Deals and Bargains

[Arriana Rezner]

It was early morning on Cloud City. The last of the Ison Lounge's customers had shuffled their way, bleary eyed, out of the smoky darkness and into the light. In the hours before dawn, while most of the city slept, the staff of the Holiday Towers would begin preparing for the day ahead. These were the hours between business, when the evening crowd sloped off home and the early birds hadn't quite dragged themselves out of bed yet. It gave the staff a chance to put a metaphorical lick of paint on the place.

It was a routine that Arriana could almost set a chrono to. She approached the bar and picked up a stool that had been knocked over, shuffling it back into place before perching on top of it. She stifled a yawn with the back of her hand and looked down the length of the bar, where her head bartender was cashing up.

“Vhat's the take for the evening?” she said, then narrowing her eyes added: “And vherrre is your hat?”

[Atton Kira]

"Triplets."

Atton uttered the word in the kind of tone that suggested it shouldn't really need explanation; even so, he halted his rifling through the assortment of credit chits, bank notes, latinum strips, wupiupi, and whatever the hell else the bar accepted as currency to glance in his employer's direction and flash a knowing smile. "Didn't catch the name, but did catch the address," he explained, brandishing a napkin with a few aurebesh symbols scribbled on in what looked like lipstick. "They made me promise to swing buy and collect it after my shift."

His attention fell away, and he chuckled to himself as he finished carefully transferring the various coinage into exactly the appropriate spaces in the cash box, idly running the totals and ballpark currency conversions in his head. "You'd be amazed," he mused with a playful twitch of his eyebrows, "How much you can get away with when you're the man with the hat and the booze."

"Two grand," he added, shaving off a few decimals and significant figures from the calculated number in his mind. "Slow night." His mouth drew into a thin line, a grim edge creeping into his words. "It'll be even slower when that Tagge boy opens that club of his."

[Arriana Rezner]

“Mm,” was all the comment she made at first, trying and failing not to roll her eyes. It was no secret to anyone that the Empress's boy-toy was building a night-club in the city. How quickly planning permissions could be approved when your own family was doing the approving. Just thinking of the Baroness Administrator curled Arri's lips into a brief sneer.

“If I never hear the name Tagge again, it vill be too soon.”

It hadn't been that long ago that the first Biscuit Baron - the fast food chain owned by TaggeCo - had opened on the station. Months later, another three had joined it. They were multiplying like gizka, and the bizarre part of it was that they seemed to be legitimate businesses. Not just fronts, as far as Arriana's sources could say. Who opened a legitimate business on Cloud City? Every other frontage on this level was a cover for some unsanctioned operation by one faction or another.

Arriana shook her head. “The Imperials may drink and dance there, but they vill still need somevhere to indulge in their... extralegal activities.”

[Atton Kira]

"Per'aps," Atton replied, with the kind of casual shrugged indifference that usually did such a great job of antagonising his boss.

It was a dangerous game that Atton played, trying to irritate and annoy the person who paid his bills; and that was what made him fun. While yes, he was a competent barkeep with a flair for entertaining patrons and scoring repeat business, it was his other enterprises that made him useful. Atton didn't just serve drinks, he served information to those willing to pay for it, trading favours and secrets in back rooms and under tables. If there was something you wanted to know, and you moved in the right circles, you came to Atton; and that meant you came here, bought drinks, and were lured into the subliminal urges to spend, spend, spend that Holiday Towers specialised in.

It was lucrative for Atton too; and in truth he didn't need his current employment to cover his expenses. In fact, the salary that Arriana provided was laughable compared to the amount he could earn just from a single information broking deal. Yet, anyone who scrutinised his records found no suspicious transactions: the rent of and fittings for his modest but comfortable apartment all balanced with how much he'd earned here. No one knew what Atton spent his broker money on, nor how much he had left; and he liked it that way. When secrets were your stock and trade, being a mystery yourself was part of the game.

Still, there was a note of truth in Arriana's concerns; more than she realised, even. The ever growing Tagge family boot-print on Cloud City was only the first step, if his informants were to be believed. Since returning from his brief stay in Alliance captivity, the word was that Moff Rübezahl had renewed his desires to gentrify the Greater Javin: drive out the unsavoury elements and attract in big business and industry. If it worked, legitimate enterprise was in for an income boon; but illegitimate businesses might not fare so well.

Movement off on the periphery of his senses drew Atton's attention to the door, Sorry, we're closed, already forming on his lips. The towering pillar of scar tissue and malintent that loomed provoked an uncharacteristic display of keeping his mouth shut; it took a lot of effort to disguise the flash or recognition that wanted to display itself in his eyes.

"We have a visitor," he muttered quietly as the cash box closed with a satisfying click of locks and chink of currency. One fluid motion collected Atton's jacket and conveyed him half way towards the staff only door that led through the stock room to the side entrance by the loading dock. "Tagge," he teased as he passed, "You're it."

[Avar Adamas]

Each footfall sent vibrations rolling through the thick layers of insulation below the Besalisk's hide. Wrapped in an ensemble of leatherette ond composites, those vibrations shuddered his armour like the surface of a drum, each step inspiring a low rumble that sounded like the ground was shaking. The phenomenon always brought a smile to his face, but with the way a tangle of scar tissue broke through his lip, it always turned into more of a sneer.

His upper set of shoulders hunched, Avar Adamas stalked across lounge, the knuckles of one of his lower hands scuffing across one of the game tables as he passed. His boots felt the adhesive grip of a drink spill that the cleaning droids hadn't taken care of yet. His nostrils flared at the scent of stale sweat and state beer that the atmospheric processors hadn't yet burned out of the air. A low chuckle resonated in the vastness of his throat; the cloying whiteness of Cloud City's pristine corridors had been grating on senses, but this - reputedly the seediest bar in this quadrant of the skyborne city - was his kind of place.

He watched as one of the two sentients in sight made a subtle get-away. Human. Male, possibly: he couldn't always tell. Whoever they were, they didn't matter. Not his target. Not his concern.

His gaze settled on the Cathar, one of the furless, more human-looking kind. She was pretty, he supposed, for something that looked so human: but then, what else could you expect on Cloud City, deep in the heart of the Empire? She was different enough to seem exotic; familiar enough for the humans to still be attractive, and flashing just enough of her bald skin to secure those all important lecherous tips.

It was intellectually disgusting; a reprehensible display of racism, sexism, and sexuality abused in order to score a few extra credits. Avar's smile became a grin. Clever girl.

"Arriana Rezner."

His voice rumbled across the lounge, his lower arms easing themselves slowly away from himself to demonstrate that he wasn't armed, just in case Rezner had any unfortunate ideas about pulling a scattergun from under the bar to defend herself: that would've been both unpleasant and ineffective, as his pockmarked, bullet-torn hide could attest.

"We need to talk."

[Arriana Rezner]

A string of murmured and not entirely pleasant Catharese followed Kira as he left. The truth was, she could hardly begrudge him the desire to slip away from their new arrival. She was paying Atton for his wit and brains, not his brawn and courage. Let him slope away to his triplets, Arri thought, as she watched the reflection of an unfamiliar figure loom larger and larger in the mirror behind the bar.

“Ve are closed.”

But he already knew that, didn't he? The kind of person who sent a Besalisk over for a chat in the early hours of the morning wasn't likely to care much when Arriana herself deemed it an inappropriate or inconvenient to talk. Resisting the urge to sigh, she turned and rose from the bar-stool to regard the wall of armour in her bar. The fact that he wasn't armed in the traditional sense of the word didn't exactly matter much when he had four fists bigger than her head.

“Vhat do you vant?”

[Avar Adamas]

Avar's jaw split into a grin, displaying his arsenal of flattened, herbivorous teeth. It would have been reassuring perhaps, learning that his species had evolved from something so benign, were it not for the fact that each molar was the size of a knuckle bone, and looked as if grinding through duracrete would all be in a day's work.

"That's a very accommodating question," he jeered, an equal mix of malice and mirth in his voice, making sure to fully annunciate every syllable and sound of his non-native tongue.

His scrutiny of her continued. Alert but subtle. Good awareness of and strategic use of her surroundings. She'd made use of the mirror rather than turning around in surprise like most sentients would. Smart. Calm. Experienced, perhaps. He got the impression that she'd put up a good fight if she was afforded the opportunity to. He was almost tempted to give it to her.

Unfortunately, indulging his itch for combat was not why he was here; and this was one of the rare occasions when a fight was a detriment, rather than just mere collateral.

"His Honour," Adamas began to explain, the tone in his voice suggesting he wasn't entirely comfortable of the term of address, nor entirely respectful of the being it referred to, "Ambassador Rath Ouishii Dae of the Hutt Cartel requires an audience in a -" He cast a disparaging look around the Ison Lounge. "- less dubious venue."

"This is not a request: the Ambassador hopes that you possess sufficient wisdom to acquiesce. If you disrespect him and his kajidic by refusing, I have been tasked with bringing you before him by force to answer for your insult."

The grin split across his face again, the fists of his lower arms clenching.

"Please resist."

[Arriana Rezner]

Arri lifted one thin eyebrow; it would be a hot day on Hoth before a Hutt could lecture her on what was not dubious. There was a creak of leather as she folded her arms across her chest, pale blue eyes narrowing in the face of the Besalisk's grin.

“If not here, then vhere – and vhen?”

The question of 'why' remained unspoken, unnecessary. That grin made it abundantly clear that it didn't matter whether Arri was interested in the reason for Ambassador's proposed meeting or not. She could take some small comfort in the knowledge that Sorsha had always kept the cartel on side with the Black Sun, though it was just that: small comfort. There was no telling what Sorsha's absence from the business meant for the Sun's relationship with the kajidics. The slave trade had never been Arri's arm of the business, so her dealings with the slugs had been minimal at best. She knew only what everyone knew: don't frell with the cartel.

[Avar Adamas]

Reluctance rippled through the Besilisk's body as reluctance fought back against the answer. It was not his place to question the will of Rath Ouishii Dae, not out of fear or respect but merely out of financial obligation. It was a strange situation he found himself in, and all too common for members of his species: indentured service to the Hutt Cartel in payment for services rendered and aid received. Unlike his racial brothers and sisters however, it had not been protection from the Empire that had forced him into this situation, but rather protection from himself. Avarice was his vice, and his debts to the banks, casinos, and Black Sun had rapidly mutated into a debt to the Ouishii kajidic instead.

That had been the path that had led him here: led him to become an enforcer for the affluent Hutt who liked to make pretend that he was an Ambassador. His services were required by contract. His fists were required. His obedience was required. His opinion, however, was not; nor was it often welcome or invited.

He swallowed his frustration, and let it tumble from his throat in a rumbling undertone on the back of his answer.

"A Hutt named Okar owns a fashion boutique on one of the upper levels. Don't know the name, but I doubt you'll need it: that ain't exactly the kind of thing they have multiples of."

His eyes narrowed, head craning forward as he peered deeper into the Cathar.

"You have three hours," he grunted. "Dress better. Don't be armed."

[Arriana Rezner]

Three hours.

She should have been preparing. Calling in favours to find out who this Hutt was and why he might be approaching a Lieutenant of the Black Sun instead of going direct to a Vigo. She could have called Atton for intel, though there was every chance that he wouldn't hear the comm on account of his head being buried in the lap of one of his new friends.

Instead, she slept. If she was going to tolerate being, almost certainly, threatened by a Hutt, it would have to be after a nap otherwise the fatigue was liable to make her irritable and that was when her claws came out.

When she woke, she showered and then lingered for a moment in front of her closet before settling on an outfit (http://www.freewebs.com/sidhe/sik4.jpg) that Sorsha had always liked and more to the point, she thought might appeal to a Hutt's sensibilities. If she wasn't going to be armed with a blaster, she needed some leverage at least.

[Ambassador Wrath]

Rath Ouishii Dae swept his gaze around the boutique with a mix of dismay and disdain, regarding the kind of empire that his cousin had chosen to carve out for himself. His distant cousin at that: but not distant enough for many members of the Ouishii kajidic.

Okar was what the humans might have called the black nerf of the family. Few Hutts could understand what would motivate him to seek out his fortune in fashion, providing for the betterment of the non-Hutts of the galaxy rather than through manipulation and exploitation; Rath was among them. Some speculated that Okar was working an angle, that one day the true brilliance of his strategy would be revealed and all the discredit and mockery that he had earned the Ouishiis would be unwritten; all Rath knew was that no sane Hutt would risk jeopardising their corporate interests by associating themselves with him.

So this is insanity, he mused, inching his way across a floor of Okar's industrial chic (http://theholo.net/forum/showthread.php?55309-Fashionably-Late) sanctuary.

"Inform me when our guest arrives," Rath decreed in Basic - an unusual thing for a Hutt to sully their vocal chambers with, but sadly necessary when conducting business so far from the Cartel - to the Toydarian who flitted alongside him; one of the myriad useful underlings that he allowed himself to tolerate. Tavi was dependable; the kind of lower being that could be relied on to obtain the unobtainable, and arrange the unarrangeable. Not as formidable as a brute like Avar Adamas of course, and perhaps not as unquestionably yet grudgingly loyal; but if there were any beings in the universe who Rath would go so far as to trust, Tavi would be a strong candidate to be among them.

However, the Toydarian was not the focus of his attention.

"Cousin," he uttered in a deep rumble, trying hard to imitate enthusiasm at being in the presence of his kin. "You have my gratitude for your hospitality."

[Okar the Fabulous]

Adorned in a ten-thousand thread count 'shawl' that he'd designed himself after a two month 'research' holiday on Naboo, Okar replied simply with "Mmm yes."

He studied his cousin Rath, trying to tease out his reasoning for being here. Was the kajidic sending him? To keep tabs on his eccentric empire? Certainly they could have done so in a more subtle fashion. Also a less odiferous one at that. Okar tried to remain stoic, but the smell of Hutt in this place was...well it smelled like a Hutt in here! Already he'd had Soonder and Cristobal discretely applying enough incense to the room to hopefully negate its impact. Perhaps Rath would accept a complimentary deep cleaning and essential oil therapy out of the spirit of family cooperation?

"Apertif? Fruit tray? Perhaps we can discuss why you are here over a light and pleasant repast? Have you come to see my Nouveau Imperiale collection?"

That the meeting was held in his sanctuary was by Rath's request, and to Okar's relief. He wasn't keen on having the likes of his cousin and the quality of company he was likely to keep being seen on the main showrooms. He'd have to shutter for half a day and lose business, and that simply wouldn't do.

An outstretched hand was suddenly filled by a well-dressed human female, supplying him with an elongated cigarra holder, which she lighted for the fashionista.

His eyes tracked to the flapping Toydarian, who at least was serving a purpose in helping to circulate the pleasant aromatics in the room to help counteract Rath's situation.

[Arriana Rezner]

Meanwhile, Arri rode a turbolift through the city until she hit the upper levels, up where you could actually see the clouds and the pale light of morning. From there, the boutique wasn't hard to find. Business hours had already started but there weren't any customers in sight. Eyeing the rails and racks of clothes and accessories, cut from every cloth and in every garish hue imaginable, Arri arched an eyebrow.

There wasn't long to admire the merchandise, though. Her arrival hadn't gone unnoticed. The young, elegantly dressed man behind the counter stepped forward to usher Arri further into the boutique, away from the prying eyes of passing foot traffic and into a haze of incense.

[Tavi]

Flapping wings greeted the Cathar's pricked ears as a Toydarian approached. Unlike the denizens of OKwear who flaunted the garish and the bold, Tavi's outfit was neat and frugal, a dark jacket over a simple collared white shirt that met gray slacks at his pot belly.

"Miss Rezner, is it? Dhalom, I am Tavi. Come, come."

She had a roguish look to her, despite being certainly dressed for the occasion. He frowned at the tragically-underfed state of her condition, but considered that to be more or less the status quo among Jhixa like herself.

It didn't take long to be led to the discrete private lift that carried the pair down to the restricted levels of Okar's fashion palace. The Toydarian passed the time by making sure to keep aloft in such a way as to not violate the feline's personal space. Fortunately, this was no hardship in an elevator designed to cart a Hutt around.

"The meeting shouldn't be long. I brought some nice caf and a spice cake. You should have some cake."

[Arriana Rezner]

Of course there was a Toydarian. As sure as Hoth was as cold as a Jedi's tit, wherever a deal was being brokered there would be a Toydarian involved. Sorsha had made use of a couple of Toydarian's in her time as Vigo, and Arriana wasn't against doing business with them either. The fact that Tavi had caf and cake to offer made him a welcome addition to the proceedings.

“I vould like that, Tavi.” She smiled, as the lift came to a halt, waiting for her host to lead the way.

[Tavi]

Tavi smiled at the Jhixa's good graces. From what he knew of her, she ran a den of iniquity where good taste might not be commonplace. He was glad to see that first impressions could certainly be wrong.

"Perhaps you will like, and then you may come visit Tavi. I have many vittles at a reasonable price. You will not be disappointed, yes?"

Never one to pass up a chance to network, he extended her a business card.

"You run a...er...social establishment, I think? Please to see Tavi if you are in need of catering. You are with the Ambassador now, and Tavi offers a membership discount on all days except Monday."

[Arriana Rezner]

You are with the Ambassador now ... Those words earned Tavi a raised eyebrow. She'd barely set foot inside the boutique and already she was with this mysterious ambassador. She plucked the business card from his grasp with two claws. She eyed the card, wondering whether the Toydarian was hiding something – or if he did run a stars honest catering company. She hoped it was the latter.

“I'm sure ve can find a vay to bring your.. product into the Holiday Towers.”

She went to tuck the card away in her jacket – than realised she wasn't wearing it. Whoever had made the dress she was wearing didn't see any necessity or merit to fitting it with pockets, and so she tucked the card into one of her wristbands.

“Vill the meeting begin soon?”