

Unfortunately, and unknown to her, Rai'raa stepped on Adjerban's foot instead of Kale's.

Adjerban the Interloper

Apr 1st, 2013, 06:30:42 PM

Fortunately for me, I had put the drink down. Unfortunately, I still had the stien in hand. I slammed the thick glass against the table in shock. The table rattled with impact.

I went cross-eyed with pain and my ears swept back, like a bird going into a dive. I gritted my teeth. Now the only reason I wasn’t about to flip the table was because the sample was several week’s salary, and the fact was, you break it, you buy it.

Fortunately for everyone else I practiced trigger discipline like I was the high-fuckin’-priest of its cult. There was nothing worse than some amateure that goes around with their finger on the blaster trigger and oops it’s a kilo trigger and blam a friend is dead. Ma! I shot my gosh durned foot off.

I stood slowly, like I was God’s hardon for violence. My body quivered with adrenaline, and my brain was shorting out between drink/fuck/fight at our stripey green friend. I know what a high-heel on the foot feels like.

“What. The. Seven-Fuck-Hells WAS THAT?” I declared. I yelled. I was yelling. Shit.

Enchanting Wizard

Apr 8th, 2013, 08:50:39 PM

Kale

Apr 12th, 2013, 04:24:06 PM

Opportunity walked out the door on long, shapely legs with spacer boots. It wasn't that Kale wanted to see a violent altercation, but the threat of violence could be a wonderful distraction in situations like this. Sort of like how Kale was distracted by the fact that, even after the smuggler had walked off with her brute squad, Prent's goons still had their blasters out.

His eyes dipped to the open cylinder on the table as he tried to visualize a scenario that would let him and Rai'raa walk away with the sample in tow and their heads not blasted into paste.

"So..." Kale reached into his jacket and pulled out a small bottle with an inhaler nozzle on top. "Kids these days, huh?"

He leaned back and spritzed the inhaler's contents into both nostrils - it scorched its way through his nose and bombarded his sinuses, and it was all he could do to keep from choking on the acidic fumes. The stuff was a bitch, but it was the only thing he'd found that could counteract Rai'raa's love perfume, and it was his signal to her that she needed to take things to the next level. It was a risk with this many people around, but things had gone sour, and he needed some chaos to even the odds.

Kale replaced the bottle and smiled. "Just needed a little something to calm me down. Hey, maybe you should try some," he added in Adjerban's direction. "Now, where were we?"

Rai'raa Anjumi

Apr 15th, 2013, 11:54:31 AM

She was trying to stammer out an apology to the irate pointy eared one when the Hutt's bitch stalked out of the room and Kale was pulling out their last resort. Okay then.

Rai'raa put out a hand toward Adjerban in a soothing gesture. "I am so sorry, I didn't mean to hurt your foot." As she spoke the area was flooded with strong pheromones, working on and activating the sexual desires of the two Black Sun males. She bit her lower lip, staring at him a little longer than necessary, and then looked at Sanis. She rolled her shoulders a little, her posture changing in a hundred subtle ways to make it very clear that she wanted him.

You didn't grow up in a brothel on Zeltros without learning how to seduce a man with a look - and that was without the help of pheromones.

Sanis Prent

Apr 22nd, 2013, 10:08:16 PM

"Keep an eye on her."

I spoke to one of the Gran gunman, gesturing past him to where Valrya had made her exit. This ended without anyone losing an eye or worse, so by my count that was a win. Still, the Hutt's fetch girl had made a clumsy swipe at the cache, and there was a chance she'd try that sort of thing again, so it didn't hurt to keep tabs.

Also, as my eyes returned to Miss Green, I was fairly certain that I didn't want to do any real heavy lifting, and was plenty comfortable right here. Suddenly cottonmouthed, I sipped at my drink, flagging down the waitron as I did.

"Let's get this little meeting back on better footing, and let me buy you a drink."

I wasn't really talking to her friend. He could get his own for all I cared.

Adjerban the Interloper

Apr 24th, 2013, 08:46:33 PM

My glass was refilled and I chugged the thing in the vain hope for enough of a buzz to erase the dull throb of my foot. I hate fuckin’ flirts, and despite how badly I wanted to gently toss her onto a bed right now, the pain and annoyance kept my mind sharp.

“Any of you guys want a drink?” I waved a finger across the room at the company payroll. A few no’s, but mostly yeses. I was gonna buy. After all, I got a sore foot and an apology, which was way better than a blaster or a knife to the body. I flexed my foot and visibly winced.

Sanis busy, but I was still pissed.

“You want a drink?” I pointed at the monkey in the suit.

Enchanting Wizard

Apr 27th, 2013, 07:40:23 PM

Kale

Mar 21st, 2014, 12:01:13 PM

The monkey in the suit nodded at Adjerban. "Anything Corellian," he said, though he didn't actually care if the pointy-eared bastard heard him. The gang's attention was drifting toward Rai'raa now, which was just the way he wanted it. She was the hand waving the colorful scarf, and he was the hand doing subtle things with sabacc cards in his sleeve.

Both Kale's sleeves were immaculate as he folded his hands back on the table. "I believe we were just about to inspect the product, Mr. Prent. If it's not what we came for, we might have to leave... and I'd hate to have come all this way for nothing."

Rai'raa Anjumi

Mar 23rd, 2014, 10:39:11 AM

Rai'raa smiled prettily as Prent bought her a drink and listened to Kale. "Yes," she added, "I do want to see what you're packing." That comment didn't even need a wink to go with it.

Sanis Prent

Mar 23rd, 2014, 11:21:37 AM

Good, we still wanted to talk business. That was what I wanted to hear. I gave the cylinder another tap, and eased it forward.

"Like I said, feel free to take a look. I'm certain you'll be pleased with the quality."

It was expensive, like Adj said, but this was all fronted as good faith. A discrete shopper might simply use scanners. If they wanted to break the seal as it were, they'd waste the contents inside but they'd get every bit of a good look within.

Kale

Mar 23rd, 2014, 12:24:35 PM

Kale tipped the canister so he could see inside, and, as expected, he couldn't make head or tails of the crumpled, pewter-plated mess inside. Could have been bota, could have been tin foil for all he knew. On a sudden whim of inspiration, he moved to the keypad on the near side of the cylinder and nimbly punched in the thawing sequence. He could feel Rai'raa's eyes boring into the side of his head as a thousand credits' worth of product sizzled out of its protective carbonite shell. Didn't matter. There were nine hired guns between them and safety, and he wasn't sure he could evade all of them without a little help from some friends.

And there they were, shaking off the last few carbonite crystals, as fresh and green as the day they had been cut from their stems on Drongar - a half-dozen or so leaves, long, thin, and crisp. Kale scooped them out and rolled them daintily through his fingers. Even that was enough to feel the Force sparking around them, like pop rocks on the back of your tongue.

For the sake of theatrics, he ran the leaves across his nose and inhaled deeply, and his eyes danced below closed lids as if he'd just taken a hit of something strong and sweet. When he opened them again, he held them just slightly out of focus. Had to stay in character, after all. "Ohhhh, yeah, that's the stuff. And you've got five crates of these? Same quality?"

He dropped the leaves back into their container, one by one - except for the one he held back, secure against the palm of his hand, and then secreted up his designer sleeve.

"Mr. Prent, I think you've found yourself a buyer."

Valrya

Mar 29th, 2014, 07:57:11 AM

A shadow grew on the wall, its green outline flickering as the Twi'lek danced. The creature that cautiously advanced toward her, shadow growing larger frame by frame in the intermittent light, had triangular ears that pointed outward from the sides of its head. Suddenly the shadow stopped, and turned to the side as though listening for her footsteps. Valrya held her breath and shrank back against the corner, recognizing the profile of a Gran.
Arming herself to the teeth before the confrontation in the bar had been a great idea, Valrya decided. She detached a flash bang from her belt, crouched low and tossed it around the corner at the Gran. Eyes shut tight, she heard the explosion and saw a flash of red through her eyelids that signaled detonation. The blinded Gran drew his blaster and filled the concrete wall in front of him with bolts. Crouched low, Valrya peered around the corner with her own blaster. She took careful aim, and shot the Gran in his blaster hand, sending his blaster flying. He bellowed in pain, ducking down and blindly groping around on the ground for his blaster. Valrya walked up and kicked it down the alley, placing her blaster against his head so that he could feel the warm barrel against his skin. "Get up." she commanded. Clutching his wounded hand to his chest, the Gran obeyed. "You're going to take me to the ship where they are keeping my bota, and then you're going to disappear."

Sanis Prent

Apr 4th, 2014, 07:30:18 PM

I made a play at talking numbers, knowing exactly how much to peg the cache at to make it seem sporting. A half mil was good and round, gave a bit of gravitas to the game we were playing. The guy in the suit tried to play that number down, citing the conflict of interest with the Hutts. I was willing to shave 15k off the top to account for the added risk factor, but made it pretty clear that Black Sun could fence the goods on name alone in a dozen other star systems without having to cross Imperial entanglements. After taking a moment to discuss things with Miss Green, he agreed on the figure. The only thing I wanted to see now was earnest money. This wasn't a game for gawkers, and they'd know it was pay to play. The 15k I whittled off the top also seemed like a good number for them to put skin in the game. It was too small for a couple of Black Sun players to hustle them over, and big enough to make sure they were seriously looking to buy. Or so we'd agree. A small case was produced, and passed to Adjerban, who gave a nod at the contents.

"Alright then. Looks like you've just bought some shrubbery. Now, if we're all thoroughly liquored, lets settle up at the spaceport. I don't care to dawdle on Nar Shaddaa."

Rai'raa Anjumi

Apr 6th, 2014, 05:36:13 PM

Rai'raa smiled sweetly as they got up from the table, but had stopped dispersing pheromones when Kale had popped open the sealed case. She looped her hand casually through the crook of his proffered elbow and hissed in his ear, "I can't believe you just did that, what the fuck werrre you thinking?" She gently bit his earlobe while she was there for the benefit of the people with them.

She pouted prettily as he steered them out of the club, but inwardly she was feeling out of her depth and nervous as they made their way toward the spaceport.

Kale

Apr 6th, 2014, 08:15:49 PM

Kale laughed as Rai'raa, ha, gently nibbled on his ear, and he turned to kiss her strawberry-blonde hair. "Just go with it, babe," he whispered back. "I've got this."

They took a lift down a few levels to an industrial block where the lights were even lower and the streets were even filthier, bordered with shadowed warehouses and rusty chain link fences that rose ten meters up to the ceiling. Kale noticed the hired muscle arranging itself on either side of them so they looked less like a bodyguard and more like a prisoner escort. And he thought to himself, I really hope I got this.

Ahead of the entourage lay a long row of loading docks that ran like a cliff's edge along the near side of what would have been an alley, if alleys were half a kilometer wide and and three kilometers deep. On the other side of the yawning gulf was another gleaming row of stratoscrapers covered in neon and holographic billboards that you could almost read through the swirling smog, and below was a breathless drop into the factory levels, where pools of molten slag collected runoff and detritus from the full height of the vertical city. It was easy to imagine slipping and falling if you wandered too near the edge - probably happened all the time.

Kale moved his arm from Rai'raa's elbow around her shoulders as they drew closer to one of a few hundred landing pads, where a disreputable-looking freighter lay in surrounded by even more armed guards. Massive loading droids swiveled idly to watch them pass and then returned to their work as if they saw this sort of thing every day. Kale covered his mouth, coughed, and pushed the crumpled-up bota leaf into his mouth, where he held it tightly against his tongue. He didn't know how long it took the stuff to kick in, but judging how quickly it degraded out of carbonite freeze, he guessed it worked fast. He just needed to wait for the opportune moment.

Judging from the look of the guards around the freighter, Kale decided that moment had better show up frelling soon.

Adjerban the Interloper

Apr 7th, 2014, 08:48:21 PM

My foot still hurt and man fuck everyone. I knew that green minx and her buddy-boy were up to some sort of bullshit, but I haven't put my finger on it yet. Still, they were legit credits. I'm a gambler, I know money. Unless there was some Jedi-mumbo-jumbo. We might be fucked then. I looked again because they seemed like credits. My brain said there were credits in there.

First thing: while the muscle may have been arranged in an intimidating fashion, Sanis and I are above-board at matters of bidness. If they were gonna play this straight so were we. We sold it to them at a fair price for serious contraband. It wasn't a big product pull by any means but it was a good way to get your foot in the door without having to crack too many skulls because you were pushing a premium product and those come with premium customers. You just had to be good at distribution and not pissing dangerous people off. You push at fancy parties where Mommy and Daddy don't notice your 1k a month grocery bill, or the fact that you are fucking higher than a skyhook.

They were up to some shit, it was just a question of when it was going to go down. When the pair turned around I gave Sanis a nudge and a slight shake of my head.

Valrya

Apr 20th, 2014, 05:47:45 PM

The wounded Gran guided Valrya to a familiar lift that led to the lower industrial sector. He told her what to expect--shabby freighter at pad 8257, at least ten guards armed with blasters and vibroswords, more if the Black Sun higher-ups were there. She had been down there many times on past assignments, but none so apparently hopeless as this one. Did Jorba realize that he had pitted just one smuggler against the might of the Black Sun gang with its legions of thugs? Not only was he throwing her away, he seemed to be intent on destroying his profitable business relationship with one of the most influential gangs in the galaxy. "This isn't a mission," she thought, "it's an execution." If she succeeded, the earnings from this assignment could finally pay off the ship she called Cynthia so she could quit this shit job. Her dream of escaping the dirty little moon as captain of her own ship could be realized. If she failed, she would die, and her beloved ship would go back to Jorba to rent out to some other pathetic aspiring spacer with dreams of leaving Nar Shaddaa. He could denounce her as a thief, placate the Black Sun with lies, and hold onto her wages and her ship.

As the lift opened, she recognized the backs of the Black Sun thugs, escorting their leaders and the buyers down to the landing pad where the freighter lay. Mentally cursing, she quickly stepped into the shadow of one of the warehouses lining the street. The odds were stacking up against her, but she had a couple of tricks they may not be anticipating. Blending into the walls lining the street as well as she could, Valrya crept toward the landing pad after her rivals. Once she got past the buildings, she had to crouch behind the slopes of the loading docks one at a time before running to the next dock to crouch down again. Her heart was pounding in her ears and she was trying her best not to breathe too loudly. It was painfully slow and nerve-wracking, but everyone seemed so intent on their goal that they never once looked back. A couple of loading droids rolled past, but if they took notice of her they never showed it.

Finally, the entourage climbed up the loading dock to landing pad 8257 where the freighter with her precious herb was surrounded by more Black Sun gangsters. Now it was time to make sure her prize didn't fly away while she was busy dealing with the guards. Valrya unslung a grenade launcher from her back and crawled to the edge of the loading dock. The EMP grenade slipped down the barrel of the launcher. She took aim for the space right above the freighter, and fired. After the blast she could hear an outburst of surprised shouts over the ringing in her ears, and a loud "pop" as the EMP deployed. The loading droids rolled to a halt. The nearby street lights flickered and died. Now the only light on the landing pad was the ubiquitous reddish glow of the Nar Shaddaa sky: city lights on smog.

Kale

Apr 21st, 2014, 10:12:46 AM

And there it was - the opportunity Kale was waiting for. He didn't know who was attacking, what their angle was, how much firepower they had, or even if they were more or less likely than Black Sun to hang him up by his thumbs and beat him with stunsticks until his head exploded. All that mattered was that the situation had gone from bleak to up for grabs, and he intended on grabbing it with both hands.

As soon as the lights went out, Kale seized Rai'raa around the shoulders and pulled her down below the level of the guards' blaster barrels. Then he wrapped the Force around both of them like a cloak, and suddenly as far as anyone else was concerned, they were just an incidental feature of the docks, like a loose rivet or a pile of dirty rags, something to step around, but not something you needed to pay attention to. Especially when someone else was launching EMP grenades at you.

The Black Sun gangsters opened fire in the direction the grenade had come from, and blaster bolts lit up the docks like strobes. A few dozen meters away, a loading droid who had been frozen mid-step tipped over and crashed to the deck, spilling a crate full of empty fuel cylinders toward the fracas. A towering Trandoshan stepped on one of them and tumbled head over talons with a bubbling wail.

Together Kale and Rai'raa scrambled out of the forest of panicky, shouting gangsters and into the clear. "What did I tell you?" Kale said into a twitching green ear. "It's all under control."

The bota leaf sizzled on his tongue. He maneuvered it between his back teeth, ready to bite down hard and release its full effects at a moment's notice.

Rai'raa Anjumi

Apr 22nd, 2014, 03:04:59 PM

"Oh yeah," she retorted, flinching as some blaster bolts sizzled a little too close, "This is completely underrr control." Her eyes flicked back and forth at the scene around them, and she knew he was keeping them cloaked in that magic way of his.

"You'rrre not planning a getaway rrright now, arrre you." Kale merely grinned, and she sighed. "Tell me what to do."

Sanis Prent

May 1st, 2014, 10:50:59 PM

This wasn't my first rodeo, or so the saying went. I hated that saying. Why can't a tauntaun just stay still for a change?

My hands were suddenly filled with a pair of Westar blasters, and I tracked them toward the source of the shot, which was already under a hailstorm of fire from the rest of my goons. No visible target, but they were likely doing a decent enough job of keeping our attacker's head down. Two guesses who that attacker might be.

"I knew I should've shot her..."

I stayed my hand, turning to glance back at Adjerban who was similarly prepped for action as we took a few paces for cover. Something wasn't right. Another quick glance further to my left confirmed that.

"Where'd our two buyers go?"

Adjerban the Interloper

May 5th, 2014, 09:28:21 PM

"I don't know!" I grumbled back over the storm of blaster fire. They'd been right there! Where the fuck did they go? This was not good. I was used to this sleight of hand distraction, and I had lost track of them. This was not adding up, and what it was ringing in at was a bad day.

"We should have just shot all of them." I added in a decidedly dour declaration. I looked around, ignoring the chaos around me. There was a pile of stuff, and it was decidedly not right, but then neither was anything else. Behind this container, I was pretty safe. Unless trouble decided to start lobbing actual detonators at us. That would be problematic. The product was in the ship, in a crate, protected by locks, and us dipshits. Only Sanis and I knew the combination. Everyone else was muscle. I made a dash for the freighter and got nice and close to one of the landing struts. The old girl seemed pretty docile right now, but was alarmingly heavily armed. It was probable that the ramp and some other critical systems were on a shielded circuit, but for now I needed to wait and watch.

Valrya

May 22nd, 2014, 06:11:45 PM

"Well damn," Valrya thought. It was too bad she had spent the few precious seconds of time she had to move observing the effects of the EMP. Her enemies were a lot more alert to the situation than she was, and all shooting at the ledge right above her head. She'd been saving this last grenade for a desperate situation, and there was no way she could move from her cover while under fire. She'd be damned if they were going to come and get her. She aimed low, trying to avoid the freighter, and fired into the densest clump of bodies she could target. The effect was beautiful. Fire burst out from the center of the detonation point, rending the sullen red gloom with malevolent orange flames. She took advantage of the moment of distraction on the part of her targets to run up the ramp and dive for cover by the nose of the freighter.